Chris Rice
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Chris Rice is an American CCM songwriter. He became a recording artist as well in 1996 after signing a contract with Michael W. Smith's own record label and releasing his debut album, Deep Enough to Dream.
Biography
Early years
A native of Maryland, Chris Rice grew up as the second of four sons born to Christian bookstore owners. His parents and other adult mentors provided a backbone to his Christian faith. According to him, it’s their influence that drives his work with youth today.Chris Rice didn’t aspire to a career in music or youth work, but he gradually wandered into both and found they were where he was meant to be. After taking only 3 years of piano lessons as a child, Chris began using his musical talents to lead retreats and youth camps in his church youth group, and into his college years at the University of Maryland, Grace College in Winona Lake, Indiana, and Union University in Jackson, Tennessee. He earned a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology and Communication, graduating with a GPA of 4.0. What began as a youth and collegiate ministry soon turned into a full-time career.
For the past two decades Chris Rice has spent his time as an itinerant songwriter/musician, playing for high school and college conferences and camps nationwide. This full-time schedule eventually prepared Chris for his career as a signed recording artist, touring the country with a full band.
The career as a songwriter
His songwriting career began in the mid-'80s, a full decade before he became the 1995 Christian Songwriter of the Year (according to American Songwriter magazine) after writing Kim Boyce's "By Faith" (the single was proclaimed Song of the Year). Thanks in part to his success at songwriting, he became the first artist signed to Michael W. Smith's label Rocketown Records in 1996. Rice's producer, Monroe Jones, passed a demo tape to Rocketown president Don Donahue, who leaped to sign the newly transformed recording artist. It was Rice's ability as a lyricist that convinced Rocketown to sign him; he is today considered one of the best lyricists among the Christian music community.With the help of Jones' production skills, Chris Rice recorded Deep Enough to Dream for a September 1997 release. Past the Edges followed a year later.
That time, his investment in kids not only required the bulk of his time but also a great deal of his energy, which made his career as an artist a bit of a juggling act. Before the release of his next studio album, Rice realized his need for a change and asked Rocketown to release Smell the Color 9 without his involvement in marketing and promotion. The decision have given him time to rest, recover and recognize his limitations. He declared, "I wanted to take some time to pull myself out of the public Christian world. I’ve found that being a ‘Christian celebrity’ taxed me of a lot of things I need for the day-to-day of dealing with kids. That public work brings fans who adore me much more than I’m worthy of and in greater numbers than I’m used to. There are people who give a lot of weight to what I say and listen to my songs and scrutinize my every word. There’s a lot of pressure with that."
Smell the Color 9 was issued in fall 2000. This album was one of his most successful ones. It stretched his musical boundaries, by making him a folk-leaning songwriter into a pop-driven artist.
Most of the tracks weren't the usual Chris Rice folk songs: The Face of Christ is a shuffle-rock song based on the passage in Matthew 25 about "stooping down low" and serving others. Chris talks about the simplicity of faith in Sailing With Russell, another song with a strong Bobby McFerrin influence on it.
There are also two ballad-kind songs: Belong, about discovering that the true place in this universe is with God, and "Home Tonight," which takes the prodigal son's point of view, remembering how good things were at home with his father. The album's cover art (a man on a unicycle balancing on a high-wire) comes from the song Life Means So Much, which deals with making the most of the time people are given every day through God's generosity — that balancing act in Chris' case is between being a Christian artist and a youth leader.
The title track is named like that because, according to the song, sometimes seeing God is like trying to smell the color 9, even though "nine's not a color, and even if it were you can't smell a color / That's my point exactly ..."
In 2001, Rice surprised his fans with two piano-only instrumental releases that showcased a different side of his musical and arranging talents, not to mention his fondness for old hymns and Christmas songs. The names of the albums were The Living Rooms Sessions and The Living Rooms Sessions: Christmas. They were given these names because their songs were recorded in Rice's own living room grand piano.
And with his sixth album, Run the Earth... Watch the Sky, released in March 2003, Chris again joined the production talents of his longtime friend and collaborator Monroe Jones, a partnership that’s garnered more than 1 million unit sales to date.
