(Morristown, NJ) -- Six-time Grammy® award-winner and multi-platinum recording artist Amy Grant will perform for one night only at Mayo Performing Arts Center on Friday, November 6, 2015 at 8 pm. "An Evening With Amy Grant" will treat concert attendees to some of Grant's biggest hits as she performs songs from her extensive repertoire, along with selections from her recently released, critically-acclaimed album How Mercy Looks From Here. Tickets are $49-79.
With a career spanning over 25 years, Amy Grant stretches from her roots in gospel into her experience as an iconic pop star, songwriter, television personality and philanthropist. Grant is beloved for both her Contemporary Christian music and mainstream hits like "Baby Baby," "Every Heartbeat," "That's What Love is For," "I Will Remember You," "Lead Me On," "El Shaddai," and more. Grant has sold more than 30 million albums, including one Five-Time Platinum album, one Triple Platinum and one Double Platinum album, as well as six platinum and four Gold albums. She has won six GRAMMY® Awards and 25 GMA Dove Awards, including four Artist of the Year awards. Out of her 10 Top 40 pop singles, six have become No. 1 hits, including "Baby, Baby" and "Every Heartbeat."
It's rare to find a teen phenomenon who successfully makes the transition to adult superstar, and nearly impossible to find an artist who continues to remain relevant and innovative more than three decades later. Yet throughout her career, Amy Grant has always been in a class by herself.
Grant’s early work in the Christian music field helped define the genre, and her crossover success in the pop market brought her a global audience. Grant has sold more than 30 million albums, won six Grammys, 26 Dove Awards and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Her acclaimed 2013 album How Mercy Looks From Here debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Christian chart, becoming her 16th chart-topping Christian album.
Up next, the iconic artist throws her fans an enjoyable curve ball with In Motion: The Remixes. Enlisting the best remix engineers and DJs in the business, Grant delivers an engaging collection that reveals the timeless power of such classic hits as “Baby, Baby,” “Every Heartbeat,” “Stay for Awhile,” and “Love Will Find a Way” alongside more recent fare such as “Better Than a Hallelujah,” which has evolved from poignant ballad to buoyant celebration.
“I thought that ‘Better Than A Hallelujah’ was the biggest left turn,” Grant says of the 2010 hit, which becomes a soulful anthem in the hands of the godfather of gospel house DJ Mark Picchiotti. “Sometimes I find with a lot of things, whether it’s music or food, sometimes an experience that seems like a hard left becomes more intriguing with time.”
Always intriguing, Grant’s catalog of hits takes on a new life with In Motion: The Remixes. “Hearing this made me so happy,” Grant says. “It’s just a great combination of nostalgia and this totally new spin. I am humbled and honored that these amazingly talented producers have leant their gifts to my songs. They just basically made them new songs. I’m still singing all of those songs, so to hear those messages in a new musical setting, while holding onto the essence of the song, it just made me re-engage. It reminded me of the kind of enthusiastic energy that I haven’t felt for a long while. It just made me want to get up and dance.”
Over the years, Grant’s fans have gotten a little taste of how her music would sound with different interpretations. “The first remixes that I were a part of were back in the early 90’s when I was on A&M Records. We had multiple remixes for five singles off of the Heart in Motion album and then two song off of House of Love but we never did a collection of remixes for an album until now,” says Grant, who credits her manager, Jennifer Cooke, with suggesting the project to executives at Capitol Christian Music Group. “All along, I have had fans who have begged for a remix project, so Jennifer just went to the label and said, ‘I really feel like there’s a market for Amy in this.’”
The top DJ and remix engineers in the business were excited about lending their skills to Grant’s timeless tunes. Dance producer Chris Cox breathes new life into “That’s What Love is For” while British DJ and electronic music duo Danny Harrison and Arthur Smith, best known as Moto Blanco, add a fresh spin to Grant’s upbeat 1991 hit “Every Heartbeat.” Tony Moran and Warren Rigg put Grant’s compelling vocal front and center in their new version of “Stay for Awhile,” which explodes from the speakers with an unprecedented urgency that will bring you to your feet.
Grammy nominated producer, DJ and remixer Dave Audé brings his formidable skills to “Baby, Baby,” which first topped the charts for two consecutive weeks in 1991. The new remixed “Baby Baby” debuted at the No. 1 Breakout spot on Billboard's Hot Dance Club Play chart quickly earning a new legion of fans. “Remixing ‘Baby, Baby’ has definitely been one of the highlights of my career," Audé enthuses. “I loved this song when it was released in 1991, and I still love hearing it today; you can't say that about many records 23 years later. ‘Baby, Baby’ has crossed genres, and I'm hoping my remix will add yet another genre to this timeless classic.”
It is Grant’s ability to dissolve musical boundaries and impact music lovers of all ages and cultural backgrounds that has made her one of the world’s most celebrated talents for more than three decades. She grew up in Nashville, Tennessee and was just an earnest young singer/songwriter with a guitar when she caught the attention of Word Records. Her career exploded and her name became synonymous with the burgeoning contemporary Christian music movement. When A&M Records took her to the pop world in the early 90s, her fan base expanded exponentially. To date, she has earned three multi-platinum albums, six platinum albums and four gold albums along with ten Top 40 pop singles and seventeen Top 40 Adult Contemporary hits as well as a string of No. 1 songs on the Contemporary Christian charts.
There’s more to her impact than a treasure trove of award show trophies and a lengthy list of successful chart statistics. Ask any fan and they’ll tell you that attending an Amy Grant concert is like a great visit with an old friend. The intimacy and authenticity that informed the music of Amy’s heroes Carole King and James Taylor has become the bedrock of her own pioneering body of work. The Remixes showcases the songs that have made Amy Grant a household name in a totally new light, and though the production may be different the timeless messages of hope and optimism remain. “I love how they breathed fresh energy to these songs,” she says. “I love the current remix sensibilities being applied to those old songs. I thought they breathed incredible new life into nostalgic melodies. It was amazing to me that they could take well known lines and recreate a whole new sonic structures.”
In Motion: The Remixes is just the latest chapter in a career that has been constantly in motion for nearly four decades. “In the last several years, the majority of the music that I have produced has been more reflective,” Grant says. “This is something that I’m so excited about it right now. I never dreamed at 53 that I would be a part of a music production that felt so youthful and made you want to dance. It’s great to want to dance again!”
Mayo Performing Arts Center is located at 100 South Street in Morristown, NJ. A 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, Mayopresents a wide range of programs that entertain, enrich, and educate the diverse population of the region and enhance the economic vitality of Northern New Jersey. The 2015-2016 season is made possible, in part, by a grant the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as support received from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, F.M. Kirby Foundation and numerous corporations, foundations and individuals. The Mayo Performing Arts Center has been designated a Major Presenting Organization by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. For more information visit www.mayoarts.org
