Amy Grant is one of contemporary Christian music’s most prominent singer-songwriters. Since beginning her career in 1978, she has released dozens of albums, won six Grammy Awards, and enjoyed crossover success in the pop music world.
Amy Lee Grant was born on November 25, 1960, in Augusta. Her family lived in Augusta while her father, Burton Grant, completed his residency at the Medical College of Georgia (later Augusta University) after serving five years as an army doctor at Dwight Eisenhower Army Medical Center at Fort Gordon (renamed Fort Eisenhower in 2023). Six months after she was born, Grant’s parents moved her and her three older sisters to Nashville, Tennessee, where she spent the remainder of her childhood. Grant enrolled at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina, for one year and then transferred to Vanderbilt University in Nashville. During her senior year at Vanderbilt she signed her first record deal with Myrrh/Word Records and released her self-titled first album in 1978.
The album established her as a strong voice in the Christian community, and she followed her success with My Father’s Eyes (1979), Never Alone (1980), two concert albums in 1981, and Age to Age (1982). In 1982 she married songwriter Gary Chapman, who collaborated on her albums throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. During this time they had three children, Matthew Garrison in 1987, Gloria Mills (“Millie”) in 1989, and Sarah Cannon in 1992.
Over the years Grant has performed on an array of famous stages from the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville to the presidential retreat Camp David, where she performed at the invitation of President George H. W. Bush.
Heart in Motion marked a turning point in Grant’s career and remains her most successful album to date. Certified platinum after selling five million copies, it was her first recording to feature secular as well as Christian songs.
Her next album, House of Love (1994), was also successful, and included a duet with country music artist Vince Gill. In 1999 Grant and Chapman divorced, and the following year Grant and Gill married. The couple welcomed a daughter, Corrina Grant, in 2001. Grant maintained an active schedule in the years that followed, releasing a number of highly regarded albums, including the Grammy-winning Rock of Ages…Hymns and Faith (2005).
In 2021, as she looked ahead to her fifth decade in the music industry, Grant was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. The following year she became the first contemporary Christian recording artist to be honored by the Kennedy Center. At the same time, a pair of health scares threatened to derail her late career renaissance. In 2022 a bicycling accident resulted in a traumatic brain injury; soon thereafter, doctors discovered a cyst in Grant’s throat that required surgery. After a difficult recovery in which she had to learn to sing again, the indefatigable Grant announced in 2023 that she planned to return to touring. “It’s been a great reminder that life is dynamic,” Grant said of her travails as she prepared to tour. “Even in the…worst trauma, beauty and goodness are still present.”
