"Christians can be sexy," says Grant, with certainty. "What I'm doing is a good thing."
A profitable thing, too. Grant's latest album, Heart in Motion, has sold more than 1 million copies since its release last March, and its first single, "Baby, Baby," has hit No. 1 on the pop, adult contemporary and Christian charts.
Still, that departure from character has lifted a few eyebrows. Some Christian radio stations have excluded "Baby, Baby" from their playlists, and others make a point of announcing that Grant wrote the song about her infant daughter, Millie. (In fact, Grant had originally envisioned herself singing in the video to a roomful of diapered babies—until her 14-year-old nephew curtly rejected the concept as a "stupid idea.")
After five Grammys and 10 million albums based on her strictly Christian sound, Grant thinks she can now afford to take some risks. "Really, from a creative standpoint, it was just what I felt compelled to do," she says. "If you pick up my [Christian] albums, they are not straight gospel. There are a lot of love songs and relationship songs—songs that treat both parties with respect." To fans who worry that she has forsaken her spiritual roots for mainstream fame, Amy insists, "I didn't become a different person."
Not that Grant was ever as one-dimensional as some may have thought. On the set for the filming of "Every Heartbeat," her second video, she is laid-back and cheery, even laughing when a crew member cracks an off-color joke at her expense. But she also prays for herself and the cast before the shooting starts, and she insists there are lines she wouldn't cross. "The obvious one is, I won't strip, but I won't walk into this saying these are the ten things I will not do, the Ten Commandments of Amy Grant," she says with a laugh.
The youngest of four children born to a prominent Nashville cancer specialist and his wife, Grant envisioned a simpler life early on. "I wanted to marry by the time I was 18, have children, live on a farm and play guitar and sing," she says. But when a friend sent a tape of her Christian-theme songs to Word Records in Dallas, Grant, then 15, wound up with a record deal. "I didn't pay dues," she admits, "[but] I sure don't feel guilty. I've worked hard. God has given me a talent, and I get out there and use it."
He has also given her crosses to bear; husband Gary Chapman went through a six-year struggle with drugs that nearly broke up their marriage. "I have been the only struggle that she has had in life," says Chapman, 33, who met Grant when she recorded a song he wrote and who married her in 1982. "I was into excessive use of pot and cocaine from the time I was around 20 until I was around 27. Amy was there for me. When I realized I was about to lose her and ruin my life, I quit."
"It was hard," says Grant. "Three things got me through it: support from my family and friends, praying—not so much me doing it, but everyone praying for me—and marriage counseling."
Now living on a 200-acre farm outside Nashville, Grant and Chapman have put those difficulties behind them. When she goes on tour, Grant takes along the couple's children, Matthew, 3, and the famous Millie, now 18 months. Chapman, a Nashville songwriter-producer, joins them when he can. "Touring is the most intense family time I get," Grant says. "It's great, because in an unfamiliar environment, what else is there to do but be together?"
Now, with new pop fans joining ranks with her still-loyal Christian following—including four young nuns who once climbed the security fence at her farm to request autographs—Grant is on the road for a six-month tour and is mulling over scripts for a possible move into acting. But she's also trying to keep herself grounded. After "Baby, Baby" reached No. 1 this spring, Grant remembers going to her dressing room to find a dozen yellow roses and a card from Gary: "Fifty years from now, you will still be number one to me. I love you."
"Now, this is what life is all about," she says.
CYNTHIA SANZ
VICKI SHEFF in Los Angeles
- Contributors:
- Vicki Sheff.
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