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Christian music star Carman will perform in concert March 31 at the Lighthouse Assembly of God in Richmond.

The popular performer, born Carman Domenic Licciardello in New Jersey, has performed for hundreds of thousands of people over his 26-year career.

After years of touring and performing, Carman recently departed on his 2006 Church Tour. Officials said the tour is Carman’s way of showing his appreciation to fans by playing free concerts in churches.

Lighthouse church officials are excited about his stop in Richmond.

“We’re just thrilled,” said Pastor Ralph Holdeman. “I’m a big fan. He is playing churches and his people called us and asked us if we would like to have him here. We said ‘Of course.’

“We’re expecting a huge crowd because of his popularity,” Holdeman said. “We’re going to seat as many as we can and then we’ll have to turn the rest away.”

Holdeman said his church’s auditorium seats slightly more than 1,000.

Carman is a top name in contemporary Christian music. He has won two Dove Awards, the top prize in Christian music, and was nominated for a Grammy in the early 1990s.

He has played in venues all over the United States and abroad, including playing before 50,000 people during his “Music for Peace” crusade in Johannesburg, South Africa.

He sings a variety of music, including contemporary Christian, rap, rock, soul and blues. He was also one of the performers when 71,000 people packed Texas Stadium in Dallas, making it the largest Christian concert in history.

Billboard Magazine named Carman Contemporary Christian Artist of the Year in 1990.

His songs include “The Champion,” “Addicted to Jesus,” We Are Not Ashamed” and “Jesus Is the Light.”

Christian sensations - Montgomery is about to come unplugged.

Award-winning Christian music singer/songwriter Jeremy Camp brings his Live Unplugged Tour to the Capital City on Friday at the First Baptist Church, 305 S. Perry St.

The tour is in support of Camp’s latest release, “Live unplugged: Jeremy Camp,” which came out at the end of last year and has sold over 100,000 units.

Camp is coming off a big 2005 that included the hit single “Take You Back,” which ranked as the No. 1 song of the year on Radio and Records’ year-end Christian AC and CHR charts.

His debut album, “Stay,” and the follow-up, “Carried Me: The Worship Project,” both went gold; his third album, “Restored,” is closing in on that honor. In less than three years, Camp’s music and videos have shipped over 1.5 million copies.

Camp recently recorded a song that was featured on “Music Inspired By: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe,” the companion soundtrack to the hit Disney film. He is also the reigning Gospel Music Association Male Vocalist of the Year.

The acoustic tour is a tribute to the beginnings of Camp’s career, when he started out leading college Bible studies and touring with just an acoustic guitar.

But with his success has come tragedy — he lost his first wife to cancer.

Turning a negative into a positive, he has provided comfort to others by sharing her story with others.

Camp recently remarried (his wife Adrienne is the former front woman for the group Benjamin Gate), and is a new father to daughter Isabella Rose.

Opening for Camp is 17-year-old Bethany Dillon.

Dillon’s self-titled debut featured the No. 1 single “All I Need” and the top-five single “Beautiful,” which was also the top-selling female solo debut in Christian music that year. She garnered Gospel Music Association Music Award nominations for both Female Vocalist and New Artist of the Year.

Her second album, “Imagination,” was released in the fall of last year and has received critical acclaim.

Dillon also was featured on the “Chronicles of Narnia” album, and also had the title track “Dreamer” from last year’s film “Dreamer: Inspired By a True Story,” which starred Kurt Russell and Dakota Fanning.

Christian music weekend in Western New York kicked off Friday night at Club Infinity in Williamsville.

The event runs through Sunday March 12th and features contemporary Christian recording artists, as well as up-and-coming singers and bands.

On Saturday night, the worship band Elijah’s Fire will offer a free concert starting at 7pm at Lockport Alliance Church, 555 Davison Rd in Lockport, NY. Doors open at 6:30pm. For more information call 433-3571.

On Sunday night, the band Relevant Worship will celebrate the release of their self-titled debut CD with a free concert at 6pm. The event takes place at The Chapel at CrossPoint, 500 CrossPoint Pkwy in Getzville, NY. For more information call 998-8617.

Third Day guitarist Mark Lee said he considers his job a calling from a higher power.

David Dobson Band members, left to right, Mark Lee, Brad Avery, Mac Powell, Tai Anderson, David Carr. Their last album hit No. 8 on billboard charts.

“The band has always had a goal to make music that will point people to God,” Lee said by phone from Memphis, Tenn. “Back when we started playing together nearly 15 years ago, we wanted to be like the band Petra. We wanted to play music that was inspirational.”

That goal has kept Third Day — composed of Lee, bassist Tai Anderson, guitarist Brad Avery, drummer David Carr and vocalist Mac Powell — together in the studio and on the road. The band has released nine albums to date and has been involved in such charities as Habitat for Humanity and World Vision.

Lee said that being a high profile Christian musician brings responsibilities. “We join with causes to help people. When we worked with Habitat for Humanity a couple of years ago, we helped build eight houses, three in the United States and five around the world. And we look at it this way, our music may be forgotten some years down the road, but the houses will still be there.”

That’s the philosophy that got Powell and Lee together in the first place. They wanted to make something that would last. “Throughout the years the lineup has evolved but it always comes down to Mac and me,” said Lee. “We both decided in our senior year to make music that mattered and helped people, rather than bring them down.”

