A Higher Authority Is at Work

Jaci Velasquez tiptoes into the 11 a.m. church service 10 minutes late. She always comes late and stands in a rear pew. That way, she says, people might focus on the word of God, instead of on her. For this same reason, her trademark waist-length chestnut hair is knotted in a bun, and she wears little makeup, just a trace of silvery blue on her upper lids.

But it’s no use. Heads turn, even as Billy Graham addresses the crowd from a tape being shown on a video screen on the front wall. Whispers erupt. It is inevitable. Even if the dark-eyed Velasquez weren’t beautiful, model-thin and wearing a black velvet ensemble more suited to New York than Nashville, she would still stand out in this humble church.

Velasquez is the top-selling new female singer in contemporary Christian music, an umbrella genre that outsells classical and jazz combined but gets little attention from the mainstream media. Contrary to stereotypes, Christian pop’s top markets are not in the Midwest or the Deep South; they’re New York and Los Angeles.

Signed to her first recording contract at 15, Velasquez quickly became Christian pop’s top-selling debut artist of all time. (The album sold almost 1 million copies.) Now 20, she has sold nearly 2 million total of her albums, “Heavenly Place” (1996) and “Jaci Velasquez” (1998), both on Myrrh Records, distributed by Sony Music’s Epic label. The albums produced 10 consecutive No. 1 singles on Christian radio, and Velasquez has won three Gospel Music Assn. Dove Awards, including best new artist and best female vocalist. In addition to her recordings, Velasquez has written a book, “Heavenly Place,” about the challenges of growing up Christian in today’s society.

This month, Velasquez is up for her first Grammy Award--but not in gospel. She’s been nominated in Latin pop, for “Llegar a Ti,” her first Spanish-language album, produced by renowned Miami producer Rudy Perez. Released in the fall on Sony Discos, it’s sold close to half a million albums. It’s a spiritual album, but that didn’t stop Latin pop stations from playing it. In English pop, mainstream radio almost never plays Christian songs. She headlines a show March 19 at the Universal Amphitheatre.

All of this has led Sony’s top executives to see in Velasquez their ultimate mainstream pop crossover dream come true. If only she’d do a secular English album, they say, she could be the next Amy Grant and the next Ricky Martin, all at once.

“The people at Epic . . . have been keeping their eye very closely on Jaci’s career,” says Oscar Llord, president of Sony Discos. “A pop endeavor’s possibly up the road.”

Velasquez expresses vague interest in pursuing a secular crossover someday, but her family, management and Christian label all say the risks of a secular crossover outweigh the benefits--so much so that provisions against it are written into her contract with Myrrh. Grant lost many unforgiving conservative Christian fans with her pop crossover, and it’s not a move Myrrh is eager to repeat.

“Jaci’s got great management behind her, great parents and a great record label to keep her focused,” says Roland Lundy, president of Word Entertainment, Myrrh’s parent company, and Grant’s management company.

Even without a secular pop crossover hit in English, however, Velasquez is an important artist. She’s the first Christian music singer ever to reach No. 1 on the Latin charts, and the first Nashville-based singer nominated for a Grammy in a Latin category.

This says a lot about the hard-working young artist, as well as about the world and nation she lives in.

As most people in Southern California know by now, the U.S. Latino population is growing fast. That posters of Velasquez hang alongside those of Grant and Michael W. Smith in the windows of Christian bookstores all over Nashville speaks to the fact that Latino influence is no longer relegated to coastal cities and the Southwest. In the next 25 years, the Latino population in Tennessee is projected by the U.S. Census Bureau to increase at a rate of 125%, compared to 21.6% growth for non-Latino whites. During this same time, 29 other states will see faster Latino growth than Tennessee.

At the same time, more Americans than ever report believing in angels and miracles. According to the most recent Gallup Poll, 96% of Americans believe in God. And while traditional Catholic and Protestant churches are undergoing declines in membership, evangelical and nondenominational churches are seeing gigantic growth.

The increasing popularity of Christian contemporary music in recent years is equally astounding. Sales of Christian music in the U.S. rose 29% from 1997 to 1998, according to the Recording Industry Assn. of America, and now account for 6.3% of all sales in the $13.7-billion music industry. The only other segment of the music industry to post such impressive growth is Latin.

Unwittingly, Velasquez stands at the vanguard of all these movements, reflecting in her voice, person and message the new spiritual, demographic and musical geography of our nation. She’s not alone. Two male Latino Christian singers, Chris Rodriguez and Fernando Ortega, are also doing well in the English-language market.

At the turn of the century, it could be argued that Velasquez is the quintessential American girl next door, sweetly serenading millions away from long-held stereotypes--of Latinos in the U.S., of Christians in the Bible Belt, of music in Nashville, of Christian music and of women in Latin music.

