“Idol” Phil Stacey’s soulful release

Phil Stacey was a music min­is­ter at a Den­ver Metro area church right after he grad­u­at­ed from col­lege. Pho­to cour­tesy of Prov­i­dent Label Group

Yes, that was Phil Stacey you saw on the 16th Street Mall in Den­ver a few weeks ago. The for­mer Naval offi­cer and an “Amer­i­can Idol” final­ist was in town pro­mot­ing his Reunion Records debut “Into the Light” (Prov­i­dent Label Group).

Stacey, who served as a Chris­t­ian music min­is­ter for a Den­ver Metro area church right out of col­lege, teamed with leg­endary Chris­tain music pro­duc­er Brown Ban­nis­ter (Steven Cur­tis Chap­man, Amy Grant, Man­disa — anoth­er “Idol” star) to cre­ate a soul­ful, pop CD that fea­tures strong vocals and insight­ful song­writ­ing.

“You’re Not Shak­en” is a mes­sage of hope and faith for all those going through val­leys in these tough times and shows off his pow­er­ful vocals. The title track, “Into the Light” reveals Stacey’s pop side and encour­ages his lis­ten­ers to “step out and reach for God’s hand,” to “find what you’ve been look­ing for.”

The for­mer Naval offi­cer’s patri­ot­ic side comes out in “Old Glo­ry,” a song he wrote after per­form­ing at a ball and see­ing the Amer­i­can flag fly­ing on a ship in the Flori­da waters. Stacey’s key­board skills and vocal range shine in the “acoustic” ver­sion of the song that Stacey said gets the tune back to its orig­i­nal form — he wrote it while sit­ting at the piano. As he tells it, the song saw many renedi­tions (drums, gui­tars) when he was in the Navy, but this piece is much suit­ed to the bare-bones edi­tion and is sure to bring a sense of pride to many Amer­i­cans. “Her strength can’t be found in her col­ors … her col­ors are found in you and me.”

“Whether we agree on pol­i­tics or not, we can agree on the great­ness of the Unit­ed States,” Stacey said in a release. Ahem.