For the band’s new album “Wherever You Are,” the band has a specific theme in mind. “We came into it after our last tour on the last album. The last album (the Grammy Award-winning “The Wire”) was written specifically for people who aren’t familiar with Christian music or terminology. And while it’s one of my favorite albums, it wasn’t our most successful.

“But there was a song on it called ‘It’s a Shame’ that we’d play live. And each time we did, the audiences’ reactions were unbelievable. So, we decided to make an album full of songs like ‘It’s a Shame.’ And that’s how we came up with ‘Wherever You Are.’ ”

The album peaked at No. 8 on Billboard’s Top 200 album charts and has been on the chart for more than 16 weeks. The single “Cry Out to Jesus” became an anthem during last year’s Hurricane Katrina crisis. “We look at bands who use their popularity as a platform to help others. U2 comes to mind, and Bono’s work for global causes has always been an inspiration to us. And he has inspired us to take on some issues ourselves.”

While Third Day is only a vehicle for causes such as World Vision, fans have helped more than 15,000 children all over the globe to receive food and clothing. “It’s important for us to not only sing about helping others but actually doing something about it,” said Lee.

Two turntables and the Son of God
Hip-hop ministries move beyond the underground

One day, Ben Brickhouse just sat his mom down and read her some of his rhymes. Slowly. “You saying all of that?” she asked him.

“Now I’ll say it fast,” he said, and started rapping about the Lord.

“That’s why I didn’t like it. Because I couldn’t understand it.”

That’s OK. She didn’t grow up on the sounds of scratching and mixing, two turntables and a microphone. Most of his group did, though. Brickhouse, Angela Smith and Aijné Williams are P.R.O.O.F., part of an underground of holy hip-hop artists that are growing in number across the country.

Today it’s the younger sibling of the mainstream, with a lot of quality from hot beats to tight lyrics. Most of the DJs, rappers and producers consider themselves ministers. They’re preaching the word of God and trying to lead people to Christ, and do it without coming off corny.

Emcees in the mid- to late 1980s credited with starting the scene are people like Stephen Wiley, Michael Peace and D-Boy Rodriguez. But not a lot of people knew about them. Christian rap got more exposure with the success of the controversial dc Talk.

They weren’t considered as authentically hip-hop as the pioneers, said Efrem Smith, co-author of “The Hip-Hop Church: Connecting with the Movement Shaping Our Culture.”

Still, they were able to connect with a younger audience in a way that wasn’t being done in Christian music.

“They brought a lot of convergent styles

to one place using rap, soulful R&B and pop. They got the industry to pay attention to that market,” said Tricia Whitehead, spokesperson for the Gospel Music Association.

The music’s popularity has grown in recent years. Since January, about 40 percent of the albums on the Christian R&B/Hip-hop chart were hip-hop. Black gospel, which is largely hip-hop and R&B, was one of the most popular styles of gospel music in 2005.

But in the beginning, holy hip-hop was treated more like a stepchild. It was the place where weak emcees went to practice because the perception was that it was the minor leagues.

“If you weren’t good enough to be a mainstream emcee or get a secular record deal, then you had to become a Christian and do Christian rap,” said Smith.

That’s changed.

“Production values have gotten better,” said Eric Faison, vice president of affiliate relations for Superadio Networks. The company syndicates Club Virtue, a gospel hip-hop radio show on STAR 94.1, hosted by Grammy winner Tonex. “For a while it just wouldn’t hold up to what else is on the radio, and now it does.”

Members of P.R.O.O.F. admit to finding a lot of the early stuff uninspiring. (The group’s name stands for Preaching the Reality Of Optical Faith.) In Brickhouse’s dorm room at Old Dominion University, the trio hangs out before attending their weekly Bible study and talks about how the rhymes weren’t that great, the beats only so-so.

“Personally, I feel like at first, there were only a small number of people doing gospel hip-hop, so they were all accepted,” said Williams. “Now that there are so many more people doing it, it’s a higher quality.”

For Brickhouse and Angela Smith, the realization that holy hip-hop could be done really well came when they heard The Cross Movement, a well-known group out of Philadelphia.

“First, I thought they were lyrically tight and talented,” said Smith. “I was like, ‘Man, this is what I wanna do.’”

All of the Christian rap he’d heard before was corny, Brickhouse said. This wasn’t. The music was hot.

Aside from people spending more time in the lab perfecting their craft, the emcees have been boning up on theology, said Phil Jackson, co-author of “The Hip-Hop Church.” There are a number of them who have degrees and who’ve been to seminary. It’s not a requirement, but it doesn’t hurt when people are already suspicious of whether hip-hop can be a ministry. The lyricists who know basic theology can say something on the mike and then break it down after the show for the doubters.

“Cats can have mad skills and crazy production, but that can be smoke and mirrors when it comes to being able to be a steward of the movement of Christian hip-hop,” said Jackson.

Efrem Smith says the movement has four elements: it represents Christ, uses elements of hip-hop culture, deals with social justice issues and is more concerned with people becoming Christians than with winning awards. To make the kind of impact mainstream has made, holy hip-hop needs more support from churches and radio. Too many people are still buying into the stereotypes of violence and misogyny in hip-hop.

So what does that mean for the music? Maybe God will keep it underground so people stay humble, Jackson muses. Maybe with the maturity in the production, lyrics and exposure, more people are warming up to it. Even Brickhouse’s mother will meet him halfway - she’ll listen to gospel heavyweight Kirk Franklin. It’s a start.