Don’t believe it? Take a closer look:

As Velasquez and her mother duck out of church a few minutes early to grab some ribs from Corky’s Bar-B-Q to eat while watching a Titans football game, they’re addressed warmly by an Anglo attendant. “Adios, ladies,” he says with a smile, “and, uhm, que Dios te Bendiga.”

Velasquez’s mother, Diana, smiles knowingly at her daughter, then returns the Spanish blessing, without the twangy accent. “Que Dios te Bendiga,” she calls back, before ducking into her silver BMW, the latest Christmas gift from Jaci.

*

Jacqueline Davette Velasquez was born in Houston on Oct. 15, 1979. Her father, David Velasquez, an evangelist minister and musician, and Diana, a retail clothing buyer and Christian singer, each had children from previous marriages, and Jaci is the youngest of four. In the tradition of many Mexican Americans from northern New Mexico, Jaci’s parents both insist their roots are exclusively Spanish, as in from Spain.

When the freckle-faced Jaci was born with the upturned eyes and straight dark hair of an Indian princess--features so Asiatic people often ask if she’s Chinese or Filipino--her parents decided these looks must have come from Moorish ancestors in Spain, not from Native Americans whose ancestors walked across the Bering Strait from Asia to America some 25,000 years ago--and who are still the majority of residents in Diana’s hometown near Grants, N.M.

Diana named her daughter Jacqueline because “as far as I could tell, there were no ugly Jacquelines.” She also sensed her daughter would be “fair-skinned and dark-haired,” and famous, like two other “Jacquelines”--Jaclyn Smith and Jackie O.

By the time Jaci was born, her father had recorded 25 albums with a Dallas-based gospel group called the Galileans. Just as Jaci was named best new artist in the Dove Awards in 1997, the Galileans won best new artist in the Dove Awards in 1970.

Not long after Jaci’s birth, it was clear she would continue the family’s musical legacy.

“She wasn’t even old enough to talk,” says brother Julian, “but she was in her crib snapping her fingers, on both hands, and she was snapping them in time to the music. She couldn’t do it very fast, so she was snapping on the downbeat, every four counts. I called my mom and told her to come look at this, and we couldn’t believe it.”

When Jaci was not quite 2 years old, the family was at a small church in Houston, singing the hymn “Our God Reigns” in the congregation. Suddenly, the pastor held his finger to his lips so everyone would be quiet, and a muscular little voice belted out the chorus, from the nursery. It was Jaci.

“We knew then,” says Diana, who started thinking then about a short nickname her daughter could use when she signed autographs.

Then as now, Jaci’s father toured the country preaching and singing, with his wife and children on background vocals. By the time Jaci was 10, her other siblings had all moved out or were in college. Her parents sold their home in Houston and lived out of their black Honda Accord, traveling from town to town, church to church, spreading the word of the Lord. Jaci was home-schooled in the back seat of the car. When her parents bought an RV a couple of years later, Jaci says she thought it was a palace.

“It had a bed in the back,” she says. “I used to stretch out there and I thought that was the most luxurious thing in the world.”

By 13, Jaci had replaced Dad on lead on most of the songs. “People just really reacted best to her,” Diana says. “So we let her take the front stage more and more.”

Then the big break came.

The Velasquez family band was opening for Point of Grace, a popular Christian female vocal group, at the First Baptist Church in Houston. The road manager for Point of Grace watched Jaci, mesmerized, and immediately called Judith Volz, an artists and repertoire representative at Myrrh. Within months, Jaci was sitting across from Jim Chaffee, vice president and general manager of Myrrh, in his slick Nashville office, signing a recording contract.

“What was captivating about Jaci was her presence,” says Chaffee. “She’s got star quality, a real confidence. . . . There were brief conversations at the beginning about whether she should just go by Jaci, whether people would be able to pronounce ‘Velasquez.’ But she was clear about not wanting to change anything about who she is.”

After a brief development phase, Myrrh put Jaci, then 14, on stage at a Gospel Music Assn. event, to showcase her, right after Grant had performed. Jaci’s manager Mike Atkins remembers the younger singer vomiting backstage from fright. “You can’t imagine how nervous she was, poor thing,” Atkins says.

But when she took the microphone and sang “On My Knees,” she was pure confidence, a powerhouse vocalist, and Chaffee and other executives knew her name and ethnic background would not be an issue.

“It was a jaded group,” Chaffee says. “They’ve heard it all and seen it all, but Jaci brought them to tears. They were in shock.”

“She was raised in the church,” says Word’s Lundy, who attended the performance. “She was so well-grounded, and you could just tell God had called her. You felt it. You saw it in her eyes.”

From that moment on, Chaffee says, “We just let Jaci be Jaci, and it worked, because parents want their kids to be like her, boys want to date her, and girls want to be her.”

