''Unguarded'' is the seventh studio album by

Christian music Christian music is music that has been written to express either personal or a communal belief regarding Christian life and faith. Common themes of Christian music include praise, worship, penitence, and lament, and its forms vary widely around ...

singer

Amy Grant Amy Lee Grant (born November 25, 1960) is an American singer, songwriter, and musician. She began in contemporary Christian music (CCM) before crossing over to pop music in the 1980s and 1990s. She has been referred to as "The Queen of Christia ...

, released in 1985 on

A&M Records A&M Records was an American record label founded as an independent company by Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss in 1962. Due to the success of the discography A&M released, the label garnered interest and was acquired by PolyGram in 1989 and began distri ...

. It is Grant's first album released by A&M. When ''Unguarded'' was released in 1985, Grant was perhaps the most popular star in

contemporary Christian music Contemporary Christian music, also known as CCM, Christian pop, and occasionally inspirational music is a genre of modern popular music, and an aspect of Christian media, which is lyrically focused on matters related to the Christian faith and s ...

, recording songs with religious lyrics in the pop/rock style of the day. With this album, however, the religious content of the lyrics was scaled back as compared with her two previous regular studio albums, ''

Age to Age ''Age to Age'' is the fourth studio album by Christian music singer Amy Grant, released in 1982 on Myrrh Records. ''Age to Age'' was Amy Grant's breakthrough album, finally earning her serious recognition within the burgeoning Contemporary Chris ...

'' and '' Straight Ahead''. The album track "I Love You" was Grant's first secular love song from her own pen. Despite this, the album's lead-off single, " Find a Way", was a number one hit on the Christian radio charts. Four other singles from the album were also Top Ten Christian radio hits. The aggressive mainstream style of the songs on ''Unguarded'', combined with a heavy promotional campaign on the part of the album's distributor in secular outlets,

, helped three of its singles reach the mainstream charts. "Find a Way" was a Top Ten hit on the Adult Contemporary chart and peaked at No. 29 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100, while " Everywhere I Go" was a Top Thirty AC single and " Wise Up" was a minor charting single on the Hot 100. ''Unguarded'' would be certified gold in September 1985, and platinum in June 1986. This was the final album to be recorded at

Caribou Ranch Caribou Ranch was a recording studio built by producer James William Guercio in 1972 in a converted barn on ranch property in the Rocky Mountains near Nederland, Colorado, on the road that leads to the ghost town of Caribou. The studio was in ope ...

, which was owned by former Chicago producer/manager

James William Guercio James William Guercio (born July 18, 1945) is an American music producer, musician, songwriter, and director. He is well known for his work as the producer of Chicago's early albums as well as early recordings of The Buckinghams and Blood, Swea ...

before the infamous March 1985 fire that destroyed the studio's control room. In 2007, ''Unguarded'' was reissued and digitally remastered by Grant's new record label,

EMI EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At the time of its break-up in 201 ...

Sparrow Records Sparrow Records is a Christian music record label and a division of Universal Music Group. History Sparrow Records was founded in 1976 by Billy Ray Hearn, then artists and repertoire (A&R) director at Myrrh Records. Purchased by Thorn EMI in ...

. The remastered edition is labeled with a "Digitally Remastered" logo in the 'gutter' on the CD front. On October 16, 2020, in celebration of the album's 35th anniversary, it was reissued on limited edition white vinyl, with the original 10-song album along with a bonus LP of live tracks and audio commentary from Grant, with an alternate album cover featuring all four of the W-O-R-D album covers. This version was later released digitally on October 30th, for streaming services only.

Track listing

Personnel

* Amy Grant – lead vocals, backing vocals (2, 3) * Robbie Buchanan –

Roland Jupiter 8 The Jupiter-8, or JP-8, is an eight-voice polyphonic analog subtractive synthesizer introduced by Roland Corporation in early 1981. The Jupiter-8 was Roland's flagship synthesizer for the first half of the 1980s. Approximately 3300 units have ...

(1), synthesizers (1, 4–7, 10), synthesizer bass (1), sound effects (4), drum programming (4), synthesizer programming (5),

Yamaha DX7 The Yamaha DX7 is a synthesizer manufactured by the Yamaha Corporation from 1983 to 1989. It was the first successful digital synthesizer and is one of the best-selling synthesizers in history, selling more than 200,000 units. In the early 1980 ...

(8), acoustic piano (10), track arrangement (10) *

Shane Keister Shane Keister is an American musician. He is known for his work as a studio musician, writer, arranger and producer. He plays synthesizer, piano, Hammond B3, Synclavier, Fairlight CMI, Fender Rhodes, and others. History Keister was born in Huntin ...

– synthesizers (1, 7, 9), acoustic piano (1), explosion (2), synthesizer programming (3), Yamaha GS1 (3, 8),

Fender Rhodes The Rhodes piano (also known as the Fender Rhodes piano) is an electric piano invented by Harold Rhodes, which became popular in the 1970s. Like a conventional piano, the Rhodes generates sound with keys and hammers, but instead of strings, th ...

(5),

Memorymoog The Memorymoog is a polyphonic electronic music synthesizer manufactured by Moog Music from 1982 to 1985, the last polyphonic synthesizer to be released by Moog Music before the company declared bankruptcy in 1987. While comparable to other polyph ...

(6), Fairlight (8) *

Michael W. Smith Michael Whitaker Smith (born October 7, 1957) is an American musician who has charted in both contemporary Christian and mainstream charts. His biggest success in mainstream music was in 1991 when "Place in This World" hit No. 6 on the ''B ...

