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Amy Grant On The 30th Anniversary Of ‘Heart In Motion,’ And Its Impact On Her Life And Career

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Prior to March 1991, Amy Grant was already a superstar in the contemporary Christian music (CCM) genre. By the age of 30, the singer and songwriter racked up numerous hit CCM albums and singles (among them “El Shaddai,” “Find a Way,” “Saved by Love” and “Stay for a While”) as well as awards. She crossed over to the mainstream in 1986 with her memorable duet with Peter Cetera on the “The Next Time I Fall,” which went to number one on Billboard pop chart. Those accomplishments would set the stage for what would be a defining moment for her.

Thirty years ago this Friday, Grant released her ninth studio recording, Heart in Motion, which became her biggest album to date. It sold 5 million copies and yielded five Top 20 hits, including the iconic “Baby Baby,” “Every Heartbeat,” “Good for Me,” “That's What Love Is For” and “I Will Remember You.” Accompanied by some eye-catching videos, those songs and the record (which netted the singer a number of Grammy nominations, including ‘Album of the Year’) solidified Grant's popularity and truly introduced her to a wider audience.

To mark the special milestone, Heart in Motion will be reissued later this spring as a double record set containing bonus material. According to Grant today, that incredible period surrounding Heart in Motion's release from 1991 seems like a lifetime ago.

“It feels like two things at one time,” she says. “It feels like I could blink and I'm right back there. And then it also feels like: 'Who is that?' (laughs) I'm twice the age I was then. I enjoyed—especially during that stretch—being part of such an incredible massive team. I wasn't even aware of how big it was, and everybody doing their part. I had young kids and I was trying to enjoy every moment.”

Making Heart in Motion in order to reach a larger, mainstream audience wasn't Grant's original intention. Rather, she wanted to craft an upbeat record that thematically contrasted with her previous album, 1988's Lead Me On. “I had survived a lot of personal struggles, and that came into Lead Me On,” she explains. I felt like every song [on that record] was serious—every interview with serious, everything was serious. I really just said: 'I want to have fun.'”

That sense of fun seeped into a couple of Heart in Motion's buoyant songs, like “Good for Me,” “Every Heartbeat,” and especially the infectious “Baby Baby,” whose lyrics were inspired by her then-baby daughter Millie. The singer acknowledges that she didn't know “Baby Baby” was going to be the hit that it turned out to be, as it went to number one on the Billboard pop chart. “And here's the brilliance of a record company,” she says. “In the early '90s, remixes were all the rage. [A&M exec] Mark Mazzetti said: 'We've got to do remixes of this song.' So I really think it was all of the different remixes of that song that really helped it catch on around the world. It opened up a much wider area of touring, and it was like: ‘How did I wind up in Japan?’ (laughs) And they know the songs. It was awesome. What a fun run.”

While Heart in Motion had those bouncy pop and rock numbers, it's balanced by reflective material such as “Hope Set High,” “I Will Remember You,” and the standout ballad “That's What Love Is For.” “It came as a beautiful demo,” Gram says of the latter song, which she co-wrote with producer Michael Omartian and Mark Mueller. “And because I'm a writer, I'm always like, 'Can we tweak a few things?', because the poetry of the song matters. I think the line in the verse that I wrote was: 'It's living through the fire and holding on we find...That’s what love is for.' I feel as much passion about singing that song now as I did when it first came out. The message is true now. I'm glad I get to sing that.”

Visually, the ebullient videos for the songs “Baby Baby,” “Good for Me” and “Every Heartbeat” brought out a different side of Grant. “I've done a few videos, but never with the creative staff of A&M Records,” she recalls. “I think I've done my own hair, makeup and clothes. I walked in, and the stylist said: 'Don't ever wear that color of lipstick again.'” (laughs)

“I look at myself in those videos: I was so shy for the camera. And I loved working with Jme Stein, the actor that we cast [for “Baby Baby”]. Being in a casting calling with all these guys coming in—I turned to the video director and said: ‘None of these guys would have ever ask me out in high school, and I'm getting the pick of the litter? I get to choose the guy that I'm in the video with?'”

Today, Grant recognizes how unique Heart in Motion remains both in her career and life. “Without a doubt, even if I had never continued singing, what I experienced was a much larger platform than I ever had. And honestly, at 60, I think about all the things that I'm able to do...that I get to be an influencer for change. What gives me that leverage is the platform that came from that record. It was that big—which is the still same music, still the same girl singing it. I think that has enabled me to continue having a voice and some kind of influence.”

That sense of gratitude also correlates with Grant's recent experiences during the pandemic times. In 2020, she underwent successful open-heart surgery to correct a birth defect that could have turned fatal had nothing been done; ironically, it was a routine medical checkup for her husband, country artist Vince Gill, that started it all. Last month, Grant sang “Every Heartbeat” on Good Morning America—her first public performance since her heart procedure.

“What a strange year. We were launching into the most touring I've done in a decade—and then everything shut down. And then all of the new awareness of everybody stuck at home, everything that needed a lot of looking at—race relations, the political climate. Honestly it was the year for a lot of fixing things. It was a great time to recover because everybody was being very still. For all of the really hard things about this last year, there been so many hidden gifts.”

One of Grant's current passions these days is working on her farm in Williamson County, Tennessee, that has served as a community gathering space in the last several years; it has hosted a summer camp for kids as well as music therapy retreats that bring together military veterans and songwriters (She has documented the farm’s progress in a series of videos posted on her official Facebook page). “It's a very charming setting,” she says. “There's something about being in nature, you just decompress. It feels like this beautiful story. It makes me know we're all woven together. And if we see each other that way, then amazing things can happen.”

As she awaits the return to touring, Grant is also working on a book based on messages written on napkins by her mother's late first cousin to a friend. “She's the only babysitter I ever had,” says Grant, “and she taught me my love of poetry, grammar and writing. Her friend gave me the napkins and I photographed all of them. They're all the things that she taught me as a kid—all this wit and wisdom. And so I'm creating a book to continue the conversation, because she passed quicker than I thought she would.”

She also says the book project could be the springboard for a subsequent album. “I don't know that I really have ever written a group of songs around stories about people. That might not be my forte. But working on this conversation with a very specific person who's now gone is bringing up a lot of elements that would make great songs. So I'm working on a book that I hope will lead to being the next record.”

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