Somewhere Down the Road
Artist: Amy Grant
Label: Sparrow Records
Length: 12 tracks / 46:53

If you're looking for the pop diva wearing the leopard-print jacket that practically danced off the cover of Unguarded, then you've come to the wrong place. Somewhere Down the Road features the Amy Grant of a Star Trek-like alternate time-line: one that started with the Lead Me On album and vectors forward to this mature, wise, deeply personal and artistically satisfying project.

It seems pointless for Grant, at this stage in her career, to try to appease the 'CCM demographic,' and we can all be thankful for that. The early Amy Grant years produced Christian pop albums designed to act as a diversion from the evils of secular music and as entertainment for the church Youth Group crowd. Of course, life goes on and the facades of perfection fade in the harsh reality of the day-to-day, and we learn, as we grow, that life is more than pop beats and leopard skin. On this, her first new album in years, Grant looks at life from a better, clearer vantage point and decides to describe that view from somewhere much further down the road. In fact, the oft-quoted first line from M. Scott Peck's book, The Road Less Traveled, sums up one of the overriding truths in this album full of truthful observations: 'Life is difficult.' Thankfully, listening to this album is not difficult at all.... 

Pulling together a set of new songs, a couple of unreleased gems from the vault, and re-working some classic material, Amy has come up with a project that sounds fresh and unified ­ not at all a patchwork or 'collection.' For the first time, Grant gets to sing a duet with her daughter on “Overnight,” and comes out sounding like the younger of the two voices, with Sarah Chapman displaying a pleasant, earthy, mature tone. This song  and the opening track, the insightful “Better Than a Hallelujah,” are produced by Dan Muckala, who had me worried (with the sampled-sounding drums that start both songs) that he was taking Grant in a too-modern direction, but redeemed himself as each of the songs got fully underway.

“Every Road” sounds more like the Amy Grant of Lead Me On, and is produced by long-time collaborator, Wayne Kirkpatrick, who used familiar players to round out the band and produce a signature Amy Grant sound. The album progresses to the powerful reflection on the stages of life, “Unafraid,” and then nails the previously-mentioned theme with “Hard Times,” an honest look at the fact that 'hard times come. Hard times come for everyone ...and they'll come 'till we're done.' Grant never forgets to include the greater truth that 'the beauty of a new day will always fill the heart,' or who The Giver of that new day is ­ still, it's a far cry from “Lucky One.”

Right in the middle of this musical 'road' we get a good dose of country rock asking an interesting theological question  - “What is the Chance of That” has a chorus that recalls the sound of “Hotel California” and lyrics illustrating the randomness of  life's circumstances in a way that should strike a chord in even the staunchest determinist: “I have believed since I was a little bitty girl / that there were rules of cause and effect / and they slowly shaped my world / But pain and hard times, they come and they go / Like some blindfolded angel somewhere saying, Eeny Meeny Miney Moe / What is the chance of that.” 

The album's title-track continues the classic Amy sound (and includes the late Jackie Street on bass), followed by what I'd say is the first blues track on any Amy Grant album ­ and it's a total success. “Third World Woman” is a slow, funky song with stark percussive elements and a compassionate world-wise lyric: “What if I were that mother, staring from my TV / What if that were my brown-eyed baby, hungry as she could be,”  passionately sung and concluding with, “ Could be mother could be daughter could be sister to me / Lord have mercy on me.”

Before finishing up with two fine remakes of previously recorded tunes, Somewhere Down the Road delivers a strong one-two punch with “Find What You're Looking For,” a song explaining that “there's so much good in the worst of us, so much bad in the best of us” that you'll find exactly what you want to find if you look hard enough ­ this is followed by the articulate, melodic, intimately confessional “Come Into My World,” where Amy gets bare-knuckle honest on a 1996 recording with just her voice and acoustic guitar.

The last two tracks re-visit familiar territory. The closer, “Imagine/Sing the Wondrous Love of Jesus,” combines the crossover hit (“I can only Imagine”) with the classic hymn in a moving finale - but it's the penultimate track, “Arms of Love,” that's the real surprise. What was originally a 'nice' little bit of Christian pop comes off here as a very moving statement of profound faith. Same melody, same words, but performed from a new vantage point with additional years of insight and experience making the song more potent than ever before.

Somewhere Down the Road  features fine production by a variety of producers, excellent material, old and new, and Amy Grant: wife, mother, artist, Christian... considerably further down that road less travelled than when we first met her.

Bert Saraco
http://www.myspace.com/expressimage  

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Despite being a compilation of new tracks, re-worked songs and stuff that has turned up like something found in a box in the attic, there is tremendous cohesion to this set, which Grant deliberately wanted to reflect the theme of life as a journey.

She is typically vulnerable, too, revealing her heart at various stages of her own journey. A touching “Come Into My World” was written at the time she felt that expectations of her were so far from who she really was, as her first marriage was ending; while the homespun wisdom of her mother-in-law in “Find What You’re Looking For” is probably poignant for Grant as she remembers some of the criticism she faced at that time:

What would they find if they uncovered all of my tracks? /
There’s so much good in the worst of us / So much bad in the best of us /
It never makes sense for any of us to criticize the rest of us /
We’ll just find what we’re looking for.

Her mother-in-law is not the only family member involved in this disc, which is the first to be recorded at the family home in Nashville. Her daughter Sarah duets on “Overnight,” a piece about being patient with life, so that we can appreciate what happens to us and learn to trust God. The pragmatic “Hard Times” and particularly the lovely “Unafraid” deal with life and love happening to a family over generations.

As Grant prepares to turn 50, it is easy to see why she should add a reflective glaze to this album and this is one of its biggest draws. There are several story songs that provide easy entry points for many to identify with the lyrics.

Away from the stories, themes include injustice, consumerism and poverty (“Third World Woman”) and heaven (a so-so version of Bart Millard’s “I Can Only Imagine”). The title track sums up the journey motif, recommending that we trust God for answers further down the road.

“Better than a Hallelujah,” which probably only has a tacky plastic rhythm track because it is being released as a single, is another highlight. It picks up a theme from the eight century BC, that God sometimes prefers an honest heart that reaches for him to a song of praise. It could almost be a sideswipe at the CCM industry.

Many of the names involved here, such as Wayne Kirkpatrick, Jerry McPherson, Dan Muckala, are regulars in the Nashville factory. Sometimes their ideas work, but often the tracks leave me with the feeling that they are going through their day jobs without the passion to invent sounds to bring more life into decent songs.

There is welcome color in the Sheryl Crow/ Eagles feel of “What is the Chance of That?” and in the warm analogue synth tones and Kenny Greenberg’s spare guitar gracing “Every Road.” But much of the time this has the feel of an unplugged set, which suits many of the intimate themes.

However, without sitting quietly and really concentrating, many of the disc’s gems slip by unnoticed. This is a shame, because inside the slender tunes, as well as catching Grant in top vocal form, these songs offer wise words and inspiring thoughts.

Derek Walker