Crossover Appeal a ‘Faxing’ Matter for Vocalist Grant

In her March, 1989, concert at the Sports Arena, gospel-pop ingenue Amy Grant exhibited superb control over her material, her band, her voice, and a generally young, enthusiastic, capacity (half-arena format) audience.

Currently, Grant is one month into her nationwide “Heart in Motion” tour, which will bring her back to the arena on Tuesday for an 8 p.m. concert. This time around, the 30-year-old has been exercising strict control between shows, as well, at least in her dealings with the press.

Following an exhaustive round of promotional trips and appearances that took her as far as Europe and Singapore, doctors discovered several months ago that Grant had developed nodes on her vocal cords, a much-dreaded bane of professional singers. The prescription: for the first couple months of the tour, Grant should refrain from using her voice except to sing. The result: all interviews during the interim would be conducted via fax machine.

The often painstaking process of extracting useful information from besieged, jaded, road-weary, critic-wary stars hardly needed a new wrinkle. For this interview, the queries were forwarded with the fear that, without the benefit of vocal inflection or elaboration on the part of the interviewer, they might lie flat on the fax paper, begging to be misinterpreted, facilitating pat answers.

Not all fears are unfounded.

To get an accurate picture of Grant, one must widen the lens to include not only the public-relations foo-foo, but also the minor controversies behind the placid exterior.

Grant began singing professionally at 15, and soon gained fame as a mainstay of contemporary Christian music. But after several best-selling Christian records and tours, she took a detour into secular pop with the 1985 release of the album “Unguarded.” Many of her Christian fans perceived this as abandonment, and though she maintains a Christian following, Grant’s popularity among One Way-ers has declined in inverse proportion to the increasing intensity of her assault on the pop charts.

Such secular hits as “Find a Way,” “Stay for Awhile,” and a 1987 Grammy-nominated duet with Peter Cetera called “The Next Time I Fall” chipped away at Grant’s Christian audience. The singer’s response to criticism, meanwhile, has bordered on the defiant.

Her current album, “Heart in Motion,” is Grant’s strongest bid yet for “crossover” success. The video to the album’s first single, a danceable strip of techno-pop flounce called “Baby Baby,” left little doubt that not all of Grant’s thoughts are limited to the spiritual.

In her 1989 concert, Grant spoke in unmistakably sensual terms about strong physical attractions to men, dating back to age 13. Some of her comments, in fact, elicited uneasy responses from the largely Christian throng. In addition, Grant has admitted that songs such as “Faithless Heart” and “Shadows,” with their lyrics about worldly temptations and right-wrong duality, are self-referential.

It is hardly a stretch, therefore, nor is it improperly provocative, to posit that Grant is a woman struggling mightily with the old tug-of-war between “earthy appetites” and Christian virtue. Yet, when broached in the context of a question about the Christian-music world’s reaction to her crossover efforts--and which acknowledged her oft-troubled marriage to musician Gary Chapman, the bassist in her touring band--the issue of sexuality brought this faxism.

“I’m a happily married woman, married to a wonderful man, and we have a terrific romantic relationship. That’s part of who I am, and I think it is impossible to separate that part of my life just because I’m a Christian. I don’t think there is a need to separate it. I am a real person with real feelings and emotions. I want that to be reflected in my music and concerts.”

OK.

“Uh, is there an erroneous public perception of you that you find especially irksome?” the fax machine hummed.

“That I’m not a real person. Too often people perceive me as some type of ‘Barbie’ doll,” Grant’s machine hummed back.

The singer was a little more forthcoming about her new album. In the past, she has limited her contributions to writing lyrics and singing. But although the record largely was shaped by a trio of producers that included Michael Omartian, Keith Thomas and Brown Bannister, Grant participated to a greater extent in the “Heart in Motion” project than in any previous effort.

“I was pretty much involved with every track except one (‘You’re Not Alone’),” she faxed. “Sometimes, I only wrote the lyrics, but other times I would help work on the melody or develop the track. Each song has its own personal significance. I would be hard-pressed to pick a favorite.”

Grant has sold lots of records, won Grammy Awards, and continues to draw large crowds to her shows. But in view of the fact that her career seems stuck in the frontier bordered by tempered Christian acceptance and uncertain pop-marketability, one wondered if Grant is happy with the way things are going.

“This is a really sweet time for me,” she faxed. “I’m really enjoying the acceptance of my music in the pop world. But it takes a lot of work and some days you feel pulled in a million directions. But I wouldn’t change things. I’ve worked hard for 15 years and these past few months have felt like one big celebration.

“It’s been fun.”

Amy Grant will perform Tuesday at the San Diego Sports Arena. Opening the 8 p.m. show are Kim Hill and Wes King. Tickets are available at all TicketMaster outlets, or by calling 278-TIXS.