Release Magazine Article (February/March 1997)

More Than Warm Welcome
       JACI WAS OFFICIALLY PRESENTED TO THE WORLD OF Christian music during Gospel Music Association Week 1995, the Nashville-based event for industry education, concerts and hobnobbing. Sunday night's worship at the Ryman Auditorium opened the week with a stellar cast of musicians. And Jaci, obviously the "new kid on the block," felt the pressure, though unaware of the buzz that surrounded her name.
       "I actually started crying at sound check for that concert. It was all nerves. It was my first time to see all the people I've looked up to forever. I couldn't handle it. I was like, I'm in over my head! I can't do this! And I started bawling."
       Whether she felt that she could or she couldn't, she did. And by the end of the year she topped 5 radio charts. "If This World" topped the CCM and CRR adult contemporary charts for June 3 and 10. "Flower in the Rain" held No. 1 on the same charts September 2 and 9. And the title track, "Un Lugar Celestial" from A Heavenly Place squeaked in at No. 1 on the CRR adult contemporary chart just before year's end.
       Jaci is one of the many new female artists creating a buzz throughout Christian music. Strangely though, not all of these young artists interact with each other. But those who have sometimes work through their unusual circumstances together
       "I hang out with the Out of Eden girls and we talk about [our situation] sometimes. We talk about how people make a lot of comparisons to people like Amy Grant. And I guess I know personally that I respect all those people, and if they want to make a comparison, I consider it quite a compliment."
       Only recently, Jaci met fellow ingenue Sarah Masen, while making an AIDS benefit recording with Kathy Troccoli. Troccoli found it quite amusing when one of the girls said "cool beans" over the talk back mic to the engineer. Several young artists were purposely brought in to work on the project beside better-known performers like Grant, Michael W. Smith, Carman, Clay Crosse and others.
       "I think that there is a new wave coming in," says Jaci of her cohorts, "and that's not pushing out the others. There has to be new people always coming in and out. It has to be that way, otherwise there can't be any ministry.
       "I'm so proud to know I can be a part of the new move, and to know that we're going to be a part of the past one day. That's huge. It's a big deal."

All-American Family Girl
       BEYOND THE WONDERFUL COMBINATION OF TALENT AND age, Jaci Velasquez is most recognized for her ethnic background. In name and appearance, she is obviously Hispanic.
       "I have a little bit of everything coming into me," she explains. "I mean Arabic, everything. You name it; I've got it. I'm half white, half Hispanic. My dad's French. My mother's family is from Spain."
       Don't think she is citing reasons to disavow her Spanish heritage. Jaci just finds all the attention it brings a little amusing, for her family settled in America three generations ago.
       "I'm an American kid," she says, "but I culturally know where I come from. Hispanics are very family-oriented. We love our families and we look to them for everything."
       Jaci grew up the youngest of five children: three brothers and one sister. The sibling next to her in age is a brother nine years older. Her father began his traveling ministry when Jaci was 9 years old. She was the only sibling who grew up on the road.
       "[My brothers and sisters] were already settled in where they were in life. They didn't really have a part in [my father's] ministry. They were all in college when we started traveling."
       After Jaci recorded Heavenly Place, one brother was bitten by the music bug and began working for Mark Heimmerman's Fun Attic Productions. Another brother runs a tennis club; one is in the fire hydrant business, and her sister is a homemaker.
       Jaci speaks adoringly of her siblings, playfully poking fun at their "different" lifestyles. But, when it comes down to it, Jaci knows she is probably considered the oddball of the family--the touring musician.
       "Everybody expects you to be something," she says of childhood, "and you turn out completely abnormal from the rest of the family!"
       And it's her family that she most depends on.
       "My family is really, really, really the number one thing in life. For me, the hardest thing being on the road is having to say 'Bye' to my brothers and sister, and not being able to see them as much as I'd like. That's when my heart just kind of tears in two."
       Having grown up with small support roles in her father's ministry (background vocals, "you know, 'ooo's and ahh's'"), Jaci marvels at the evolution of her parents' faithful support.
       "My dad is a prayer warrior," she says. "I pray. I know that's where my relationship with God develops. But I don't know what I'm going to do when my dad goes on to be with the Lord, and when I'm grown up and I'm not going to be able to be with him all the time."
       While she counts on Dad for sturdy prayer support, and calls him her greatest musical influence, he still travels on his own. "It started out, I would sing one song for my dad's ministry. Now I don't even get to travel with him. We didn't realize just how much we relied on each other until we did a couple of services this last weekend. I hadn't done a service with him in probably two years. I realized just how much we looked to each other for spiritual growth and for just everything."
       Jaci speaks as if she is truly daddy's girl, but Mom is her best girl friend and mentor. "She travels as my companion, someone to help me out with life," Jaci says in a sentimental tone. "She really is who I'm accountable to spiritually. It's so hard, because sometimes we don't get to go to church on Sundays. And I look to my mother who's a lot more spiritually mature than I am. She's the person who really keeps me grounded."
       While Mom is on the road day-to-day, she has yet to pick up the persona of either a road manager or a stage mother. "She only does my hair and make up," says Jaci as she begins to laugh, "because she knows I can't do it!"

