"I know how it feels to go into a studio to start a record, and eight weeks later it's finished. I know how an intense schedule feels. Simple Things was the antithesis of all that."
So says Amy Grant, whose new A&M/Word release Simple Things was three full years in the making. Was it worth the wait? You bet. Emotional, honest songs, glistening productions, arrangements that sweep through fields of strings and settle into a nest of solo acoustic guitar—every detail of her seventeenth album exceeds the singer's standards, which are as high as standards come in this business.
But something beyond the music gives Simple Things its real meaning. The story behind its creation reflects elements of Amy's life at a critical stage—elements of both shadow and light, uncertainty and conviction, and above all love and its endurance.
Simple Things was born from love, during a memorable week with family and friends. It comes to the world now on wings of love, from a place of warmth and resolution, now that the process is done. Between these milestones, though, the going wasn't always easy, thanks to changes in and beyond Amy's world.
It began in the summer of 2000, when Amy and her husband Vince Gill left Nashville with producer Keith Thomas and a few co-writers for a week in Destin, Florida. In a house just steps from the shore, they'd pair off after breakfast and write songs together. Then, as evening neared, they'd gather, compare notes, share quiet as well as festive moments.
"One night we were all going out to dinner," Amy remembers. "We all dressed up and went down to the beach to take our pictures in that beautiful sunset. Somehow we wound up running into the ocean and getting drenched in all our nice clothes."
Much of the material on Simple Things took form during that idyll: "Looking For You," "Happy," the title cut, and one song, "Touch," that perhaps conveys the feeling of that time more vividly than anything else on the album. "I think "Touch" was written on the first or second day," Amy says, "and it was so hypnotic and beautiful, so much like the ocean. Throughout the rest of that week, when we'd get to the end of the day, we'd grab a cold drink, feel the spray in the air, and just play that song ?quot;
Shortly after coming back home, with every intention to begin her next project, Amy discovered that she was pregnant. Priorities quickly shifted, as she gave birth to her and Vince's first child, Corrina. The time that followed proved even more challenging, and in unexpected ways.
There were issues involved with being a blended family with Amy's three older children and Vince's daughter. "We're just now in the fifth year since Gary (Chapman) and I split up," Amy explains. "Then, in March of 2000, I married Vince. The kids had to deal with some changes in their lives, and I had to grapple with the shame that you feel when you've been through a divorce. Thankfully, all of us continue to grow and life works itself out, but those years were a very sensitive time for us all."
These transitions would inspire some of the most personal material on Simple Things, including "Out in the Open" and "Innocence Lost," one of only two songs on the album that Amy didn't write. "But a big part of that lyric captures what I was feeling," she says, "about how part of living involves losing your innocence. And 'Out in the Open' is about freedom from shame and forgiving yourself. To me, they're both very emotional songs about that period."
At the same time, staying away from stage and studio took a physical toll. "In going through pregnancy and post-delivery, my support muscles weakened," she explains. "In the past, when I'd recorded during a break in a tour, it was so easy to sing, because I felt strong. Also, like so many new mothers, I wasn't getting a lot of sleep, and sleeping is such a huge part of being able to sing."
For nearly a year Amy was able to record only sporadically—sometimes just two days a month. "So much of my energy was going into my family that when I was able to get to the studio I felt like, 'Oh, yeah! Now I remember! I have interests! I make music!'"
As Corrina grew and life at home settled, Amy's strength returned and her schedule loosened. She rerecorded some of the early vocal tracks and was getting into gear when the events of 911 suddenly cast a pall over the proceedings. As it happened, she was writing a song at that point that seemed to connect to the feelings stirred by tragedy.
"Wayne Kirkpatrick and I had started writing 'I Don't Know Why' about a week earlier," Amy says. "We'd been talking about those moments where, for whatever reason, everything distills into what really matters. When I watched those firefighters and workers digging through Ground Zero, trying to see if there was anybody in there, I thought of a lyric we'd just written: 'This is one of those moments when all that really matters is crystal clear'?which means being there for each other, 'woven together by whatever threads of life that have brought us here.'"
In the perspective that took form after September 11, a new meaning emerged as Amy and Wayne worked on the song. "The words 'all I know is now' came from the uncertainty we felt," she says. "It's like when you're sitting in a waiting room at the hospital: Nothing exists except for that moment you're in. It might not be over 911, but we've all felt that odd way that life and tragedy bring people together."
Which brings Simple Things into full circle. From the personal to the global, from the playfulness of "Happy" through the impassioned duet shared by Amy and Vince on "Beautiful," Simple Things is perhaps the most intimate glimpse ever offered into the heart of this artist. With tracks brilliantly produced by Keith Thomas, Brown Banister and Wayne Kirkpatrick, this music seems to rush through storms and sunlight before coming to rest in "After the Fire," a summary of all that we've experienced on our own and heard on this disc—simple, soft, and quietly triumphant.
And now, a personal note. Over the past hour, as Amy led me through the story of Simple Things, I've seen, over her shoulder and silhouetted in sunlight streaming through the window of her sitting room, an old baby grand piano, on which family photos stand in faded array. She tells me that it once belonged to the late comedienne Minnie Pearl, whose memory brings a light to Amy's eyes.
"I'm thinking about a conversation we had years ago," she says. "It was after Minnie's stroke, and she was bedridden, but this was one of her lucid days. We were talking about light and dark. She was saying, 'They're both a part of life. For instance, what do you think is the most important color on an artist's palette?' I said I didn't know. She said, 'Black, of course. Without black, no color has any depth. But if you mix black with everything, suddenly there's shadow—no, not just shadow, but fullness. You've got to be willing to mix black into your palette if you want to create something that's real.'"
And so we return to where we came in: to the play of shadow and light, pain and sweetness, and to the music of Simple Things, which is as simple and yet unfathomable as we all know the world to be.
|
