Straight Ahead

Description

Straight Ahead is the fifth studio album by the American singer and songwriter Amy Grant, released on Myrrh Records in spring 1984, a division of Word. Also distribution by A&M Records. The album was recorded at numerous studios – Caribou Ranch in Nederland, Colorado; The Bennett House in Franklin and Bullet Recording and Woodland Studios in Nashville, Tennessee; Bill Schnee Studios and Mama Jo’s Recording Studio in North Hollywood, California; and Air Studios in London, England – with Jack Joseph Puig engineering and Brown Bannister producing. Mixed at The Bennett House.

Straight Ahead was included among CCM Magazine‘s Top 10 Albums of the Year, voted number five on a list featuring ten albums released between November 1, 1983 and October 15, 1984. – Grant took a dramatic leap vocally with ‘Straight Ahead’, displaying a change in style unsurpassed by any other artist listed here. Caroline Amedea said in the March review: “On ‘Straight Ahead’ [Amy’s] taken a studied step toward the rockier side of the tracks… Her voice cuts like a sabre where she once would have slid, strikes like a cobra where she once would have drawled, and growls like a wildcat where she once would have squealed.”

According to CCM Magazine, Straight Ahead was the second-best selling album of 1984 in the Christian music market (with Amy’s previous release Age to Age being the best-selling album), and as well the third best selling album of 1985 and the 5th best selling of 1986. Straight Ahead was also the first album originally released on a Christian music label to chart on Billboard’s pop album chart. The album won a Dove in the Contemporary Album category at the Gospel Music Association’s 16th Dove Awards, 1985.

Straight Ahead may sound like conventional Christian Contemporary light pop today, but when the album was released in 1984, it was an aggressively contemporary new direction for Amy Grant, the mild-voiced darling of the CCM industry. Grant’s previous albums had been dominated by more or less easy-listening gospel tunes, with only a handful of slightly harder-edged exceptions (e.g. «Too Late» on the 1980 album Never Alone, and «I Have Decided» on 1982’s Age to Age). But with Straight Ahead, Grant and her faithful producer Brown Bannister heated up her sound with unprecedented quantities of electric guitar and synthesizer (supplied by emerging CCM icon Michael W. Smith, who also handled much of the songwriting). The album became an instant industry classic, and songs like the snappy «Where Do You Hide Your Heart», the worshipful piano ballad «Thy Word», and the Grammy winning rocker «Angels» have become staples in youth-group sing-alongs across the country. Straight Ahead was an important precursor to the even more aggressive 1985 album Unguarded, which produced Grant’s first major crossover hit, «Love Will Find a Way». [Evan Cater, AMG]

Straight Ahead, 2007 Re-issue

The recording which saw Amy Grant take up her mantle as CCM’s “pop princess” this 1984 CCM megahit, now digitally re-mastered and re-released by EMI, was the first Christian album to make the Billboard pop chart and marked a move from the more gentle piano/guitar arrangements of previous albums to a synth/guitar-based approach. The songs from a variety of songwriters (with whom Amy shares writing credits on a number of tracks) are beautifully put together. The production from Brown Bannister is pretty much flawless – not too much, not too little – and the performances from Amy, who was really starting to develop a gruff edge to her hitherto pure and sweet voice, are exceptional. Also, the accompanying band deserve a mention, consisting of a number of impressive and highly accomplished musicians that cropped up again and again on countless albums in the ’80s and ’90s including Michael W Smith on keyboards, Dan Huff on guitar, Robbie Buchanan on keyboards and Mike Brignardello on bass. The songs are a mix of pop, praise and ballads, some of them good time foot tapping, others more reflective, all of them performed both wistfully and passionately. Highlights are the bouncy but thought provoking opener «Where Do You Hide Your Heart» and the exquisite radio friendly pop of «Angels» with Mr Smith “doing his thing” on keyboards (one of the first CCM tracks I ever heard in my teens). The title track is a soulful cry to keep our eyes upon Jesus and carry on to where we see his light «Straight Ahead». The sound of synth and guitars, and the particular combination of both, locates the feel of the album squarely in the 1980s, but the quality of the songwriting, the powerful vocals and the talent of all the participants makes this long player almost timeless. [Alastair McCollum, Cross Rhythms, May 2008]

> Apple Music (https://music.apple.com/us/album/straight-ahead/720105020)

LP tracklist:

Side One
A1. “Where Do You Hide Your Heart” – 3:57
A2. “Jehovah” – 5:57
A3. “Angels Watching Over Me” – 4:10
A4. “Straight Ahead” – 3:47
A5. “Thy Word” – 3:19

Side Two
B1. “It’s Not A Song” – 3:27
B2. “Open Arms” – 3:22
B3. “Doubly Good To You” – 3:12
B4. “Tomorrow” – 3:24
B5. “The Now And The Not Yet” – 3:36

Note: Simultaneously released on 8-track tape, cassette, and 12-inch vinyl LP by Myrrh Records. Re-issued on CD in 1986 (reviewed in the March 1986 issue of CCM Magazine).