Steven Curtis Chapman back from “valley of death”

Steven Curtis Chapman on the cover of  re*create

Five-time Gram­my Award win­ner Steven Cur­tis Chap­man is expe­ri­ence a new sea­son of music and will be bring­ing his tour to Mis­sion Hills Church in LIt­tle­ton on Sat­ur­day, Oct. 22. | Cour­tesy pho­to

It’s been more than three years since the death of his lit­tle girl, Marie, 5, in a trag­ic acci­dent at their home, but Steve Cur­tis Chap­man and his fam­i­ly are final­ly climb­ing out of the abyss of depres­sion with “new music in a new sea­son.”

That’s what this tour is about,” Chap­man said, “to let our fans know that we’re OK. I have to use my wife’s words: It’s like we are tak­ing the first steps out of a deep, dense for­est since the acci­dent at home. (Maria was run over in the family’s dri­ve­way by a SUV dri­ven by one of their sons.) We are in a new sea­son with new songs, new life. We have a new grand­ba­by on the way. We are mak­ing some major changes at the house that have been a long time com­ing. In a sense we have pep in our steps. There’s more laugh­ter at the house and that reflects in this tour.”

Chap­man’s tour, Song & Sto­ries Tour, is in sup­port of his new album “re*creation* and fea­tures Chap­man play­ing small­er venues while tak­ing his music back to his Ken­tucky roots.

There’s not an elec­tric gui­tar on stage. It’s stripped down,” Chap­man said. “I’m far more com­fort­able in this set­ting. In my biggest moment — the big are­na days, the four busses and three or four semis — I was still just this kid from Pud­u­c­ah, Ken­tucky, sit­ting in my bed­room writ­ing songs. I’m a singer-song­writer.

In the are­na days I had to make myself com­fort­able by sit­ting on a stool telling my sto­ries. Now we are tak­ing it in that direc­tion with this tour. I’m tak­ing these songs back to their orig­i­nal state — They were all writ­ten on an acoustic gui­tar.”

Chap­man also said this tour is a way of thank­ing fans for all of their sup­port dur­ing the family’s time of tri­al.

”I would say –not to sound over­ly dra­mat­ic– but we felt we were the most loved and prayed for fam­i­ly in the year of the acci­dent,” Chap­man said. “Our com­mu­ni­ty – I don’t like to say fans because that sounds so dis­tant and they are more like friends – there was such a sense of being lift­ed up and car­ried direct­ly to God.

We talk on stage about all the prayers from our fans. I’m not sure we could have sur­vived with­out that. God is faith­ful, and I’m here to tell you that you can move for­ward. We will always have a huge hole in our hearts, but we have new wind in our sails and joy in our hearts.”

It was a lit­tle instru­ment – the ukulele – that also helped Chap­man and his fam­i­ly redis­cov­er the laugh­ter in their lives.

My dad owned a music store when I was grow­ing up, and I would pluck around on the one that was in my grandmother’s clos­est. But it was only in the last year that I began seri­ous­ly learn­ing the chords,” Chap­man said about the ukulele. “It’s an instru­ment that when you play it you can’t help but laugh and smile. And it was like God was say­ing it’s OK to laugh and smile — and laugh­ing and smil­ing were not part of our rou­tine. My songs got heavy. I was writ­ing in the depths of the val­ley of death. I’m con­vinced that the rea­son the peo­ple in Hawaii are always smil­ing is because they play the ukulele — and they live in Hawaii. It’s a hap­py lit­tle instru­ment.”

An instru­ment Chap­man used on “re*creation” to help recre­ate his life and fam­i­ly.

Along with an inti­mate night with Chap­man, con­cert-goers will get a first-hand look at new­com­ers Andrew Peter­son and Josh Wil­son.

This is unique because I am pre­sent­ing two new singer-song­writ­ers to a new audi­ence, Chap­man said. “It’s been a fun thing to watch, being on stage I can see peo­ple nudg­ing one anoth­er say­ing, ‘Wow this guy is great.’ ‘I love this song.’ It’s been real­ly reward­ing for me. It’s a cool place to be, to be able to men­tor these guys.”

As he approach­es the 25th anniver­sary of his first CD release, Chap­man has observed Chris­t­ian music’s major trans­for­ma­tion to a genre that encom­pass­es every­thing from tra­di­tion­al gospel to rap and hip-hop and heavy met­al.

I came along about the tod­dler stage of Chris­t­ian music,” Chap­man said. “It was after Kei­th Green and Lar­ry Nor­man, they were the first rock­ers that came out of the Jesus move­ment. … It was such a small com­mu­ni­ty in what you could and could not do – you were lim­it­ed to this lit­tle box. Right at that point Chris­t­ian music start­ed tak­ing off. Peo­ple were dis­cov­er­ing it and find­ing out about it. Here were these crazy rock and rollers who were not being embraced by the Chris­t­ian com­mu­ni­ty – It (the music) might be from the dev­il. Then came DCtalk with rap music, Jars of Clay, who had a main­stream hit with “Flood.” Kirk Franklin is now expand­ing on gospel music…. It’s for the bet­ter.”

The grow­ing Chris­t­ian music indus­try caught the eye of big record labels, which began buy­ing up the small­er labels, Chap­man explained.

So then you had more mon­ey to make bet­ter records, more mon­ey for mar­ket­ing … and it just explod­ed. And now we use the same pro­duc­ers, same musi­cians and same stu­dios at the main­stream artists.

Many more artist feel freer. Before it was dif­fi­cult to fit into this per­fect sound, this lit­tle box…. Now you have some great artist com­ing to the par­ty with their art and music.”

And of course, there is the tech­nol­o­gy aspect of the music indus­try. Chap­man points to his sons, Caleb and Will, as ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the Inter­net age.

My sons rep­re­sent the new breed of artists that have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to have their music heard where they may nev­er have had a chance before,” Chap­man said. “And I think it has made the indus­try more hon­est. You have peo­ple who are mak­ing music because they love what they are doing. Not big busi­ness mak­ing these choic­es for peo­ple.”

Chapman’s music is so influ­en­tial and dear­ly loved by his fans that NASA even helped him launch his new CD “re*creation,” by invit­ing the singer-song­writer to the Hous­ton Space Cen­ter. While at com­mand cen­tral, Chap­man, talked with Amer­i­can astro­nauts Ron­nie Garan and Mike Fos­sum, who were aboard the Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion.

Not a bad way to launch a new sea­son of new music and new joy in your life.
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