Crowder To Perform at Grand Ole Opry, Album Features Duet with Emmylou Harris

Crowder makes his worldwide solo-debut today with the release of Neon Steeple. Paying tribute to the folk/country influences on the new record, Crowder will make his Grand Ole Opry debut this Saturday, May 31 in Nashville.

Featuring 14 tracks and 3 bonus tracks, Neon Steeple includes a moving duet with music icon Emmylou Harris on "My Sweet Lord." The track was featured on USA Today's weekly playlist.

Critics are acknowledging the risky, innovative musical direction on Neon Steeple, and yet are praising Crowder's solo debut as a "musical tour de force."

Winter Jam Once Again Crowned World's Biggest Tour

For the fourth consecutive year, Winter Jam tops Pollstar's First Quarter Year To Date Worldwide Ticket Sales chart - Top 100 Tours, surpassing all other 2014 first quarter tours, including Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Beyoncé, Michael Bublé, Imagine Dragons and Justin Timberlake. Hitting major arenas around the country from January through March, Winter Jam saw 34 sellouts this year, with a combined total audience of more than 550,000 people—the tour's largest attendance in history.

Founded and hosted by NewSong and headlined by multi Grammy-nominated Newsboys and Grammy-winning hip-hop artist Lecrae, this year’s all-star line-up also featured Tenth Avenue North, Thousand Foot Krutch, Plumb and Colton Dixon.

"It's been 19 years of continued growth for Winter Jam," says Roy Morgan, Winter Jam promoter. "It's amazing to look back and see how God has orchestrated the smallest of details to grow and use this tour to deliver His message of love and Hope to literally millions of people."

NewSong’s Winter Jam 2014 Tour Spectacular was highlighted by multiple industry-leading innovations and Christian music firsts including the Winter Jam 2014 Dome Spectacular

More than 30,000 people attended the tour’s February stop at Atlanta’s Georgia Dome, marking the biggest single event in Winter Jam’s 19-year history. Featuring Guinness World Record-holding high wire artist Nik Wallenda’s tightrope walk across the Dome, the event also included appearances from Reed Robertson of "Duck Dynasty," Grammy-nominated David Crowder and University of Georgia head football coach Mark Richt.

Despite record-breaking inclement weather around the country, causing the cancellation of one of the tour’s 48 slated shows, Winter Jam played to capacity crowds at Chicago’s Sears Centre Arena; Houston’s Toyota Center; Scottrade Center in St. Louis; Cincinnati’s U.S. Bank Arena; and Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, among numerous other sold-out events.  

UP to Host Star Studded Christmas Special on Monday with Host Cameron Cameron Bure

UP and national Christian radio powerhouse, K-LOVE, present the original Christmas special "K-LOVE Music City Christmas," hosted by Candace Cameron Bure (Finding Normal, "Full House").

The hour-long special will include performances of beloved Christmas standards and original songs by leading Christian music artists, including TobyMac, Newsboys with for KING & COUNTRY, Mandisa, Colton Dixon, Kari Jobe, Matthew West, Brandon Heath, Crowder, Big Daddy Weave and Tenth Avenue North, as well as heartfelt and lively holiday memories with the stars.

The special was taped before a live audience in Nashville, TN. It will premiere on Monday, December 9 at 8 p.m. ET.

10,000 Reasons (Bless The Lord) Is Golden

Matt Redman has yet one more reason to celebrate another crowning achievement for his worship anthem "10,000 Reasons (Bless The Lord)." After earning two GRAMMY® awards this past February, the incredibly popular song was recently certified Digital Gold by the RIAA. As the first No. 1 single for co-writers Redman and Jonas Myrin, the song made an admirable 16-week run at No. 1 on Christian Radio and remained at No. 1 on the Billboard Christian Songs Chart for an impressive four months. 

Redman is set to record a brand new, live worship album at Passion City Church's LIFT: A Worship Leader Collective, May 31-June 1 in Atlanta. Hosted by Louie Giglio and GRAMMY® winner Chris Tomlin, the gathering will bring together worship leaders from across the country to provide space to be in the presence of God without the constraints of leading others. In addition to Redman, Nathan & Christy Nockels, Kristian Stanfill, Crowder and others from the Passion Band will lead the worship leader collective.

David Crowder Band's Bittersweet Climb to the Top of the Charts

Premiering at No. 2 this week is David Crowder Band with its "Give Us Rest" selling a larger-than-expected 50,000 copies. It's the best chart rank and sales week for the Christian act, who had previously gone as high as No. 11 with 2009's "Church Music" (36,000 in its debut).

