FIRST AND FOREMOST:
I love passionately. God. Music. People. Especially Ugandans. Thus, my passion is wrapped up in this: to love with my whole being by spreading audacious honesty and hope through song; and effect positive change in Africa and around the world by inspiring listeners into action. Because without action, faith is dead.
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My New Record THESE COLD AND RUSTED LUNGS will be available everywhere JULY 29th! But if you want a FREE MP3 from the CD, then PRE-ORDER YOUR COPY TODAY!
WANNA KNOW MORE? SCROLL ON...
This is what the "professionals" are saying about the EP, the new album THESE COLD AND RUSTED LUNGS and the single, "THE LIARS":
Randy Brandt | Al Menconi Ministries | Full Review (on These Cold and Rusted Lungs): "Amy Courts continues to forge a path influenced by artists like Jennifer Knapp, Patty Griffin and Jonatha Brooke, but the end result is uniquely hers, a refreshingly authentic statement in a plastic world overrun with trite lyrics....These Cold and Rusted Lungs [is] a tour de force of the singer/songwriter genre."
JT Indie | Full Review (on These Cold and Rusted Lungs): "The music was a great comfort and Amy’s Voice is something that gets inside you, past all the walls and scars of the years....Amy is a Vocal Poet. Her turn of phrase and choice of words paints mental pictures that are clear and rich in detail. This is an album that I will no doubt pull out and listen to for the pleasure of the music, but it is also an album I will pull out and listen to for the message and the comfort it brings."
RE:gard | Full Review (on These Cold and Rusted Lungs): "Clearly someone has got it figured out, because they produce the most staggering melodies. Courts's (independently released) sophomore album These Cold and Rusted Lungs is brimming with honesty....I've always been a bit jealous of throaty voices. They make you want to care about them. I've heard two songs & I already care."
Lo-Fi Tribe | Full Review (on These Cold and Rusted Lungs): "Amy is obviously gifted, versatile, and at all times passionate and honest. Every track is a dive into human experience, spiritual frailty, and a thirsty search for God. In a world of over-produced Christian pop, and corny Jesus songs, Amy Courts’ These Cold And Rusted Lungs is a godsend. It is better than most sermons. It is that good."
The Good Flea | Full Review (on These Cold and Rusted Lungs): "I listened to this album once, maybe twice, before it became like my tye-dyed turtleneck. Soft, comfortable, earthy, deep colors, begging to be worn often. I like it. Liked it right off."
Mark Hollingsworth | Former manager for Petra, Sixpence None the Richer, Smalltown Poets, and Steve Taylor: "Amy's expressive longings accented with her husband Paul Koopman's guitar figures (reminiscent of Lindsay Buckingham?)? and then combined with a lament that we can all relae to at time in our faith journey make for a powerful concoction?. ...Her music doesn't insult the intelligence of her listeners. No cliches, no pablum. It presumes the listeners think deeply and are yearning for something that help them as they explore those inner feelings."
Dave Koch | Publisher & Editor, Christian Radio Weekly: "Amy's music addresses real life issues in a powerful expression of passion and love for those less fortunate in our world."
John Mullins | Writer/Publisher Relations | SESAC: "With these songs Amy has captured a groove that is both compelling and ephemeral. The smooth yet innovative production is a capable match for her songwriting and vocals. Whether she's on stage with a full band or alone with just an acoustic guitar, Amy's voice pulls you in and her heart-wrenching songs hold you there. The live performance is as real and palpable as it can be, without losing the professional edge of being one of the most gifted vocalists and songwriters on today's music scene. Amy is the real deal."
Charles Judge | Producer: "An awesome talent! With her strong, confident writing and amazing voice, Amy is truly inspiring!"
Randy Brandt | Al Menconi Ministries: "What makes an album unique is the lyrical quality, and this is where Amy insists on standing out from the crowd....In a world of cookie-cutter artists and blandly formulaic lyrics, I'm proud to have a friend who takes her art more seriously than those who conform just to land label deals. ...It's safe to say that this CD is a "must have" for anyone who appreciates top-notch female singer/songwriters who aren't smothered in artificial sweetener."
