Throw Back: Clay Crosse
When Clay Crosse burst on to the Christian music scene back in 1993 I was doing radio in New York. It was around that time that I first met him. His first project, My Place Is With You, featured singles like I Surrender All and I Call Your Name, and earned him the Dove Award for Best New Artist in 1995. Clay would go on to release Time To Believe in 1995 and Stained Glass in 1997.
It would be another three years before Clay released a new studio project (though there was the compilation CD, I Surrender All: The Clay Crosse Collection, Vol. 1 in 1999), A Different Man in 2000. That project came out after Clay began dealing with a variety of personal and professional issues, including an admitted addiction to pornography and vocal problems. He never regained the heights of popularity he’d managed in the 90s.
But, knowing Clay, I believe he’s happier. Before he hit the “big time” in music he was a Fed Ex driver. Since his last appearance on the radio charts Clay served as worship pastor at a church in his hometown Memphis, TN, along side senior pastor, the late Dana Key of DeGarmo & Key fame.
Now he lives in Bentonville, AR with his wife Renee and their four kids. Clay and Renee wrote a book, I Surrender All: Rebuilding a Marriage Broken by Pornography and head up the family ministry Holy Homes. Clay also serves as Music Pastor at First Baptist Church in Bentonville. And Clay still occasionally performs and released a new CD, reDedication, in 2013. Find out more about what Clay’s been up to on his website, claycrosse.com. But be forewarned, a song from that new CD auto-plays when you go to the website (but that’s a topic for an entry under “Curmudgeon”.)
Here’s the video for Saving The World, from CD Stained Glass.
