{"id":5837,"date":"2021-10-01T21:21:31","date_gmt":"2021-10-02T01:21:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/reelfaith\/?p=5837"},"modified":"2021-10-02T09:30:34","modified_gmt":"2021-10-02T13:30:34","slug":"amy-grant-tobymac-kirk-franklin-bare-their-souls-in-new-doc-the-jesus-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/reelfaith\/2021\/10\/amy-grant-tobymac-kirk-franklin-bare-their-souls-in-new-doc-the-jesus-music.html","title":{"rendered":"Amy Grant, TobyMac, Kirk Franklin Bare Their Souls in New Doc ‘The Jesus Music’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u201cI\u2019ve never shared this with anybody,\u201d singer TobyMac admits in one of the most engaging segments of the new documentary \u2018The Jesus Music.\u201d<\/p>\n

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TobyMac image courtesy of Lionsgate.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The GRAMMY Award-winning artist is one of several notable figures, including Kirk Franklin, Amy Grant, Michael Sweet, and Michael W. Smith, offering a \u201cbehind-the-scenes\u201d look at their lives and inner thoughts in the cinematic project.<\/p>\n

The film, covering the history of contemporary Christian music, highlights the movement\u2019s humble beginnings in Costa Mesa, California, before moving across the decades and states to include a variety of artists, both past and present. For co-director Andy Erwin, who tackled the project with his brother Jon under their Kingdom Story Studios banner (\u201cI Can Only Imagine,\u201d \u201cI Still Believe\u201d), the opportunity to produce \u201cthe anthology of Christian music\u201d was quite surreal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember driving around in 1981 Camaro Z-28 with DC Talk \u2018Jesus Freak\u2019 playing,\u201d he said. \u201cI was an uber fan. So, to sit down with Toby and Tait and Kevin Max and Dan Haseltine and Rebecca St. James, and, and Mark Stuart of Audio, Adrenaline, or Eddie DeGarmo, who\u2019s like The Godfather of all that music, I was kind of geeking out a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Erwin points to TobyMac\u2019s interview as one of his personal highlights, a session he said that included about \u201ctwenty minutes of sizing me up\u201d before the artist opened up and shared deep insights, both professional and personal in nature. Similarly, Amy Grant also delivered what he calls a very \u201craw and honest\u201d interview detailing pushback from listeners through the years as well as fallout from her public divorce.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt that time, she was a few weeks out from having her open-heart surgery,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, she was just a really kind of place where she was really transparent and open. We interviewed her through the window of her house, so that we protected her from being exposed to COVID. She gave just one of the most raw and honest interviews I\u2019ve heard an artist give a long time. And that really kind of spread to everybody else we invited.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read \u201cWhere Are the Missing Artists and Bands From \u2018the Jesus Music\u2019? Andy Erwin Explains\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

All in all, more than 100 artists were interviewed, and the duo accumulated more than 300 hours of footage which had to be whittled down to an hour and a half film. During the film premiere, Bill Reeves, CEO of the film\u2019s partner K-Love, speculated that those unused hours could be pulled together into a series of additional releases or perhaps a series of documentaries. The company also released a deluxe hardcover book of the same name, \u201cThe Jesus Music,\u201d that includes much of the content from the film, as well as rare photographs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey jumped on board as a partner helped us kind of get started and they\u2019ve got a book that goes along with it, they\u2019re doing and kind of championing it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Since Jon and Andy presented the story of MercyMe\u2019s Bart Millard in \u201cI Can Only Imagine\u201d and Jeremy Camp\u2019s in \u201cI Still Believe,\u201d the brothers\u2019 love of Christian music has been on full display. In an early interview with Reel Faith, Andy hinted at additional music projects to come, and now that two of those have completed, he says there are still more to come.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got a couple of projects that are in development I\u2019m excited about we\u2019ll announce soon, with other directors that are going to come in and tell their stories\u201d, he explained. \u201cThat is more than just me and Jon behind the camera. So, yeah, we love this music. We love the audience. We love the fans. To be able to present a project like \u2018The Jesus Music\u2019 that brings us all back at theatres together again, after being out of it for two years, not being able to really celebrate the music in person together, now being able to come together in the theater and say, \u2018Remember the music we love\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Jesus Music,\u201d directed by Jon and Andy Erwin and featuring Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith, TobyMac, Kirk Franklin, Lauren Daigle, Glenn Kaiser, Greg Laurie, John Thompson, For King & Country, Bill Reeves, Eddie DeGarmo, Chris Tomlin, Michael Tait, Kevin Max, LeCrae, Mandisa, and Bill Gaither, is now in theaters.<\/p>\n

Click below to watch exclusive videos from the world premiere in Nashville.<\/p>\n