– Yamaha GS2 (2, 3, 8), Memorymoog (3) *

Larry Williams Larry Williams (born Lawrence Eugene Williams, a.k.a. Lawrence Edward Williams; May 10, 1935 – January 7, 1980) was an American rhythm and blues and rock and roll singer, songwriter, producer, and pianist from New Orleans, Louisiana. Williams ...

– synthesizer (7), saxophone (7) *

Dann Huff Dann Lee Huff (born November 15, 1960) is an American record producer and songwriter. For his work as a producer in the country music genre, he has won several awards, including the ''Musician of the Year'' award in 2001, 2004, and 2016 at the C ...

– electric guitars (1-10), guitar solo (4, 5) * Jon Goin – electric guitars (2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9), acoustic guitar (10) *

Michael Landau Michael Christopher Landau (born June 1, 1958) is an American musician, audio engineer, and record producer. He is a session musician and guitarist who has played on many albums since the early 1980s with Boz Scaggs, Minoru Niihara, Joni Mitchel ...

– electric guitars (2, 4, 7, 9), guitar solo (10) *

Paul Jackson Jr. Paul Milton Jackson Jr. (born December 30, 1959) is an American fusion/urban jazz composer, arranger, producer and guitarist. He was born and raised in Los Angeles. Jackson knew by the age of fifteen that he wanted to become a professional mus ...

– electric guitars (7) * Mike Brignardello – bass (2–9) *

Paul Leim Paul may refer to: * Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) * Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity *Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chr ...

– drums (1, 2, 3, 5–10), drum programming (4), drum overdubs (4),

LinnDrum The LinnDrum, also referred to as the LM-2, is a drum machine manufactured by Linn Electronics between 1982 and 1985. About 5,000 units were sold. Its high-quality samples, flexibility and affordability made the LinnDrum popular; it sold far m ...

programming (7) *

Lenny Castro Lenny or Lennie may refer to: People and fictional characters * Lenny (given name), a list of people and fictional characters * Lennie (surname), a list of people * Lenny (singer) (born 1993), Czech songwriter Arts and entertainment Music * '' ...

– percussion (2, 6, 8, 10) *

Bill Champlin William Bradford Champlin (born May 21, 1947) is an American singer, musician, arranger, producer, and songwriter. He formed the band Sons of Champlin in 1965, which still performs today, and was a member of the band Chicago from 1981–2009. ...

– backing vocals (1, 7) * Gary Chapman – backing vocals (1, 3, 6, 8) * Tommy Funderburk – backing vocals (1, 2, 6, 7) * Diana Hanna – backing vocals (1, 3, 8) * Chris Harris – screams (1), backing vocals (8) * Gary Pigg – screams (1), backing vocals (8) * Kathy Burdick – screams (1) * Tom Kelly – backing vocals (2 ,4, 6, 9) * Steve George – backing vocals (4, 9) *

Richard Page Richard Lewis Page (born 22 February 1941) is a former Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) in the United Kingdom from 1976 to 1979 and from December 1979 to 2005. Early life Born the son of Victor Charles Page, he went to the independent Hu ...

– backing vocals (4, 9) * Chris Eaton – backing vocals (5) * Kim Fleming – backing vocals (8) * Donna McElroy – backing vocals (8)

Production

* Brown Bannister – producer * Michael Blanton – executive producer * Dan Harrell – executive producer * Gary Chapman – executive producer *

Jack Joseph Puig Jack Joseph Puig is an American audio engineer, A&R executive, and record producer. He has worked with Tonic, Hole, Jellyfish, The Black Crowes, John Mayer, Weezer, Fiona Apple, Roger Hodgson, Taxiride, Green Day, Counting Crows, No Doubt, Kla ...

– engineer, mixing * Kevin Burns – assistant engineer * Steven Ford – assistant engineer * Dan Garcia – assistant engineer * Alan Henry – assistant engineer * J.T. – assistant engineer * Richard Markowitz – assistant engineer * Mike Ross – assistant engineer * Clark Schleicher – assistant engineer *

Doug Sax Doug Lionel Sax (April 26, 1936 – April 2, 2015) was an American mastering engineer from Los Angeles, California. He mastered three of The Doors' albums, including their 1967 debut; six of Pink Floyd's albums, including ''The Wall''; Ray Charles ...

– mastering at The Mastering Lab (Los Angeles, California) * Kent Hunter – art direction, design * Mark Tucker – photography *

Julie Miller Julie Anne Miller (born Julie Griffin, July 12, 1956) is a songwriter, singer, and recording artist living in Nashville, Tennessee. She married Buddy Miller in 1981. They sing and play on each other's solo projects and have recorded three due ...

– stylist

Album cover

To further heighten Grant's visual appeal, A&M released ''Unguarded'' with four different covers, respectively labeled W, O, R, and D. When the album was issued on compact disc, the 'D' variation became the standard version for the cover. Unguarded_W.jpg, W Unguarded_O.jpg, O Unguarded_R.jpg, R Unguarded_D.jpg, D

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

End-of-decade charts

Certifications

Awards

GMA Dove Awards A Dove Award is an accolade by the Gospel Music Association (GMA) of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the Christian music industry. The awards are presented annually. Formerly held in Nashville, Tennessee, the Dove Award ...

Grammy Awards The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pres ...

References

External links

Unguarded: 25 Years (1985-2010) at chonnie.com
{{Authority control Amy Grant albums 1985 albums Albums produced by Brown Bannister A&M Records albums Myrrh Records albums