For David Crowder Band, it's a bittersweet debut, as the act played its final show at the Passion 2012 conference on Jan. 2 in Atlanta. The act announced its impending disbandment last summer, stating that its new album and recently completed tour would be its last.

It was a historic week for the charts for two reasons.

As expected, Adele's "21" spends its 16th week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart (104,000 sold according to Nielsen SoundScan; down 16%). Its reign is the longest since the "Titanic" soundtrack also earned 16 weeks at No. 1 in 1998.

Since SoundScan's sales data began powering the Billboard 200 tally in May of 1991, "21" is one of only five sets to notch at least 16 weeks atop the list. Aside from "21" and "Titanic," the other three are: the Whitney Houston-driven soundtrack to "The Bodyguard" (20 weeks in 1992-1993), Garth Brooks' "Ropin' the Wind" (18 in 1991-1992) and Billy Ray Cyrus' "Some Gave All" had 17 in 1992.

In the Billboard 200 chart's nearly 56-year history, "21" becomes only the 20th album to score at least 16 weeks at No. 1.

And with 104,000 sold last week, "21" notches its 33rd week of 100,000-plus sales. The last album to do so was Usher's "Confessions," which also racked 33 stanzas of 100,000 sales in 2004-2005.

As the Nos. 8-10 albums all sell less than 20,000 this week -- this marks the first time in SoundScan history that it takes less than 20,000 in sales to rank among the top 10 albums of the week.

David Crowder Band's Latest Premieres in 1st on iTunes

David Crowder Band's latest and last CD, Give Us Rest (A Requiem Mass in C [The Happiest of All Keys]), premiered in first on the iTunes charts and remains in the second position almost a week later.

David Crowder Band Announces BreakUp and Farewell Tour

In what may seem as a surprising move with a new album and the recently announced fall "The 7 Tour" on the way, David Crowder*Band is calling it quits. Check out their detailed and thoughtful explanation below that is posted on their site.

Important News From Crowder Band
We have several things to let you know about.
First of all, we can't begin to express how excited we are getting about The 7 Tour this fall. If you haven't heard yet, we're doing a national tour with some of our favorite artists ever. Gungor, John Mark McMillan, and Chris August are joining us, and we cannot wait to be in the same room with these folks night after night. We’re pretty sure you'll want to be at every single one of these get-togethers. "Unreasonable!" you say? Well, not to us. That's why we'll be there every single night. Seriously, we, the band, are all getting on a bus and following the whole thing around for like 3 months. It's going to be awesome.

Now, another reason we are sure this will be one of the most meaningful tours we've ever been on is because it will be our last as a band. This is why we so cleverly named it The 7 Tour. We've always hidden this little number here and there in our music and artwork, sometimes it would appear in the sum of the numerals 3 and 4, and other times it would be sitting there outright, but it’s always been with us. As you know, the number 7 has often been used to represent completion, and that feels exactly where we are as a band.

The David Crowder*Band was formed in the year two thousand; it was the dawn of a millennium, Y2K was upon us, and out of this chaos was born the DC*B. That sounds way more epic than we intend it, but it is fact. We signed a 3 album deal with our friends at sixstepsrecords who are part of the EMI/CMG family. We didn’t want to be presumptuous, presuming there would be more than those first three albums, but we hoped. And so we began discussions about building a 6 album set, the second three, if we were ever to have the great privilege of recording them, would be loosely associated with the first three, you know, sort of like how in the creation story day one is related to day four, as in, first there is light, then on the fourth day the sun and moon and stars appear. We do these things because we are quite nerdy and also because we hope to inject meaning wherever and whenever we are able. We also like structure, and this seemed a pretty nifty structure to work within, since, well, it is one of the greatest stories ever. And sure enough, we have had the happy fortune to record five full-length albums and are hard at work on the 6th right now.

The problem, or the beauty, is that we’ve never been able to see past album 6. In the meantime, a lot of life has happened. It is now 2011 (this is for anyone who may not have been paying attention) and in eleven years there have been many twists and turns. Each of us has gotten married. New humans have arrived as a result of these marriages, 5 to be exact. We have also lost some really good friends to death along the way and have gotten to celebrate together that death is not the end of things. It’s really crazy to think that we have lived over a decade of life together. And, in the middle of all this life, we have gotten to make music that was a reflection of what was happening among us. We have attempted, to the best of our ability, to insert all of these twists and turns into our music, hoping that our responses to God in the midst of these moments would be an aid to others.

