2000 Heart Of A Champion
1999 Passion For Praise
Vol. 1
1998 Yo! Kidz: The Hitz*
1998 Mission 3:16
1997 The Best Of The Early
Years
1996 I Surrender All: 30
Classic Hymns
1996 Lawrence The Kat
& The B-I-B-L-E*
1995 R.I.O.T.
1995 Christmas With Carman
1995 Lo Mejor
1994 Yo! Kidz 2: The Armor
Of God*
1993 Lawrence The Kat
& The B-Attitudes*
1993 The Standard
1993 The Absolute Best
1992 Yo! Kidz: Heroes,
Stories and Songs From The Bible*
1992 Addicted To Jesus**
1991 Revival In The Land**
1991 Shakin’ The House
Live!**
1988 Radically Saved!**
1985 A Long Time Ago…In A
Land Called Bethlehem**
1985 The Champion***
1983 Comin’ On Strong***
1983 Sunday’s On The Way***
1982 Some-O-Dat (Carman)
***
1980 God’s Not Finished
With Me***
(All releases on Sparrow Records, *Everland Entertainment, **Benson Records, ***Myrrh Records)
He looked around and saw
things. Things that disturbed him, things that made him mad. Instead of railing
against the wind, he looked into himself-he listened for God. Knowing that
following his vision would require a radical shift in life as he knew it,
Carman also knew he had to go. And so, he committed himself to do something
about it-to be part of a solution…
It’s hard to believe it’s
been five years.
That’s a long time away from
recording and touring for an artist who’s career has yielded more than eight
million units of product sold over two decades of recording. His concert tours
have drawn countless standing-room-only crowds in the nation’s largest arenas
and stadiums, including the largest Contemporary Christian concert ever, at
Texas Stadium in 1994 when he performed before 71,132 people. And his message
of salvation brought more than a million souls to a place of decision. During
these past four years he has been in pursuit of a new dream-his greatest
challenge and ministry opportunity to date-that of making movies to bring the Gospel
to theatres across the nation.
The result of this vision,
his writing and four years out of the public spotlight, is the upcoming movie
release Heart Of A Champion, scheduled to hit theatres in the spring of
2001. Produced by Matthew Crouch (The Omega Code by Gener8Xion
Entertainment) and directed by multi-Emmy Award winner Lee Stanley, the film
will be released to theatres nationwide. In addition, Carman entered the
recording studio again to produce a double CD/double cassette project due
October 24th. This project is titled Heart Of A Champion (A Collection of 30
Hits), six of the songs are brand new and 24 are Carman classics. Carman
also will hit the road again with Heart Of A Champion-The Tour beginning
October 26th and his first novel, based on the movie screenplay is due November
1st (published by Thomas Nelson). In conjunction with the movie release in
early 2001, Heart Of A Champion, a Carman video collection is planned.
“Sometimes you find out your
vision when something makes you angry,” said Carman. “I’d go and sit in a movie
theatre, and something would happen on screen, and I thought to myself, ‘Now
why did they do this? Why did they say this? Why did they have to show that? If
they would have eliminated these words and these scenes or if they had this guy
do this instead of that, it would have been a great movie!’ I could have taken
anybody to see it, and it would have had a great message to it. As I thought
more about it, it started to make me mad. He explains, “So I said to myself, ‘Why
doesn’t somebody do something about this?’ And whenever I hear that voice that
says ‘Why doesn’t somebody?’ it usually means me. Or you. That means God is
speaking to you saying you ought to do it because you see the problem, you see
the gap, and you see what needs to be done to solve this particular problem.”
As Carman pondered the state
of movies and the great void in the entertainment world when it comes to
Christian content, he began to recognize a new vision being birthed within his
own heart, and a new outlet for the creative gift at the center of his 25 year
Christian music ministry. In spite of his many years of the kind of success
that most recording artists only dream of, Carman decided to leave it all,
becoming a virtual unknown in Hollywood.
Selling his home in
Nashville, and leaving behind the trappings of the music industry and his
reputation as one of the top-selling artists in Christian music, he moved to
Southern California. A newcomer to the West Coast, Carman took the first step
toward his goal. He signed up for screenwriting class. Carman looked to the new
challenge in light of the songwriting he’s done for so many years. “I’ve been
writing stories all along anyway,” Carman mused. “I just had to figure out how
to change them from six minutes to two hours. I needed God’s help with that.”
Carman took some inspiration
from one of the masters of filmmaking, the legendary Alfred Hitchcock. “What
Hitchcock would do, is take a normal man and put him in extraordinary
circumstances, and then watch how he tried to maintain his normalcy through
these unexpected situations,” recalls Carman. “Like Cary Grant in North by
Northwest, all of the sudden, this normal guy is involved in a big spy
plot. Or consider Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window. He just happens to be
looking out a window and he sees a murder. He’s just this normal guy and all
the sudden all this incredible stuff is happening around him.”
Carman explains how those
ideas translated into his concept for Heart Of A Champion. “Instead of
taking a normal man and putting him in an abnormal circumstance, I thought we
should take a godly man, and put him in an ungodly environment. Then we watch
him struggle to maintain his godliness through the entirety of the movie. In
fact, that is the picture of us all. We go to church on a Sunday morning, learn
something, and then we try to figure out the rest of the week how to apply it
to our lives.”
