Christian Music Online

Christian music vocal trio Selah

December 11, 2006 – 10:37 am

It’s not the kind of news you want to hear from a singer.

“I have a sinus infection today. My nasal passages are all crazy,” said Amy Perry of the Christian-music vocal trio Selah.

Fortunately, the artist still had a couple of weeks before her group was scheduled to begin its Christmas tour, which comes to Kalamazoo on Thursday. Proceeds will benefit the Kalamazoo Christian Schools.

“I’m drinking green tea with honey and having three or four glasses of something hot every day. … I’ll be healed up,” Perry, 29, said from her home in Martinez, Calif.

Perry’s vocals are key to the three-part harmony she creates with Selah members Allan Hall and Todd Smith. She joined the trio just 14 months ago. But now she’s fully acquainted with Selah’s repertoire, including songs from its Christmas CD, “Rose of Bethlehem.”

“I think on the first half of our Christmas shows we sing our popular songs, like `Press On’ and `You Raise Me Up,”’ Perry said. “After intermission, we come back and hit all the Christmas stuff.”

Selah (a Hebrew word often used in Old Testament psalms of praise), got its start when Hall and Smith joined forces while they were music students at Nashville’s Belmont University. Hall, a keyboardist, often would ask Smith to sing with him when he would perform at area churches.

Smith invited his sister Nicol along, and as a trio they would harmonize their own arrangements of classic hymns. Their talented collaboration led to their first CD (“Be Still My Soul”) in 1999, which won a Gospel Music Association Dove Award as the year’s top inspirational album. Two of their succeeding albums were similarly honored.

Smith’s sister left Selah in 2004 and was replaced by Melodie Crittenden. When Crittenden left the following year, the door opened for Perry.

“I had been in Nashville for five years pursuing music, but it was to the point where I didn’t care anymore about a record deal or what people thought,” said Perry, who was content to sing as part of her church worship team.

But the church worship leader also was a professor at Belmont and had taught both Smith and Hall. She knew they were looking for a third voice.

“I auditioned, waited a couple of weeks, and then had a second one, and they hired me,” Perry said.

The soprano joined Selah in time to do some of the vocals on the group’s recent “Bless the Broken Road: The Duets Album.”

The title track, a country ballad popularized by Rascal Flatts, originally was recorded by Crittenden in the ’90s when she was a solo artist. Selah covered the song, and its version was a hit on Christian radio this year.

Another of the tunes, “Mary, Sweet Mary,” is a song the group likely will perform on the Christmas tour.

“It’s very tender and sweet,” Perry said of the ballad, which also is part of a new collection of songs inspired by the current feature film “The Nativity Story.”

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