In this album, there were the modern folk leanings reminiscent of David Wilcox and James Taylor, but also Rice’s newfound admiration of earthy but radio-friendly pop in the vein of John Mayer and Travis. The album’s first single, The Other Side of the Radio featured sports driving guitar and percussion. Me and Becky recalled classic rock sounds from Chris’ own adolescence. "A lot of the record mentions my childhood or my teenage years so it fit to reach back into the earlier sounds from the ‘70s in some of the background vocals and string arrangements", he says about it.
In June 2004, Short Term Memories was released. This album chronicled his trajectory with most of Rice's hits (Sometimes Love, Deep Enough to Dream, Smellin' Coffee, plus a host of others). There were also a few other minor hits (The Other Side of the Radio, Face of Christ, Home Tonight).
New studio cuts included Go Light Your World (a Rice original first popularized by Kathy Troccoli), a new acoustic mix of Untitled Hymn, and Mama Prays,. As for unreleased material, live renditions of Cartoons and Clumsy.
His "Hits" album came out in February 2005, Snapshots: Live and Fan Favorites. This album featured notable omissions from his last album, such as Naïve, Questions for Heaven, and Me & Becky, now a radio single. There were also rarities like the hymn-inspired Nothin' from the Exodus worship project and Calling out Your Name from the tribute to Rich Mullins. Billy Joe McGuffrey was a VeggieTales song from the Jonah soundtrack.
The live tracks are in a mixed style. The album featured an early career performance of Prone to Wander as well as a performance of Hallelujahs, recorded during GMA Week 2003 and featured on Rocketown's Hallelujahs worship CD later that year. The rest came from 1999's A Night at Rocketown, an album that can be found in the clearance section of most stores. It provides a version of Deep Enough to Dream that takes on added vibrancy. The concert tracks represent the best of what was left off of the first compilation.
A new record label
The year 2005 marked a major turning point in Chris's artistry. Leaving Rocketown Records at the end of his contractual agreement, Chris signed with Eb+Flo Records, and INO Records. Chris sited a new freedom to write and perform music without the boundaries found around "Christian" music. Rather than focusing on content to please only the Christian radio format, Chris recorded his fifth studio release CD "Amusing", released in August 2005, which included love songs, and other life topics, as well as some songs still about his faith. Outside of the CCM efforts, 'mainstream' marketing and distribution were handled by SONY/Epic.For the first time in his career, Chris Rice expanded his reach outside of the confines of Christian radio, and released radio singles to AC and Light Rock stations around the country, the first single being a romantic-comedy-esque song called "When Did You Fall" (In Love With Me?).
Trivia
Some fans were intrigued with the meaning of the song title Nonny Nonny. It is a phrase used in old English folk songs and poems from the 15th and 16th centuries. (Sometimes "Hey, nonny, nonny!" or "Hey, nonny, Ho!") It's also found in Shakespeare's writings, some of our own folk songs from the sixties, and in one of the songs in the musical Singing In The Rain. It is a nonsense phrase, similar to "La-dee-dah!" used in a fun, light-hearted way. Rice chose the phrase to lighten the song and bring a nursery rhyme quality to the chorus. It also became the obvious title for the song.The Cartoon song was at first hidden on Chris's Past The Edges CD. (It's not on the cassette tape). After the last song is finished playing (Missin' You, song #10) one has to keep playing for about two minutes of silence. Cartoons will begin playing then.
The "Cartoon" song is now retired, and is no longer played in Chris's live performances. Chris claims to have never intended the song to be heard outside of his youth groups and retreats, but its inclusion as a hidden track made it extremely popular among the Christian audience which it pokes fun at for "'Christianizing' everything." According to Chris, the fans missed the satire, and embraced the song as legitimate, to his dismay. Although it has spent six years as the number one requested song on many stations, and in the top 40 songs actually played on Christian radio for at least that long (evidenced in Billboard Magazine's charts, which count the actual spins, rather than just 'current' singles), Chris has chosen not to perpetuate the life of the song with live performances since late 2004.
Discography
- Deep Enough to Dream (1997)
- Past the Edges (1998)
- Smell the Color 9 (2000)
- The Living Room Sessions (Instrumental) (2001)
- The Living Room Sessions: Christmas (Instrumental) (2001)
- Run the Earth … Watch the Sky (2003)
- Short Term Memories (Greatest Hits) (2004)
- Snapshots: Live and Fan Favorites (Live Hits) (2005)
- Amusing (2005)
External links
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