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News & Reporting

October 28, 2020

The following article is located at: https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2015/april/died-billy-ray-hearn-ccm-amy-grant-keith-green-steven-curti.html

News & Reporting, April 2015

Gleanings

Died: Billy Ray Hearn, CCM Pioneer Who Discovered Amy Grant, Keith Green, and Steven Curtis Chapman

Michael Card, Twila Paris, and other stars of contemporary Christian music pay tribute to Sparrow Records founder.

Bob Smietana | posted April 16, 2015

Died: Billy Ray Hearn, CCM Pioneer Who Discovered Amy Grant, Keith Green, and Steven Curtis Chapman

Image: Gospel Music Association

Billy Ray Hearn (right) presents Sparrow awards to Charlie Peacock, Steven Curtis Chapman, Andrae Crouch, and Michael W. Smith.

Billy Ray Hearn, a pioneer of contemporary Christian music (CCM), died Wednesday.

Hearn, 85, launched the careers of Amy Grant, Keith Green, Steven Curtis Chapman, and BeBe and CeCe Winans.

“He was the first true label A&R (artist and repertoire) guy who started the very first professional Christian record company,” his son, Bill Hearn, toldTheTennessean. “He was a giant of a person; he had so much impact and influence on people in his life and his work. His legacy is going to continue to inspire people for years and years to come."

Hearn, a Baylor University alumnus and a Korean War veteran, was a Baptist music minister before getting into the music business in the mid-1960s, according to the Tennessean. He signed Grant to Myrrh Records, a label he started, in 1977.

He later started Sparrow Records in the mid-1980s, which became one of the most successful Christian music labels. By 1989, Sparrow had $20 million in annual sales, reported the Los Angeles Times.

By the mid-1990s, Christian music had become big business, and major record companies snatched up Christian labels, including Sparrow. Albums sales at Sparrow and other record labels jumped from 31 million in 1996 to 44 million in 2000. After Sparrow was sold to EMI in 1992, sales more than doubled and the company’s value grew from $35 million to a reported $135 million in 2002. That growth prompted fears that the Christian message of CCM was being lost, reported CT under the headline, “CCM’s Growing Pains.”

Hearn never lost his focus on the message of Jesus, said Michael Card, a former Sparrow artist.

“He was a profoundly good man,” Card told CT.

Card recalled first meeting Hearn while standing in line at a movie theater in the 1980s. At the time, Card was stuck in a contract dispute with another label and things weren’t going well. Hearn introduced himself to Card, and later help him get out of that situation. He later signed ...

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