Michael Whitaker Smith (born October 7, 1957) is a Billboard top ten Billboard Hot 100 recording artist and Grammy Award-winning American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. He is one of the best-selling and most influential artists in Contemporary Christian music. Smith also has achieved a considerable amount of success in the mainstream music industry. Smith is a three-time Grammy Award winner, and has earned 40 Dove Awards. Over the course of his career, Michael W. Smith has sold more than 13 million albums and recorded 29 No. 1 Hit songs, fourteen gold albums, and five platinum albums. Smith is an American Music Award recipient; he was also named one of People magazine's "Most Beautiful People".

Michael Whitaker Smith was born to Paul and Barbara Smith in Kenova, West Virginia. His father was an oil refinery worker at the Ashland Oil Refinery, one of the top ten largest oil refineries in the world, in nearby Catlettsburg, Kentucky and his mother was a caterer.He inherited his love of baseball from his father, who had played in the minor leagues. As a child, he developed a love of music through his church. He learned piano at an early age and sang in his church choir. At the age of 10, he had "an intense spiritual experience" that led to his becoming a devout Christian. "I wore this big cross around my neck," he would recall, "It was very real to me." He became involved in Bible study and found a group of older friends who shared his religious faith.

After his older Christian friends moved away to college, Smith began to struggle with feelings of loneliness and alienation. After graduating from high school, he gravitated toward alcohol and drugs. He attended Marshall University for a few semesters while developing his songwriting skills. He also played with various local bands around Huntington, West Virginia. During that time, his friend Shane Keister, who worked as a session musician in Nashville, encouraged him to move to Nashville, the Country Music capital, and pursue a career in music.

In 1978, Smith moved to Nashville, taking a job as a landscaper to support himself. He played with several local bands in the Nashville club scene. He also developed a problem with substance abuse.
“I really started losing touch when I moved to Nashville, around April of '78. I was smokin' marijuana, drinking, doing some other drugs; just being crazy, you know. My mom and dad knew what I was doing. But they never hassled me, they just prayed for me. And I felt convicted by God. Every time I'd wake up I knew: This isn't me. But I couldn't change myself. ”

In November 1979, Smith suffered a breakdown that led to his recommitment to Jesus Christ. The next day he auditioned for a new Christian Contemporary Music (CCM) group, Higher Ground, as a keyboardist and got the job. It was on his first tour with Higher Ground, playing mostly in churches, that Smith was finally able to put the drugs and alcohol behind him.

In 1981, Smith was signed as a writer to Meadowgreen Music, where he wrote a number of gospel hits penned for artists such as Sandi Patty, Kathy Troccoli, Bill Gaither and Amy Grant, to the effect that some of these popular worship songs can now be found in church hymnals. The following year, Smith began touring as a keyboardist for Grant on her Age to Age tour. He would eventually become Grant's opening act and recorded his first Grammy-nominated solo album The Michael W. Smith Project (which he also produced) in 1983 on the Reunion Records label, a label started by Grant's brother-in-law, Dan Harrell, along with Michael Blanton. This album contained the first recording of his hit "Friends", which he co-wrote with his wife Deborah. They wrote it one afternoon for a friend who was moving away.

By the time Smith's second pop album was released in 1984, he was headlining his own tours. In 1986, Smith released The Big Picture, produced by Johnny Potoker. Smith intros "Tearing Down the Walls" with an Amy Grant recording of "Emmanuel" played backwards via the CD search button. He has explained that he and Potoker were trying to come up with a different way to go into the song.

After the release of his 1988 effort, i 2 (EYE), Smith once again teamed up with Grant for her "Lead Me On World Tour". The following year, Smith recorded his first Christmas album..........

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