ABOUT
As one of the most highly acclaimed musicians of our time, Sandi Patty is known simply as “The Voice.”
Having amassed five Grammy Awards, four Billboard Music Awards, three platinum records, five gold records, and an astounding 40 Dove Awards, including 11 consecutive trophies for Female Vocalist of the Year, Sandi is the most awarded female vocalist in Gospel music history. Her powerful discography is over 30 albums deep, spanning nearly fifty years of songs, including perennial hits like “Love In Any Language,” “Via Dolorosa,” “In the Name of the Lord,” “Another Time, Another Place,” and her iconic staple, the Dottie Rambo-penned “We Shall Behold Him.”
In 1986, after years of performing for a largely Christian music fanbase, Sandi’s impeccable voice was introduced to an expansive national audience when her magnificent rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” played during the televised rededication of the Statue of Liberty. Seemingly overnight, the hard-working recording artist from Indiana became one of America’s most in demand and best-loved performers. Her album sales spiked, concert tours sold out, and the television networks kept calling, landing Sandi multiple appearances on popular primetime programs like The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, the GRAMMYs, and NBC’s Christmas in Washington.
“You would never think of the Star-Spangled Banner as being a career-breaking song,” Sandi says, reflecting on the story behind how “her” version of the national anthem came to be. “Ellis Island was being refurbished and the producers of a project celebrating the restoration asked me to record the Star-Spangled Banner for the project, but they wanted a new version. So, Claire Cloninger came up with a brand-new verse and David T. Clydesdale arranged it. And I said to David, ‘Please don’t write me above a high B.’ When I saw the chart, the last note was a D-flat. He said, ‘Don’t worry, you’ll never have to sing it again!”
Neither Clydesdale nor Sandi would ever dream the arrangement would become a signature piece she would perform in hundreds of concerts and on dozens of momentous public occasions for decades to come–high-profile events like A Capitol Fourth on PBS, the Indianapolis 500, ABC’s annual Fourth of July Special, and the inauguration ceremonies of President Bill Clinton in 1997 and President George W. Bush in 2001.
But this was only the beginning of Sandi’s expansive reach. Throughout the late 1990s and 2000s, the versatile vocalist would accept invitations to perform with some of the nation’s most recognized symphonies, including the New York Pops, Boston Pops, Cincinnati Pops, Dallas Symphony and Baltimore Symphony. In 2012, Sandi performed the title role of the famous musical “Hello, Dolly!” in a string of sold-out performances alongside Tony Award winner Gary Beach and the renowned Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra.
A few years later, Sandi announced her Forever Grateful farewell concert tour, an eighteen-month long world tour signifying an end to her career as a full-time touring artist, though not necessarily as a musical artist and occasional concert performer. “What a privilege it has been to share my story and faith through song for so many years,” she shared to media in the 2015 press conference held in New York City. “My heart is full of gratitude for so many who have been along this journey with me. I could never have imagined my career taking me to so many amazing places and meeting so many people who have changed my life forever.”
And for a season, the stage went dark. And the voice was quiet.
At least until now.
Ten years after saying goodbye to tour busses and soundchecks, in celebration of a milestone birthday, the veteran vocalist will release her first new recorded song in over a decade on August 21st–a song aptly entitled, “The Voice I Have Now.” Penned by legendary songwriter Joel Lindsey (Kristin Chenoweth, Avalon) and produced by Dove Award-winning producer Gordon Mote, the song is a statement from a human being poised to share what living looks like on this more seasoned side of life.
“The privilege of turning 70 is that I have more years to look back and see God’s faithfulness,” Sandi expresses. “And the best predictor of God’s future faithfulness is to recount his faithfulness in the past. That is one of the most beautiful things that comes with age–I have so much for which to recount.”
Sandi sings that very sentiment throughout the song’s affective chorus:
Oh, it’s stronger than I ever thought it could have been
So much wiser and yet braver than it dared to be back then
And it’s more content in certain ways
And it’s less concerned with those glory days
When there were doubts to crush and dues to pay
But we paid them all, and how Oh I loved those times
But I’m so thankful for the voice I have now
A testament to her lasting legacy in music and beyond, Sandi was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 2004 and named an Indiana Living Legend in 2007. She and her husband, Don, have a blended family of eight children, and twelve grandchildren. They currently reside in Indianapolis, Indiana.