Chris Rice

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Chris Rice
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Years active	1996–present
Genres	CCM/Folk
Labels	Clumsy Fly

Chris Rice is an American songwriter who works in the contemporary folk and adult contemporary genres similar to David Wilcox and James Taylor. 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.

1 Biography
2 Trivia
3 Discography
4 External links

[edit] Biography

[edit] 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, they influenced his early work with youth and college students.

Rice didn’t aspire to a career in music or student work, but he gradually wandered into both. After taking only 3 years of piano lessons as a child, Rice was invited often to be a speaker and music leader at 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 weekend and summer work with youth and college students soon turned into a full-time career during his twenties and thirties.

For those two decades Rice spent his time as an itinerant speaker and 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.

[edit] The career as a songwriter

Rice songwriting career began in the mid-'80s, after moving from his Washington, D.C. home to Nashville, TN. Rice had several songs recorded during that period by other artists, such as Kathy Troccoli and Terri Gibbs. 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 song, "Welcome To Our World", a new, but classic sounding Christmas song (since recorded by Michael W. Smith, Amy Grant, John Tesh) was the song that moved Smith to urge his label to sign Chris Rice as their first artist.

[edit] Solo Artist

With the help of Monroe Jones' production skills, Chris Rice recorded Deep Enough to Dream for a September 1997 release. Past the Edges followed a year later.

Deep Enough To Dream, Rice´s first album

That time, his investment in students 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 gave him time to rest, recover, and recognize his limitations. He declared, "I wanted to take some time to pull myself out of the public world. I’ve found that being a ‘celebrity’ taxed me of a lot of things I need for the day-to-day of dealing with students. 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 taking him from 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 a Biblical passage, Matthew 25, about serving others. Rice talks about passing faith to the next generation in Sailing With Russell, another song with a strong Bobby McFerrin influence on it. Two ballad-kind songs appeared: 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, "everyday is a gift you've been given, make the most of the time every minute you're livin'" — that balancing act in Chris' case is between being a Christian artist and a youth leader. The title track references the incomprehensibility of God, that 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 Room Sessions and The Living Room Sessions: Christmas. They were given these names because their songs were recorded on Rice's own living room grand piano.

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. 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, the hits collection 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 appeared

A second hits collection, Snapshots: Live and Fan Favorites followed in February 2005. 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 were 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. The concert tracks represent the best of what was left off of the first compilation.

[edit] A new record label

The year 2005 marked a major turning point in Rice's artistry. Leaving Rocketown Records at the end of his contractual agreement, Rice signed with independent label Eb+Flo Records, and made a marketing and distribution agreement with INO Records. INO's distribution through Sony BMG afforded Rice a new direction for marketing and distribution, no longer limiting his music to Christian radio format. His fifth studio release CD Amusing, released in August 2005, included love songs and other life topics, as well as some songs about his faith. For the first time in his career, Rice released radio singles to AC and Light Rock stations around the country, the first single being a light romantic song entitled When Did You Fall (In Love With Me?) which reached #9 after 15 weeks on the Pop AC radio format, and enjoyed Top Ten status throughout the summer months of 2006, solidifying Rice's presence on AC radio.

With Rice's success on the AC radio format, Rice made sure not to leave his roots behind him, by releasing a vocal hymns album, Peace Like a River: The Hymns Project, in November 2006. The CD was available exclusively through Family Christian Stores and online at FamilyChristian.com.

[edit] Trivia

Some fans were intrigued with the meaning of the song title Nonny Nonny. It is a nonesense phrase similar to "La-dee-dah!" 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, contemporary songs in folk style from the 1960s, and in one song in the musical Singin' in the Rain. 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.