Summary: When singer-songwriter Amy Grant released her debut self-titled album in 1977, she was 17 years old and just finishing up high school. Yet since then, Grant has become a multi-platinum selling artist who's traversed -- and sometimes blurred -- the line between the sacred and the secular. The Christian pop artist comes to the Soundcheck studio to talk about the inspiration behind her latest album, How Mercy Looks From Here, and perform a live set with her band. Amy Grant, on her beliefs and being a part of the Christian music genre: I think the great thing about living a long time is, at least in my life, I've found myself having a really vibrant faith, and then feeling like I was just hanging on by a toenail, and then coming back around. I think that cycle happens over and over again. Life throws so many curve balls, and we change and how we believe changes, and hopefully it's all in a process of becoming more authentic. On her gay fan following: I've felt like music should always welcome people. Faith and love should always be very welcoming. Unfortunately, the church has not been very good at bridge building, but I think because my personal feeling has always been, hey, the table's set, the food's laid out, come eat, get filled up -- hopefully that's why everybody feels welcome. On the shift in American popular opinion about gay marriage and gay rights: People ask my opinion about one thing or another, and at 52, I can honestly say, there are opinions that I have held at one or other times in life that I felt so strongly about, and then something would happen, some life experience -- and I know what it feels like to move 180 degrees. And now, when people ask my opinion, I go, it's not that my opinion doesn't matter, but I don't know over a lifetime if it will remain the same.
