''Michael W. Smith Project'' is the debut album of Christian recording artist

Michael W. Smith Michael Whitaker Smith (born October 7, 1957) is an American musician who has charted in both contemporary Christian music, contemporary Christian and mainstream charts. His biggest success in mainstream music was in 1991 when "Place in This Worl ...

. The first single from the album, Great Is The Lord, went all the way to number 1 on the US Christian AC and CHR charts. Originally released in 1983, the album was reissued in 1987 with a new cover featuring an updated photo of Smith. The album reached number nine on the Top Contemporary Christian chart.''

CCM Magazine ''CCM Magazine'' is an online magazine focusing on contemporary Christian music and media, published by Logan and Amanda Sekulow. History ''CCM'' was first published in July 1978, as a printed magazine. It has been owned by Salem since 1999. O ...

'' ranked ''Michael W. Smith Project'' at number 34 on their 2001 book ''CCM Presents: The 100 Greatest Albums in Christian Music''. Smith earned his first

Grammy The Grammy Awards, stylized as GRAMMY, and often referred to as The Grammys, are awards presented by The Recording Academy of the United States to recognize outstanding achievements in music. They are regarded by many as the most prestigious a ...

nomination for Best Gospel Performance, Male at the

26th Grammy Awards The 26th Annual Grammy Awards were held on February 28, 1984, at Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles, and were broadcast live on American television. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the year 1983. Michael Jackson, who had been recov ...

Track listing

Note: "First Light" was titled "From Light" on the original vinyl and cassette releases.

Personnel

* Michael W. Smith – lead vocals, backing vocals, acoustic piano,

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, t ...

, Yamaha GS2,

Prophet-5 The Prophet-5 is an analog synthesizer manufactured by the American company Sequential (company), Sequential. It was designed by Dave Smith (engineer), Dave Smith and John S. Bowen (sound designer), John Bowen in 1977. It was the first Polyphony ...

synthesizers * Shane Keister –

Oberheim OB-X The Oberheim OB-X was the first of Oberheim Electronics, Oberheim's OB-series polyphony (instrument), polyphonic Analog synthesizer, analog Subtractive synthesis, subtractive synthesizers. First commercially available in June 1979, the OB-X was ...

, Prophet-5 synthesizers,

vocoder A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''vo''ice and en''coder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation. The vocoder wa ...

* Jon Goin – guitars * Mike Brignardello – bass * Mark Hammond – drums,

Roland TR-808 The Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer, commonly known as the 808, is a drum machine manufactured by Roland Corporation between 1980 and 1983. It was one of the first drum machines to allow users to program rhythms instead of using preset patterns. ...

drum machine on "First Light" * Mike Psanos – percussion * Denis Solee – saxophone * Gary Chapman – backing vocals * Jackie Cusic – backing vocals * Diana DeWitt – backing vocals * David Durham – backing vocals * Teresa Ellis – backing vocals *

Amy Grant Amy Lee Grant (born November 25, 1960) is an American singer-songwriter and musician. She began her music career in contemporary Christian music (CCM) before crossing over to pop music in the mid-1980s. Grant has been referred to as "Honorific ...

– backing vocals on "Friends" * Pam Mark Hall – backing vocals * Chris Harris – backing vocals * Gary Pigg – backing vocals * Kim Smith – backing vocals

Production

* Michael Blanton – executive producer * Dan Harrell – executive producer * Michael W. Smith – producer, assistant engineer * Mike Psanos – engineer *

Brown Bannister Elliott Brown Bannister III (born August 15, 1951) is a contemporary Christian music (CCM) producer and songwriter. Biography Bannister released one album of his own, ''Talk to One Another'', in 1981 on NewPax Records. It was reissued on the Reuni ...

– assistant engineer * John Woods – assistant engineer *

Jack Joseph Puig Jack Joseph Puig is an American audio engineer, record 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 Dou ...

– remixing * Hank Williams – mastering at Woodland Sound Studios (Nashville, Tennessee) * Bill Brunt – art direction * Tim Campbell – photography

Chart performance

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Michael W. Smith Project, The Michael W. Smith albums 1983 debut albums Reunion Records albums