JOY
FM's moring host - Naomi Cantrell
announces
Toby
Mac
coming to Illumination in September at DARKE COUNTY FAIRGROUNDS
March 3, 2012
Photo
provided by tobymac.com
UNION
CITY-
As announced by JOY FM’s joy in the morning host, Naomi Cantrell
Friday, Toby
Mac, one of the biggest names in Christian music will be headline
artist at
Illunination 2012 in September at the Darke County Fairgrounds.
The
ascension of Mac’s solo career has been nothing short of spectacular.
In an era
of declining music sales he has consistently defied the odds and has
seen his
sales increase with each new album release. This is no small feat. With
his
fourth studio album TONIGHT set to release on Feb. 9, he is poised to
take
things higher yet again.
Having
climbed the mountain once with the group dcTalk (4 Grammys, more than 8
million
albums sold), TobyMac knows how difficult the journey can be and how
much work
the process actually takes. Rarely does an artist get to soar to great
heights
for a second time, but soar he has. He took home his first Grammy as a
solo
artist last year after receiving Grammy nominations for each of his
first three
solo projects (Momentum, Welcome To Diverse City, Portable Sounds). And
last
year TobyMac topped 2 million in total albums sold during his solo
career. He
has done it with a combination of talent, hard work and humility which
has
produced songs that resonate with people from all walks of life.
Upon
embarking on his solo career, Toby sought to surround himself with a
talented
and diverse cast of characters, aptly named the Diverse City Band. The
result
has been a musical fusion that radiates with an unquenchable energy and
a
penetrating message.
A
self-professed perfectionist when making records—he’s been known to
relentlessly tweak and massage every little thing in an inexorable
effort to
make it sound better—Toby is the first to admit that he has to
workreally hard
to make great music. “That’s what drives me,” he says. “I feel like I
have to
work harder than other people to get there. Sometimes I feel like I’m
slightly
under-gifted; I usually don’t sit down and write a great song in just a
few
minutes like others can. But I think my work ethic makes up for that.”
Starting
with dcTalk, and then going solo when the group disbanded in 2000, Toby
still
clings to such rootsy notions as hard work, persistence, patience
and—perhaps
most relevant of all—the power of music, which he insists is still what
keeps
him going.
“It’s
the
truth,” he says. “I still believe that a song can penetrate a heart. I
believe
God can use a song to open someone’s mind and heart. Other songs can
just drop
what I call, ‘the joy bomb’ on somebody. I fight really hard to remain
unjaded—to keep believing that you can actually walk into a studio and
write a
song that breathes life. That’s the hardest fight for a guy who’s been
doing
this for a while; it’s easy to fall into the trap of just making it
your job.
But I still believe that songs matter.”
The
songs
on TONIGHT certainly matter—everything from the prayerful first single
“City On
Our Knees” to the testimonial “Changed Forever,” from the worshipful
“Captured”
to the confessional “Start Somewhere,” and even down to the
put-on-your-party-hat grooves of “Funky Jesus Music” and “ShowStopper.”
One
theme that runs loud and clear throughout is the idea that we all need
God, and
we need him now—this morning, this afternoon, tonight.
“Right
here, right now / Under the stars / I promise You my heart / ’Cause it
starts
tonight,” Toby sings on the chorus of the title track. “If you gotta
start
somewhere why not here? If you gotta start sometime why not now?” he
asks on
“City on Our Knees.” And “I wanna straighten this before the sun goes
down
tonight,” he proclaims on “Start Somewhere.”
“There’s
definitely a sense of urgency on this record,” says co-producer Chris
Stephens,
who has worked on TobyMac’s last three CDs. “And it’s an album that
speaks of
unity, of coming together and finding common ground to worship God.”
Toby
has
long had a passion for racial reconciliation and unity, a recurrent
theme in
his music. TONIGHT includes songs of reconciliation of another
kind—between
husband and wife. Toby and Amanda have been happily married for 15
years, but
like all couples, it can be hard work sometimes. For Toby, who best
expresses
his emotions through music, it was a natural step to write about it. In
“Hold On,”
he sings, “If you move just a little bit closer / You can put your head
on my
shoulder . . . / Wipe away those tears / This one’s for you.” And on
“Start
Somewhere,” he’s downright confessional: “I said some things that I
regret /
And if I could, I’d take ’em back / But here I am, and there you are /
The
space between us is not so far / I’m reaching out my hand in love.”
“‘Hold
On’
is very personal,” Toby says. “Many lines are there to encourage my
wife, but I
know those lines could encourage anybody in a relationship. As for
‘Start
Somewhere,’ any time you’re in love with somebody, you’re going to bang
heads
from time to time. I don’t know how many times I’ve been lying in bed,
sweating
it out and thinking, How am I going to make this right? But then you
reach that
moment of apology and forgiveness. That’s one of my favorite songs on
the
record; it’s a personal perspective on confrontation and
reconciliation.”
And
then
there’s “Wonderin’,” in which Toby reminisces about the past with Kevin
Max and
Michael Tait in dcTalk, one of Christian music’s biggest acts in the
1990s. “We
was ridin’ in style, clockin’ them miles / With the songs that He put
down deep
in our hearts . . . / I’m wonderin’ ’bout the way I spend my days /
Wonderin’
if it’s even worth the chase / Wonderin’ if they’re stealin’ me from
you.”
“It’s
just
a warm look back at dc Talk,” says Toby, almost wistfully. “It’s
reminiscing
about Michael and Kevin and what we did together, and recognizing their
influence on me. I love what I do today, but there are times when I
wonder,What
if we stayed together? I’ve got these dreams I’m pursuing now, but are
they
stealing me from you? I think about Kevin and Michael on every song I
write.
That’s the truth man, we climbed a mountain together.”
Sonically,
TONIGHT is typical TobyMac in many ways—an eclectic mix of rap, rock,
pop and
funk, all laden with catchy hooks and melodies just itching for airplay
and
audience singalongs. There’s even a healthy dose of reggae on the album
closer
“Break Open the Sky,” where Toby flexes his Jamaican family ties while
Israel
Houghton provides guest vocals. Other visiting vocalists include
Skillet’s John
Cooper on “Tonight” and Relient K’s Matthew Thiessen on “Wonderin’.”
Of
course
most of the vocals belong to the artist himself. Stephens says Toby
“has
stretched himself as a vocalist, he writes about things he is
passionate about
and his vocals reflect that urgency”. Toby agrees: “I do more singing
on this
record than ever before. I’m learning to use my vocal instrument in
different
ways, and I’m getting more comfortable with it everyday”.
It
all adds
up to a project that reflects one man’s desire to push himself beyond
“very
good,” to dig deep in the quest for that other country where greatness
resides.
He certainly reached for it. Hard.
“I’ve
worked very hard not to fall into the trap of making this just a gig,”
he says.
“If it is a labor, it’s a labor of love. I know music can’t change the
world,
but who says God can’t speak through a song.”
Right
here,
right now. TONIGHT.
Early Bird
tickets will be going on sale
soon. Cantrell said to keep listening for details as more artists will
be
announced in the future.
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