Chaffee matched Velasquez with producer Mark Heimermann, who says he was startled by her voice because it was very low, expressive and, dare we say, sexy.

“She looked like a little girl but sounded like a worldly, 30-year-old woman,” says Heimermann, who has also produced recordings for Grant and Smith. “We had to work on that.”

From the start, Velasquez, Heimermann and Myrrh all wanted to emphasize the singer’s Latino background by including a Spanish cut on each English album, with the ultimate aim of releasing a Spanish album. “I always put Spanish guitar on her songs, and Latin elements,” Heimermann says, “because that’s who Jaci is.”

Velasquez does not speak Spanish fluently, however, and had to learn the lyrics for the new album phonetically. And though the Spanish album was released the same year the media made much ado about Latin pop stars, Velasquez says that had nothing to do with her decision.

“I’ve been singing in Spanish all my life,” she says. “I did this album for my grandparents.”

*

Velasquez sits at the kitchen table in the Brentwood, Tenn., home she shares with her parents, playing cards with her brother Julian and three friends, and tells of an amusing Spanish error she recently made when interviewed on the Univision entertainment show “Control.”

“I just laugh and nod if I don’t know what they’re saying,” Velasquez explains. “One time, they asked me which ‘Iglesias’ I liked the best, and I answered ‘nondenominational.’ They were laughing at me. They meant Enrique or Julio, but I understood ‘church.’ ”

Jaci’s mom, who grew up speaking Spanish, listens from her spot at the sink, where she cleans up. “You’ve improved a lot, mi’ja,” she says. “Don’t sell yourself short.”

Her children and guests have just devoured a meal of Diana’s homemade tamales, green chile, hand-rolled tortillas, deep-fried chicken tacos, refried pinto beans and Spanish rice.

Snow falls heavily outside, and Jaci’s tiny white dog, Dallas, named for her favorite city, paws joyously through the powder on the backyard deck. The warm and cozy house is modest, like the family that lives here, one of many blond-brick homes in this uniform subdivision. The only signs of the singer’s ever-increasing wealth and fame are her new blue Audi and her rapidly expanding wardrobe.

Shopping, Velasquez says, is her passion. Weeks earlier, she proved it by spending a long day at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, before a performance at Disneyland. She spent an hour in the DKNY store, trying on various jeans, in sizes 2 and 4. The outfit she eventually bought was the same one she would perform in the following evening, when she won over a tough audience of teenage girls who had mostly come to see Latin pop acts Chayanne and Moenia. Jaci doesn’t have a stylist, picks all her own clothes for her performances, and says that if she wasn’t a singer she would be a fashion designer, makeup artist or photographer.

In the gently spiced steam of the kitchen, Jaci rolls her eyes affectionately at her brother’s empty boasting of his card skills (he will not win a single game that day) and reaches for one of the warm frosted anise-seed biscochito cookies Diana has just pulled from the oven.

“He knows it all,” Jaci jokes of her brother.

“Got that right,” Julian says.

“Those two,” Diana says, laughing as she straightens up. “I love my children. They’re such a blessing. The only thing is, I wish I’d had more kids.”

“Uh oh. Now she’s gonna ask when the grandchildren are coming,” Julian teases.

“Oh yeah,” Jaci says. “She wants grandkids.”

*

Chances are the grandchildren won’t come from Jaci any time soon, as she’s a national spokesperson for the Real Love Waits abstinence campaign. She has been dating the same Texas-based professional basketball player for eight months, but there is no talk of marriage. She asked that his name not be made public, for privacy’s sake. For the same reason, she asked that her church name not be printed.

As they play cards, Julian brags of Jaci’s early musical genius, recounting the snapping incident. “None of us are surprised she’s famous now. We knew it would happen. What kind of baby snaps her fingers?”

Jaci looks up from her cards, chewing a cookie, and smiles mischievously. “Yeah,” she says, “but that’s where it ended. I’ve got no rhythm now.”

“That’s true,” Julian says with a teasing shrug.

“No!” Jaci cries. “It’s true! I can’t dance at all. Sometimes, you know, I sway. But I’m no Christina Aguilera. All I do is sing.”

That Velasquez is “no Christina Aguilera” will probably continue to irk record executives at Sony. Every day the calls come in, asking when Velasquez will release a secular album, says her manager--just as every week scripts arrive from Hollywood film and television folks, wanting to cast Velasquez in various parts.

“She’d like to act, at some point,” Atkins says. “But so far, we haven’t found the right role. They always have a love scene in them, and that’s not something Jaci wants to do.”

For now, Velasquez is in the studio again, working on her next English Christian album with both Heimermann and Perez. She is producing her own vocals for the first time, as well as writing melodies and lyrics.

She plans to release a Spanish-language spiritual album after the English-language one, alternating indefinitely.