Amazing, amazing Amy Grant!
She sounded utterly fantastic and angelic at her Christmas concert at the then-MCI Center
in downtown Washington, D.C. in December of 1999, when she was in town as part of her national tour promoting her CD and third Christmas album, A Christmas to Remember, which featured the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, who was also there in Washington.
That's only one of my two favorite Christmas albums, and one I took with me on my trip to snowy Stockholm in mid-January, which I played frequently in my room at the 4trappor B&B in Södermalm and then the next week in my hotel room at the wonderfully-convenient Omena Hotel Stockholm in Norrmalm, just a block or so and around the corner from the August Strindberg Intima Theatre, http://www.strindbergsintimateater.se/ -which unfortunately did not have shows while I was there.
I think I played Amy's CD everyday I was there.
Also part of the action at the concert was the sweet and powerful sounds of Points of Grace -and super-talented Michael W. Smith- my first time ever seeing them live, after hearing them for so many years on CDs.
It was heavenly!
The members of POG had gone to the same college in Arkansas as my best friend,
Shannon, Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, and one of my favorite all-time photos of her was actually a shot of them at a table signing CDs down in Woodbridge, VA, with Shannon flashing that mega-watt smile of hers that always wowed people.
Anyway, that's how it sounded to me.
Judge for yourself...
Point of Grace - When Love Came Down, from their 1999 CD, A Christmas Story, one of my two favorite Christmas albums, the other being Amy's.
When I finally Saw POG in 1999 in D.C. with Amy Grant's Christmas tour, with that orchestra sound behind them, it was BEYOND magical :) !
This is when the group was composed of four very talented women: Shelley Breen, Denise Jones, Terry Jones and Heather Payne.
Something to inspire you:
HGTV Video: Amy Grant's Motor Home: The country music star's tour bus features a private lounge, two TVs and 10 bunks.
http://www.frontdoor.com/celebrity/amy-grants-motor-home-video
and something to remind you that Once Upon A Time, the American TV networks weren't afraid of allowing a religious subtext in a Christmas TV show, like they are now:
The Andy Griffith Show, S1E11, The Christmas Story, Originally aired on CBS-TV on December 19, 1960. Uploaded December 1, 2013. http://youtu.be/TpKn5ceZaQ4
