Steven Curtis Chapman

Born on November 21, 1962, in Paducah, Kentucky, Steven Curtis Chapman is a contemporary Christian music singer, songwriter, record producer, actor, author, and social activist who came into prominence during the late '80s with a sound informed by country and folk as much as pop and soft rock. He released his debut album, First Hand, in 1987, with the single "Weak Days" peaking at number two on the Contemporary Christian Music chart. The follow-up arrived in 1988, Real Life Conversations, which spawned four more hits, including chart-topper "His Eyes," co-written by James Isaac Elliott, for which he picked up the Contemporary Recorded Song of the Year award from the Gospel Music Association in 1989. This marked the first of 59 GMA Awards for Steven Curtis Champman, who has also won five Grammy awards to date. He released seven studio albums during the '90s, including mainstream breakthrough, The Great Adventure (1992), Grammy-winning fourth album For the Sake of the Call, and ninth studio album Speechless, which was awarded the 2000 Grammy for Best Pop/Contemporary Gospel Album. He also notably made an impact on the Top 200 chart with 2001 album Declaration. He ended his long-term relationship with Sparrow Records in 2012 to partner with Sony Music's Provident Label Group, releasing his fourth Christmas album, JOY, that year. His first studio album to feature entirely original material in seven years, The Great Unfolding arrived in 2013 and went to number 27 on the US Billboard 200. His sixteenth studio album, Worship and Believe (2016) stayed true to his Christian pop roots, while a companion album to 2013 LP Deep Roots, Deep Roots, Deeper Roots: Where the Bluegrass Grows, landed in 2019.