Nick Katona | Owner, Melodic Revolution Music: "I am speechless - what a great EP. I just opened it today and have already spun it 3 times in-store. I just can’t get enough of it. I am giving it 5 Revolutions on our website."
S. Andrew Bolen | CEO, Crimson Forged Records: "Drawing from and blending influences like Jennifer Knapp, Sheryl Crow, Stevie Nicks, coupled with her own unique vocal flair, Amy creates a unique, instantly likable sound."
Robert DeGraw | President, Mane Event Productions: "I am not exaggerating when I say that Amy's debut EP lived in my CD player for over six months, and it is still one of only a handful of recordings that I listen to [on purpose] regularly, right beside the debut from Evanescence, and some of the other artists featured here. "Barely Breathing" is easily my favorite song on the EP, and I become a manic conductor when I play it in my car. Everything on the CD ranges from great to greater, and the production is probably the best that I have ever heard from an indie Artist out of Nashville."
Bruce Von Stiers | BVS Reviews : "Amazing, terrific, wonderful and tremendous are just a few of the many words that describe Amy Courts and her music. It was a pleasure to listen to the album. And getting to meet Amy and listen to her perform live was a remarkable experience."
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And this is what I can tell you about myself:
Born and raised in Denver, I am the youngest of four daughters born to a singing preacher and his pianist-singer wife. Music is in my DNA, along with Christian spirituality and a healthy daily dose of all things theological. I "became a Christian" just a few months after I learned to walk, and was fairly certain that life would be a bag of tootsie pops thereafter, especially since the day I got saved my mom let me jump on the bed. So when a silly boy broke my heart during my junior year of high school, I was all but ruined at the tender age of 16. God became elusive and un-knowable, His presence with me questionable at best, and faith became something I’d have to, for the first time, hash out and make my own.
So, against the soundtrack of the brutal but beautiful honesty of artists like Jennifer Knapp and Sixpence None the Richer, I set out to find a connector between what I knew in my head and what I was experiencing in real-life that seemed to contradict intellect at every turn. I researched and wrote the high school equivalent of a dissertation on the resurrection of Christ, and in so doing discovered the importance of having a personal faith based in reason. And I honed in on my love for writing poetry, decrying the pain of relationships, religion, and human depravity and finiteness, learning the importance of allowing the spirit the freedom to abandon reason and express what only a creative God could understand.
Through it all, a passion for examining and expressing a livable faith through a lyrical and theological lens was unearthed. Inspired by the transparency and honesty of my favorite artists to fearlessly broach the darker sides of faith and ask the dirtier questions most of our peers and leaders considered taboo, I bought a cheap guitar and starting fitting melodies for the poetic questions. This blending together of foundational truth with honest, if dark, poetry in song as an effort to connect my heart and head became a kind of personal therapy, and carried me through my senior year of high school in a new state, a hard-earned bachelor’s degree in theology, and a failed marriage engagement, to the pursuit of music in Nashville, TN...
...Where, while sharing songs at a writer's night, I met the man who would turn all my carefully reconstructed belief systems on their backs, forcing me to re-examine everything from the ground up once again.
Inevitably, what I learned through the process of re-examination served as material for the 17 songs which would eventually compose my first two records, and the man who challenged me into authentic spirituality and true artistry would eventually serve as the male half of my marriage.
Years later, I’m still here navigating, dissecting and responding to an ever-growing passion for connecting basic theology with real-life experience in a relatable way and finding sense in the mess. All these years later I’m still striving to address and flesh out issues of spirituality, theology, love, friendship, purpose, and global poverty and politics with authenticity and gritty honesty through song.
Ultimately, neither my life nor story is terribly noteworthy. But they boil down to a passion for two things of irrefutable importance in an increasingly self-serving world: fearlessly embarking on adventures that challenge me and others to test and own a personal faith, and to activate our theology in the lives of the neighbors we’re commanded to love; and to write honest, provocative music from the discoveries made along the way. I'm honored to have a voice people listen to. But if what I say does nothing to provoke service and love for those in need, it's been used in vain. God forbid.
