ChristianMusicDaily

I first met Aaron Greer on a hot summer day at an amusement park pavilion as we were both waiting in line to say “hi” to Christian singer Rebecca St. James at Kingdom Bound Christian music festival in Upstate New York. He and I were both young and giddy with excitement over our first encounter with Christian music's most famous and desirable female. He took my picture with her using my camera, and vice versa.

Here's something you don't normally see in contemporary Christian music: a former opera singer crossing over to the adult contemporary/pop style. Tim Juillet used to sing with various opera companies in Los Angeles, but now the happily married husband and father of two little girls is singing songs about Jesus on his new inspirational CD, Give Me Words.

If you listened to Christian rock in the 1990s, dc Talk, a trio featuring Michael Tait, Kevin Max, and Toby McKeehan,  Since going their own separate ways in the year 2000, each member has done their own thing, musically, with McKeehan, now known as tobyMac, having had the most success.

While his driver’s license would indicate he’s over 40, if you listen to tobyMac’s new CD, Portable Sounds, you might think you’re listening to music made by someone in their twenties. It’s a blend of potent pop, rock, rap, and dance, as if Justin Timberlake, Kid Rock, and OutKast morphed into one skinny, blue-eyed bundle of stylishly dressed energy known as tobyMac.

In the early 1980s, Syracuse, New York native Rick Cua was a member of the secular rock band The Outlaws. After giving his life to Jesus, he set out on his own as a solo Christian rocker, releasing several hit albums in the 1980s and 1990s. It has been about a decade since the last Cua release, “Like A Cool Drink,” and the bass-playing singer-songwriter, who had been helping manage other artists’ careers in the interim, decided it was time to return to his own active music ministry with the new CD, “Won’t Fade Away.”

New Orleans native Jake Smith has weathered many storms in his life, from Hurricane Katrina to several close relatives battling cancer—and winning. The young singer-songwriter offers his take on pressing on in life with his new CD, “Real.”