Genre: Folk/Acoustic/Americana, Pop/Rock
For fans of: Jewel, Jennifer Knapp, Sarah McLachlan, Sheryl Crow, Amy Grant
Label: Sparrow/EMI

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"After every song I write I wonder if I'll ever be able to write another. I don't feel like a very gifted writer. But for some reason God delights to use imperfect things. I'm blown away when I see Him do something through me that I know was impossible. I have so little to do with it, but He lets me be a part of it, and I love that." – Bethany Dillon

Bethany Dillon's 2004 Sparrow Records debut stood out, because at only 14, she was a serious writer and artist creating her own material, mature beyond her years, with an authenticity of expression and an ability to own the emotion in her music. Audiences connected with her first record almost immediately, and the results included several hit singles, multiple Dove nods, critical acclaim, and an exponentially increasing grassroots fan base that propelled her career forward in great leaps.

Now four birthdays later, an 18-year-old Bethany is releasing her third acoustically-rooted, rock-influenced, pop project, Waking Up. This release finds her venturing into ever-deeper waters musically and thematically, leaning forward into life, and beginning to wrestle with her own shadows even as she celebrates the light that illumines them. The x-factor that informs Bethany's constantly maturing artistry is the fact that her songs aren't created in a vacuum. They're coming from a place of personal weakness and hope that she willingly lives in, in increasing measure. For Bethany, there's no such thing as an easy song. All of them are hard earned, and fraught with wonder and meaning.

"Waking Up is the most joyful record I've made," Bethany explains, "even though it revolves around themes of brokenness and this feeling of being really, really small in the presence of God. When the Lord is growing something in me, it feels like a lot of things are dying—because they really are. And when the Lord is making things soft and vulnerable in me, it's really painful. But even so, I think this is the freest sounding project I've created."

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