Personnel includes: Amy Grant (vocals); Vince Gill (vocals, acoustic & electric guitars, dobro, mandolin); Alison Krauss (vocals); Gordon Kennedy (acoustic & electric guitars); Biff Watson, Richard Bennett, Mac McAnally (acoustic guitar); Kenny Greenberg, Tom Britt (electric guitar); Stuart Duncan (fiddle); John Catchings (cello); Sam Levine (pennywhistle); Jim Hoke (harmonica); Tim Akers (accordion, Hammond B-3 organ, synthesizer); Pete Wasner (piano, synthesizer); John Jarvis, Michael Omartian (piano); Leland Sklar, Michael Rhodes (bass); Chad Cromwell, Dan Meedham (drums); Eric Darken (percussion); Nashville String Machine; London Session Orchestra.
Recorded at East Iris Studio, The Parlor and Oceanway Studios, Nashville, Tennessee, and Air Lyndhurst, London, England.
This limited edition of LEGACY: HYMNS & FAITH includes a bonus DVD video directed by Ken Carpenter.
Personnel includes: Amy Grant (vocals); Vince Gill (vocals, acoustic & electric guitars, dobro, mandolin); Alison Krauss (vocals); Gordon Kennedy (acoustic & electric guitars); Biff Watson, Richard Bennett, Mac McAnally (acoustic guitar); Kenny Greenberg, Tom Britt (electric guitar); Stuart Duncan (fiddle); John Catchings (cello); Sam Levine (pennywhistle); Jim Hoke (harmonica); Tim Akers (accordion, Hammond B-3 organ, synthesizer); Pete Wasner (piano, synthesizer); John Jarvis, Michael Omartian (piano); Leland Sklar, Michael Rhodes (bass); Chad Cromwell, Dan Meedham (drums); Eric Darken (percussion); Nashville String Machine; London Session Orchestra.
Recorded at East Iris Studio, The Parlor and Oceanway Studios, Nashville, Tennessee, and Air Lyndhurst, London, England.
Within Amy Grant's rich catalog of sacred and secular recordings, Legacy...Hymns & Faith stands out for its thematic integrity and superb execution. Never a showy vocalist, she relies here on her familiarity with the material, most of which consists of old-time hymns, to convey the essence of each track. Her performances, bare of any extraneous effect and generally confined to a narrow segment of her range, blend into consistently excellent arrangements by Vince Gill (her husband) and Brown Bannister; these range from a catchy, soft pop treatment of "This Is My Father's World" through several dreamlike tracks, some buffeted by synths or strings (including "Softly and Tenderly," with its strong Daniel Lanois vibe), and one medley of particular beauty, "Fields of Plenty" and "Be Still My Soul," on which Grant sings a cappella and with Richard Bennett's acoustic guitar. Faith, in its gentlest manifestation, permeates the album up to the last track, "Marching to Zion," whose martial pipes and drums either disrupt the vibe or leave the listener exhilarated, depending on your disposition; a prayer, given in the studio by Amy's father, Burton Grant, and recorded by chance, provides an appropriate segue before the Crusaders storm off on their mission. ~ Robert L. Doerschuk
Long before the Christian pop movement began exploding in the late '90s, Amy Grant was at the forefront of the movement, one of the first singers to show that pop music sensibilities could be successfully mated with spiritual concerns outside the realm of gospel music. Ironically, it's the gospel tradition that Grant returns to on LEGACY: HYMNS & FAITH in order to celebrate her 25th anniversary as a recording artist (hard to believe it's been so long, isn't it?).
Though she draws mostly on traditional spiritual material here, as the album's title indicates, the production is consistently innovative. The atmospheric treatment given to "Softly and Tenderly" wouldn't have sounded out on place on Emmylou Harris's Daniel Lanois-produced WRECKING BALL album, and it's a safe bet that "My Jesus, I Love Thee" has seldom been given a full-blown Celtic treatment before. Grant's obvious committment to this material is matched step by step here by her mercurial artistic spirit. minimize