1986: The Radio Singles

1986 was an interesting year for Christian radio hits. There was an abundance of songs about life that were not directly spiritual. There were also a number of hits by artists who didn’t typically get a lot of airplay on Christian radio. The list today blends those two buckets of songs.

1. Paul Smith—Never Be Another—from Live & Learn (DaySpring Records)

Stepping into Russ Taff’’s shoes as lead singer of The Imperials in 1982 could not have been an easy role to fill, but Paul Smith did it. The group’s output during Smith’s tenure was uneven—covering everything from conventional southern gospel, inspirational music, AOR and pop—but he brought his strong pipes to each project without missing a beat. He left the group in 1985 on the heels of their highly successful album Let the Wind Blow.

His debut album, Live & Learn, produced by Keith Thomas, resulted in “Never Be Another", a massive radio hit which peaked at #2 on CCM’s radio hits chart. One can only assume that there were hopes for this song to cross over to the pop charts as it invokes the controversial “You” (capital Y for those concerned listeners reading the lyrics inside the album), but neglects to get into specifics.

2. Stryper—Honestly—from To Hell With the Devil (Enigma)

One of the most controversial bands to ever play Christian music, Stryper didn’t quell any of the furor over their existence by naming their 1986 release To Hell With the Devil. They were publicly taken to task by tele-evangelist Jimmy Swaggart and largely excluded from the landscape of Christian television and radio. Christian music publications championed them, but they were more largely platformed in secular music circles thanks to their recording contract with Enigma Records. Robert Sweet told CCM in 1986, “We didn’t want notoriety simply with Christian audiences just so we could sign with a Christian record label. I believe the whole point of Christianity is to reach people who don’t know Christ.”

To Hell With the Devil sold half a million copies within its first year of release and spawned two radio hits in the nearly two years of promotion that followed: the uptempo “Calling on You” and the power ballad, “Honestly.” “Honestly” peaked at #23 on Billboard’s Hot 100—the group’s highest charting single, and would become a most-requested video on MTV. On Christian radio, it was relegated to the Christian Rock Airplay chart despite its Top 40 potential, and peaked at #13.

3. Amy Grant—Stay for Awhile—from The Collection (Myrrh/A&M Records)

This oft-forgotten single is an important signpost in Amy Grant’s career. This ode to a childhood friendship continued Grant’s transition from Christian music darling to an artist for the masses. Billboard called it a “brisk love song [that] continues the artist’s transition from contemporary Christian to nontheological repertoire.” That it climbed to #1 on the Christian radio chart should indicate just how different the times were. A few years later, Grant’s “Baby, Baby” would shake Christian radio which had to interrogate whether it was indeed a Christian song before putting it into rotation. Months after the release of “Stay for Awhile” (which hit #18 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart), Grant would earn her first #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 with her duet with Peter Cetera, “Next Time I Fall” from his platinum-selling album Solitude/Solitaire.

4. DeGarmo & Key—Every Moment—from Streetlight (Power Discs Records)

After a handful of radio-friendly albums (including the masterful Commander Sozo & the Charge of the Light Brigade), DeGarmo and Key returned to their roots with Streetlight, recorded just after the sadly overlooked and lost Look Up album, a collaboration between D&K and Mylon LeFevre & Broken Heart. They described the album to CCM as “pure, classic rock.”

Not unlike Grant’s “Stay for Awhile,” “Every Moment” is chock-full of nostalgia, but with more musical punch, nodding to Springsteen in particular. The video made its way onto MTV, with Ed DeGarmo telling CCM, “Basically, it’s Americana.”

It was an anomaly on Streetlight, a heavy-hitting album that also serves to remind listeners that there was a moment when contemporary Christian artists were at odds with the machinery of capitalist Christianity and didn’t mind taking their elders to task. Take a listen to “Soldier of Fortune” and remember when Christian artists cared less about getting in on the scam of the moment and more about the people drawn into it.

5. Keith Thomas featuring BeBe Winans—It’s Only Natural—from Kaleidoscope (DaySpring Records)

After having played on or produced some of the most important Christian albums of 1984 and 1985, Thomas stepped into the spotlight with his second album as an artist. Kaleidoscope was a largely instrumental album that featured vocal performances by first-call session vocalist Donna McElroy and emerging artist BeBe Winans.

Winans had emerged onto the national stage in the early 80s with his sister, CeCe, on Jim and Tammy Bakker’s PTL Club telecast. They gospelized Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes’ “Up Where We Belong” and earned PTL Records its first Grammy nomination. By 1986, both brother and sister had left PTL, and were on the brink of signing a deal with Sparrow Records. “It’s Only Natural” was BeBe’s first recording as a solo artist, and it peaked at #14 on CCM’s radio chart. Like some of the aforementioned songs in this week’s newsletter, the song is a conversation with a friend about life’s good and bad times, and the security that faith and love bring. It was a four-minute peak into the formula that Thomas would carry into his epic run with BeBe and CeCe that would take them to the top of the R&B charts.

6. Táta Vega—In Your Light—from Voices (Myrrh Records)

I’ve written about Tata before (click here to read about her extensive work within gospel music in 1985), but “In Your Light” deserves its own passage here.

In 1986, Myrrh Records released an incredible producer’s album called Voices that highlighted artists who were known in the Los Angeles session scene like Tommy Funderburk, Bob Carlisle, Howard McCrary, John Elefante, and Táta Vega. “In Your Light” is a slice of soulful pop that gives “The Woman of 1,000 Voices” as she was once dubbed by Quincy Jones, to showcase just how much attention and care she puts into every single word she sings.

“In Your Light” is probably the most directly spiritual of any of the songs included in today’s newsletter, but, like most of the other tunes, it could have gone a lot further outside of the Christian music world. It hit the Top 30 of the CCM radio chart in 1987.

(Also of note on Voices is Kim Boyce and John Elefante’s “Helpless.”)

7. Wild Blue Yonder—Only One—from Wild Blue Yonder (Frontline Records)

While Maria McKee was blazing a trail in the mainstream with her cow punk/rockabilly band Lone Justice, Chris Brigandi, Joey Mitchell, Paul Martin and 16-year-old Crystal Lewis formed Wild Blue Yonder with a more specifically Christian premise.

Produced by Daniel Amos’ mastermind Terry Scott Taylor, Wild Blue Yonder was a little bit country and a little bit rock and roll with hints of the 1950s and 1960s thrown in for good measure. The album’s first single, “Only One,” shimmers in homage to The Ronettes and The Crystals, and was the world’s introduction to the voice of Crystal Lewis, who would go on to be a Grammy-nominated and Dove Award-winning artist.

(Worth noting: Crystal would go on to cover Maria McKee’s composition “Over Me” on her breakthrough solo album Beauty for Ashes.)

1986: I Want to Be in the Mainstream II

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May 23

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1986: Unconditional Love: Donna Summer & The Altar Boys

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May 16

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1986: You Can Dance: Kim Boyce Steps into the Spotlight

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May 1

Go deeper into the stories, songs, and artists that shaped gospel music—each issue is a carefully researched, richly told exploration you won’t find anywhere else. Become a subscriber to God’s Music Is My Life and get every essay, every week.