Kurt Carr: Redefining A Multicultural Gospel

While there are plenty of recording artists who would classify their sound as "world music" or "global fusion," Kurt Carr and his seven-voice ensemble make music that is truly multi-cultural and international in scope. Their latest release, One Church, is one of the most adventuresome and exciting entries into the lexicon of modern Gospel. 

"I've felt God impressing on me that it was time to really reach out to the world with our music," says Kurt, "so it was very important to me to draw on the talents of people of different races, ages, nationalities and doctrinal backgrounds –- all to solidify the theme and the truth that we really are one church in Christ."

Kurt Carr's songs redefine the Gospel genre, from traditional foot-stumpers and jamming urban/R&B, to exotic forays into world music eclecticism and gorgeous, reverential ballads.

The 2000 release, Awesome Wonder, has long been certified gold for sales exceeding 500,000 copies, and today is closing in on the one-million mark. That breakthrough album won six of Gospel music's coveted Stellar Awards, and Carr picked up four more Stellars for his role as producer of the self-titled, debut album of 2003's Gospel sensation and New Artist of the Year, Byron Cage.

As gifted a songwriter as he is an artist, instrumentalist, producer, arranger, and conductor, Carr has twice written the Stellar Songs of the Year; Byron Cage's smash, "The Presence of the Lord Is Here," as well as his group's classic, "In the Sanctuary." So broad in fact is the reach of Carr's music that "In the Sanctuary" has, to date, been translated into nine different languages and recorded by more than 20 different acts the world over.

Carr's family was not deeply involved in the church when he was a child, but at the age of 13 he found himself drawn there on his own, quickly becoming active in the music program. While music was his original passion in the church, the forming of a personal relationship with Christ would follow over the next several years.

"I think the Lord brought me along in a gradual sort of way until around 17," he recalls. "I began to realize that there was a greater meaning and higher calling to what I was doing. I heard Him telling me this was what I was supposed to do with my life, and that He was going to use me for His purposes, and I accepted that and Him. But I never for a second dreamed he would ever use me to this magnitude. It's been quite amazing to me."

Carr went on to obtain a degree in music from the University of Connecticut, focusing in the classroom on classical music, but all the while absorbing the sounds of the street and the world around him. His first national recognition came when he spent seven years as pianist and musical director for Rev. James Cleveland, who had discovered him when he was playing one year at the annual conference of the Gospel Music Workshop of America (GMWA), as well as a year accompanying Gospel's equally legendary Andrae Crouch. Carr's abundance and range of talent, coupled with those high-profile associations, led to the position of Creative Director at Los Angeles' renowned West Angeles Church of God in Christ, where he worked with luminaries from both the Gospel and secular music industries, including Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight, Yolanda Adams, and Kirk Franklin.

He formed the Kurt Carr Singers in the early '90s, releasing the first of his now five albums. Though it would be several years and three projects later, Carr emerged as a serious force to be reckoned with when his song, "For Every Mountain," released initially on his own album, No One Else, was covered by Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, and won a Grammy Award in 1995. Wildly popular, the song was recorded by more than ten other artists and today is considered a standard of the church.

Kurt Carr Discography

2005   Come Let Us Worship

2004   One Church

2000   Awesome Wonder

1997   No One Else

1994   Serious About It!