At the first of this year we began discussing what was next. For a long while, we have had a good idea what we were going to do for album number 6; we were going to record a Mass. Ambitious, maybe, but we had been working out the details of how it would connect to A Collision, you know the one with the boy and the atom on the cover. Mass happens to be a term used in physics, and this was exciting to us. But we also began conversations about what was to follow this sixth album. Some of us discussed maybe going back to school. Some of us talked about how great it might feel to be home with family more. Some mentioned maybe writing for a living, or at least getting to give more attention to it. Some talked about more music to be made and who they might enjoy making it with and how great it would be to have more diverse options open to them and the excitement they felt when thinking about those options (as in, if this was to be the period at the end of a sentence, they couldn’t wait to read the next paragraph!) And, out of these discussions, the decision was reached that this sixth album would be our last. None of us is sure what’s next, but we’re not afraid. We’re, in fact, really, really excited! And we’re sure that music will play a role in the future for most, if not all, of us, since, well, we wouldn’t know how to not have it a part of our lives. To what extent that will be, none of us is sure. We are hopeful and expecting, and praying that what is ahead of us deepens our need and experience of redemption and multiplies our ability and effectiveness in expressing the story of God in light of the call he has on each of our lives.

We are forever grateful for the support we have had from our church community, both local and extended. Really. It has been beautiful, all of it. And we will most definitely keep you informed as things progress and life’s new twists and turns start to make themselves more apparent.

In the meantime, as you can imagine, this album we’re working on is pretty special to us. Fittingly enough, it seems our little Mass has turned itself into a Requiem. We’d love your prayers as we endeavor to put a period at the end of this sentence. And obviously it was not overstated when we said The 7 Tour will be a thing you may not want to miss. We would love for you to join us for one last evening together, singing these songs that God has allowed us to carry.

With Love and Gratitude,
The DC*B

700K Lite-Brite Pegs Light Up Vevo for David Crowder Band

David Crowder*Band’s “SMS (Shine)” Music Video Debuts Today Using An Unprecedented 700,000 LITE-BRITE® Pegs

The Band’s Latest Original Video Creation Debuts on VEVO with “Artists We Love” Placement

David Crowder*Band’s self-made new music video for their latest single “SMS (Shine)” debuts today using an unrivaled 700,000 LITE-BRITE® pegs. The video also features dancing monkeys, jumping frogs and of course an appearance from the David Crowder*Band themselves.

The video portraying a love story made completely of LITE-BRITE® pegs was done solely by hand. Even details such as the piano playing in the background and the monkeys beating a drum in perfect time was done free of digital affects and computer animation. It took 2,150 man hours, 1,200 LITE-BRITE® images, 83 friends and 148 pizzas to complete the video.

Jason Castro - An 'Idol' with Soul

Though he didn't win the seventh season of American Idol, third-place finisher Jason Castro was an enduring fan favorite for his sweet demeanor and soaring performances of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" and his own ukulele-accompanied "Over the Rainbow." Both songs appear on "deluxe" versions of Castro's self-titled debut album, which released two weeks ago.

The dreadlocked singer/songwriter wants the world to know about the second part of that description—songwriter. He's not "just" a singer, like most Idol alums. Castro penned seven of the eight songs ("Hallelujah" is the eighth) on the more widely available version of the new album—mostly poems about love (he just got married in January) and friendship.

A committed Christian, Castro talked to Christianity Today about his new album, how his faith informs his songwriting and his performances, and how David Crowder Band was instrumental in his conversion.

David Crowder Band Experiences Highest Sales Yet

David Crowder*Band’s latest, Church Music, premieres at the No. 11 position on the Billboard Top 200 raking in over 35,000 units the first week. Church Music also peaked at No. 3 on the iTunes® Overall Album chart.

“The street week results for The David Crowder*Band are extremely rewarding, especially in the current market climate, and reflect both the amazing creativity Church Music embodies and the powerful story the Crowder clan has woven together around this new release,” explains sixstepsrecords founder and director Louie Giglio. “Crowder continues to carve out a unique space on the musical landscape with the band's forward-thinking approach to our time-honored faith. I'm proud of the band's efforts, and those of our dedicated sixsteps/Sparrow team."

Church Music is the band’s highest debut to date with a 10% increase from the band’s previous release in 2007 of Remedy. This increase comes despite the market’s decrease.