c. 1998 Religion News Service
NASHVILLE, Tenn. _ Seventeen-year-old Candi Pearson stood in the lobby of the Renaissance Hotel late last month and stared unabashedly at the performers.
“He’s awesome,” she said as a hunky guy with spiked hair got off the elevator. She didn’t remember the name of a bleached-blond singer in 4-inch platforms, but she got a photo of one of the year’s top rock bands, Jars of Clay. And she couldn’t help wondering if one day fans would be asking for her photograph, God willing.
It was another Gospel Music Week (April 19-23) in Nashville. Once rooted in Southern gospel, the Gospel Music Association’s annual convention is now dominated by performers of contemporary Christian pop music and, appearances aside, disarmingly wholesome alternative rock. Professionals at the top of the $538 million industry mingle with aspiring singers like Candi who are eager to move from the church choir to the national Christian music scene.
Contradictions abound. Producers use terms like marketability and ministry in the same sentence, and managers decry vanity while urging singers to lose weight. Performers, too, may succumb to wordly pressures, toning down lyrics for the secular market or singing about God without being inspired.
“You can tell when a singer is not anointed,” said Candi’s mother, Elaine Holk, 37.
Her daughter agreed: “It’s like they’re singing just to entertain. My purpose is to tell other people about God, his plan, his love and his grace.”
She began singing at age 2, and it wasn’t long before she was a star in her small town of Bratt, Fla. Her mother, a school band director, guided her, and Candi began working with local musicians impressed by the sophisticated rhythm-and-blues sound in one so young.
“Candi has a great stage presence and a powerful anointing,” said songwriter Jukka Palonen, who spotted the then-14-year-old when she was singing in the First Assembly of God choir in nearby Atmore, Ala.
Soon Candi was performing at talent competitions and on local television while maintaining an “A” average and running track. She became a soloist with the Alabama Allstate Youth Touring Choir and sang the national anthem at Denver’s Coors Field. This year she won a Gospel Music Association regional competition, earning her a place in the Spotlight ’98 Finals in Nashville.
Some 300 people attended last week’s Gospel Music Association’s Academy, five days of courses aimed mostly at aspiring performers and culminating in the Spotlight competition. The contemporary Christian market is “wide open” to new talent, said Palonen. Indeed, gospel music’s share of record sales grew 38 percent in 1996, to 4.3 percent. But the competition for signing with a record label remains stiff, and more than a handful of hometown stars come to the academy only to return resigned to the choir.
Candi and her mother saved more than $900 to attend the gospel academy,sharing a hotel room with two friends. “We’re a budgeting family,” said Holk,whose husband works at a Monsanto factory. The title of the song Candi wrote for the competition came to her after she prayed to God to relieve her family’s financial strife.
“He told me, `I will provide,”’ she said.
She was less focused on her song than on celebrity sightings the day before the competition. She’d already had her first meeting with a music company representative, and the news had been mixed. He liked her voice, she said, “but he told me to pick up a guitar immediately and go to college.”
Solicited and unsolicited advice on everything from her songwriting to her appearance was nothing new for Candi. Tall and conventionally pretty with large brown eyes, clear skin and a pert nose, she’s neither overweight nor model-thin. But several advisers have already told her to lose weight, a directive some female performers find troubling.
“Why should you put so much emphasis on the package when you’re supposed to be ministering for the Lord?” asked singer Heather Hershey, 25.
Still, Candi took the critique in stride.
“There are tons of labels and tons of opinions,” she said. “It will happen when it’s supposed to. I’m only 17.”
Her mother nodded. “We’ve learned that it’s God’s agenda,” she said, though a win at Spotlight would undoubtedly lead to a signing.
Though her vocal style is alternative, her dress is sedate. She performs in a simple pantsuit and large silver cross earrings, her rebellion limited to a diamond stud through the top of her ear. But she has no problems with her more outrageous peers, whom she regards as good missionaries.
“The people with the earrings, the spikes, the dreads _ they’re the ones people are going to look at and say, `Cool.”’
(BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM)
The following afternoon, her friend Jukka Palonen arranged a meeting with executives from Integrity Records & Publishing, and they lunched at a hotel restaurant.
“Our goal is to help people worldwide experience the manifest presence of God,” vice president Chris Thomason told her.
His colleague, senior vice president Daniel McGuffey, nodded. “When I heard your tape, I said, `Let’s meet and hear your heart.’ What drives you to sing?”
Candi answered with the poise of a pageant contestant. “God has given me a testimony that needs to be heard today. What’s going on in the world is extremely horrible. I’m geared to youth. I know what they face. I’m a virgin. I’ve never used drugs or alcohol. My message to teens is that you can be holy in an unbelieving world and still not have to give up your stuff. That’s my mission statement.”
McGuffey beamed. “I love what I’m seeing, someone who is very young and able to articulate your mission.”
The session ended without any discussion of business. But Candi and her mother were impressed by the men compared to some other industry executives who “were like used car salesmen with all the right godly responses,” Holk said.
(END OPTIONAL TRIM)
As the evening’s Spotlight competition approached, Holk became increasingly edgy while her daughter remained calm.
“God will provide,” Candi told her, as if rehearsing her lyrics.
The sound check in the hotel auditorium took longer than expected. Candi had to sneak into a public restroom to change clothes and apply makeup that added five years to her face and an air of sophistication, alluring but not provocative.
With her mother and supporters, she huddled in the back of the auditorium to pray.
“I’m not asking for anything,” she said. “My passion is not to win. I just hope that I’ll be anointed.”
Anointed, she said, means touched by God. “It’s hard to describe. It’s just a feeling.”
Her mother was distressed when a stage manager announced the lineup. Candi was first, the easiest person for the judges to forget. More disheartening was that the majority of performers had brought their own bands while Candi relied on recorded music.
When the lights dimmed, hundreds of people were seated around tables and rows of chairs in the hotel auditorium, and industry representatives were peppered throughout the audience. Candi walked to the microphone. She began softly.
“I feel loving arms extend from my Father.”
By the final crescendo, her voice was booming as she hit every note.
“I will provide whatever the need. I hear your cry. I hear every word that you speak.”
The applause was thunderous, her reaction muted.
“I’m glad it’s over,” she said. “I messed up a number of times.”
She watched the next performers with little expression: the female vocalist who sounded like Shawn Colvin, the rock band that made the young girls scream, the 11-year-old who looked like a Star Search contestant, and finally the New Life Covenant Christian Choir and dancers.
“I don’t have a chance,” she said.
She was right. The choir took the title.
“Maybe they needed a win,” she said without a trace of resentment.
She went home without getting signed with a label, but with considerable interest from buyers and producers who had asked for her card.
“Candi is a real talent,” said Rick Anderson, a buyer for Cincinnati’s Berean Christian Stores.
She is just 17, she reminded herself. And she had always wanted to go to college in Nashville. Maybe she’d start earlier than she’d expected. In the meantime, she would pick up a guitar and practice.
Had she feel anointed while singing?
She smiled shyly, still girlish under the mascara and blush. “Yes,” she said. God provides.
DEA END LIEBLICH