The premise is fleshed out in
the story of Orlando Leone, an ex-fighter who is portrayed by Carman. Following
his exit from boxing, he runs a youth center ministry and starts a new life.
Life seems good for the retired fighter, until all of the sudden things change.
During his shift as a part-time security guard at a hotel, mayhem erupts. In an
effort to stop a noisy party, when attacked, Leone knocks out one of the
instigators who, by chance, is the Cruiser Weight Champion of the World. The
story is big news in the press. Before long, the champ wants to get Leone back
into the ring and seek his revenge. This begins a struggle for Leone, who
doesn’t want to go back to fighting, because his life is involved in the
ministry - but the pressure is on.
To prepare for his first role
in a major motion picture Carman had his work cut out for him. “Back in
February I started training as a fighter and had to lose about thirty-four
pounds in order to become the character Orlando Leone,” explains Carman. “I
worked with Terry Claybon who trained Denzel Washington for the movie Hurricane.
He’s a professional fighter. The training was exhausting, doing four to four
hundred sit-ups every day and going through a grueling beating to prepare
myself for this movie. But it will look real.”
The film’s recent
predecessor, 1999’s The Omega Code was considered the most successful independent
film of 1999 and was shown in 320 theatres. Heart Of A Champion is
scheduled for much more extensive exposure, opening on 800-1000 screens
nationwide.
As wrapped up as he has been
in movie production and all that goes along with this kind of huge undertaking,
Carman is still committed first and foremost to touching lives with the Gospel
through music. “The bottom line is we’re taking the principles of the Gospel of
Jesus Christ to the movie screens of America.”
The double CD set, Heart
Of A Champion, features six new songs all of which Carman is co-writer, and
24 songs from Carman’s rich artistic history of music and ministry. Produced by
Glenn Rosenstein (Madonna, U2, Ziggy Marley, Jars of Clay) in New York and Los
Angeles, the new songs feature some of music’s top studio musicians and
engineers including Leland Sklar (James Taylor, Phil Collins), Michael Brecker,
Luis Conte (Eric Clapton), Steve Skinner (Celine Dion), Curt Bisquera (Elton
John, Tom Petty), Tony Maserati (Marc Anthony), Chieli Minucci (Backstreet
Boys, N’Sync) and Jay Healy (Mariah Carey). These new recordings feature a
decidedly different sound than Carman’s previous projects. Slick pop with some
Latino influence and Carman’s own passionate performance portray an aggressive new
ministry and a fresh new sound.
In addition to the new tunes,
“Heart Of A Champion,” “Faith Enough,” “ Jesus Period,” “Prayer” and “Just Like
He Said” are songs which chronicle some of Carman’s best through the years.
Included are "Who’s In the House,” “America Again,” “Great God,” “I Feel
Jesus,” “There Is A God,” Addicted to Jesus,” “Sunday School Rock,” “R.I.O.T.,”
“The Champion,” “No Monsters,” “Mission 3:16” and “We Are Not Ashamed,” among
others. In addition, what is being touted as the “ultimate Carman video
collection” will be released in spring of 2001, with favorite past videos, a
brand new video for "Heart Of A Champion," archives and
behind-the-scenes Carman footage.
Heart Of A Champion-The
Tour kicks off October 26th and will
feature a special guest, Sparrow Recording artist ZOEgirl. In light of the many
changes in Carman’s ministry, he decided to make some changes to the tour show.
“We’re adding things,” Carman explains. “More dancers, more choreography, more
costumes, more musicians and a bigger stage—we will be using more live
instrumentation, live horns and a full band. I’m eager to be back on the road,
ministering, touching people because when it’s all said and done I still want
to win people to Christ and encourage people in their faith.”
In addition to the movie, CD,
tour and video, Carman set his hand to author a fictional book, based on the
screenplay, Heart Of A Champion. “What will make this interesting for
readers is that the book, like many popular novels, differs from what you see
on the screen,” said Carman. “Every book that’s made into a movie has a screen
adaptation written for it. This is written in the opposite order, but it is
different in that there are twists to the plot in the book that simply aren’t
in the movie.”
Carman’s new life and new
ministry is in full swing. With the tour beginning this fall, his first novel,
the CD release, and in early 2000 the major motion picture and video collection
release, Carman has re-invented his persona, his career and his life. However,
his ultimate goal remains unchanged.
“Heart Of A Champion
is going to almost 1000 screens,” Carman sums up the magnitude of his unfolding
ministry goals. “So we know we’re going to be reaching a lot more people than
ever before. Plus when you consider the tour, the album, the video and the
book, it will be one massive evangelistic outreach I think people are going to
go see the movie and then we’re going to see a lot of new people at concerts
who have never bought a Carman record. We expect people who do not know my
music, but only know me as an actor, to come to the concert, because they want
to see what else this actor does. It’s at that point, with God’s help; I can
lead them to the Lord. That is how this whole new vision for ministry works together.”