Shepherdess of A Generation
       A CHAT WITH JACI IS BRIGHT AND FUN. IN A MOMENT'S TIME she is reflective and silly, young but mature. "I'm a 17-year-old living in a really grown-up world. I'm not a grown-up," she explains. "Sure I can act like I'm 22 sometimes, then I can act like I'm 10."
       But when it comes to career decisions, it's her mature side that seems to surface. "I didn't come into Christian music going, 'Well, I want to become a star!' Whatever. That's nice, but I wanted to just be a help to anybody. I have a servant's heart."
       She pauses. "Well, I mean, I love it when people do stuff for me, too." She bursts into laughter and tries to compose herself to finish. "But I do have a servant's heart."
       Though her audience is a cross-section of youth and adults, a fact that Jaci finds to be a blessing, her heart is directed to minister to her peers. "Those are the people I'm going to grow up with. We'll always be together. We'll always be on the same wavelength."
       Jaci admits to occasional frustrations stirred up by adult reactions to her age. She doesn't project a need to defend herself on her ministry, but speaks matter-of-factly, "I know no matter what I say, it's going to be there--the fact that I'm young. People are not as weird about [my age] as I thought they would be. I kind of get frustrated with people thinking, Well, she can't tell me anything because she's a kid. What does she know?
       "There are a lot of problems that the youth deal with, that I deal with personally. That's everything: abuse, AIDS, premarital sex...but the youth themselves need ministry. That's where I come in. I'm just a person who says, You know what? I know what you're going through. Together we'll get through it.
       "There's a lot more going on being a 17-year-old today than there was when my parents were this age. We have a lot more pressures. You have to be strong and you have to hold fast to what you believe."
       In fact, Jaci co-wrote the song, "I Promise" as a testament to her desire for sexual purity. "I have my own ring as a sign of that," she says. "Keeping yourself pure until marriage is a huge thing for me and I've made the promise."
       Her desire to encourage youth toward sexual purity comes from an upsetting situation close to home. "I have a 14-year-old friend and she has a baby. She and the baby have full-blown AIDS. You look at that and realize how unnecessary that was. And there's nothing you can do about it. The only thing you can do is pray.
       "I would hope I could encourage youth to refrain from sex before marriage, so we don't ever have to worry about those things. We don't ever have to feel that pressure all the time. That's the only thing we have that we don't have to give away. It's up to us."

Path of Trust
       THE UNIQUE LIFESTYLE TRAVELING AND MINISTERING HAVE created for Jaci has its pros and cons. But she is uniquely well-adjusted, and candid about how she deals with constraints that her career brings to her life. "My friends really understand my life is kind of odd and strange at times. They really understand I can't go with them all the time. It's hard for me sometimes because I'll be on the road and I'll just get really homesick and miss them."
       Jaci has been home schooled since her father first began traveling. And with the growth other own ministry, people often ask if she is missing her teenage years.
       "Well, I do feel like I'm missing out. I miss going to school dances, even though my dad doesn't believe in dancing. I've never had a locker before. I want one.
       "But I love what I do and I wouldn't trade it for the world. Home schooling allows me to do what I need to do."
       Early this year, after she completes her second album, she plans to record a Spanish-language album of salsa-style music. Doing more of her own songwriting is important to Jaci, since she feels it's the best way to communicate what's in her heart.
       Songs should not be of great concern, though -- not with the hit makers who penned three No. 1's for Heavenly Place. After that smashing success, it's hard to fathom what lies ahead. "I do consider it quite a pressure because everybody expects something. I think just because of the songs, the No. 1's, people expect, Well, I guess she's going to have some more now.
       "And to know that I have to go into the studio and do another record. And it has to be better than this one. I'm just dying!
       "But I really don't think God puts you in a world where He doesn't think you can handle it. And He's put me here. He had to give me the ability and the know-how to go through it. The second God says, 'Don't do it anymore,' I'm going to be like, 'No!' But if God pulls you away then He'll give you everything that you'll need to go away [from it]."
       So the next time you see Jaci Velasquez, feel free to commend her for striking the balance of youth and responsibility, for the joy of her faith and family, and for sharing all these things that make her a wonderful success story. Her parents deserve the same. And, if you have an extra locker, donate it to the cause.

BY AMY E. DIXON | Photographs by Matthew Barnes