If you’re familiar with David Crowder, one characteristic will stand out above all others – and no, it’s not the epic beard, despite it being a great accompaniment to his old-school dark-rimmed glasses and high-top sneakers. No, it’s that he’s the personification of the first half of Proverbs 15:13 (KJV): “A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance…” He’s always smiling. Crowder is disarmingly personable, doesn’t take himself too seriously, and humbly considers himself as utilitarian rather than a Christian music phenom. You get the feeling he is not simply content, but genuinely joyful with a kid-like eagerness to make music that points to the saving grace of Jesus Christ. He refers to it as the Jimmy Buffett effect.
Each song Jimmy Buffett did, he, in some way, transported his listeners to flip-flops and a beach. Each song Crowder creates or performs must also bring his listeners to the same place, a place where we know we’re all sinners, but if we give our lives to God and recognize that Jesus died so we could not only live, but live in total freedom, we already are free. The freedom is release from fear, from sadness and from the crushing weight of guilt and shame. Crowder proves that not only can that be done and done well, but that it can be done in wildly different but equally beautiful ways. If you don’t like cookie-cutter, all-sounds-the-same, messaging-isn’t-right Christian music, Crowder is definitely your guy.
So many types of music present themselves in Crowder’s work that it’s futile to even try to pigeonhole it. When he first started making music for a church as a junior attending Baylor University in Waco, Texas, he felt a great weight to get it right. He wanted to ensure that every song the David Crowder* Band played represented biblical truths and enriched the hearer’s relationship with God. Lyrics that sounded nice, but that missed the point of Jesus’ truths, might provide a false sense of comfort at the cost of true salvation. So, Crowder reasoned that old-time hymns had been around a long time and were fully vetted. He started there.
Even now, nearly 30 years later, Crowder will often play a hymn. For example, his rendition of “Come Thou Fount” on the David Crowder* Band’s “All I Can Say” album is invigorating. Then he’ll switch to something like “Child of God” from Crowder’s “I Know A Ghost” album, which is “swampy,” full of handclapping, foot-stopping, banjo-fiddle-mandolin Appalachian porch music.
But he’s also appreciative of the artistry within the Christian hip hop community. The David Crowder Band* collaborated with Lecrea on “Shadows” for the 2011 “Passion: Here for You” live album, and electric bassist JR Collins appeared on Crowder’s hard-charging “Higher Power” from the “Milk and Honey Tour” album. Then he’s working with Zach Williams to put out the decidedly country single “Still” with accompanying day-on-the-water video. He’s sung a mountainy, pared-down version of “My Sweet Lord” with Emmylou Harris for the “Neon Steeple” album. In other words, his music spans all audiences, just like Jesus talking to all peoples.
David Wallace Crowder was born in Texarkana, Texas, 54 years ago this coming November. He’s been married to his wife, Toni, an architect and interior designer, for over 25 years. They live in Atlanta, Ga. From an early age, he started tinkering on the piano, so his mother made him take lessons. He didn’t enjoy the experience, but he couldn’t know then how well it would serve him throughout his career. At seven, he devoted his life to the Lord through a simultaneously humorous and potentially traumatic set of circumstances.
The Gospel Music Association Dove Awards recognize outstanding achievements in the gospel and Christian music industries. Crowder’s “Grave Robber” (2024), “Higher Power” (2022) and “Wildfire” (2019) were all recognized for Rock/Contemporary Recorded Song of the Year. In 2017, Crowder received a Dove Award in the Short Form Video category for “Run Devil Run,” and in 2015, the “Neon Steeple” album received recognition for packaging.
Awards validate an artist’s creativity, but living a life that is free of fear and letting others know how joyous that is, is what being born again is all about. When the David Crowder* Band disbanded, Crowder faced life-altering uncertainty. He loved making music, but his wife, who had managed the band, expressed her desire to follow her own dreams of working in architecture and interior design.
Crowder didn’t know what to expect. The couple moved from Texas, where they’d always lived, to Atlanta, an upheaval that added to the angst. This season of not knowing what he was supposed to be doing prompted him to lean on God to work out what he couldn’t envision. If God could lead the Israelites through the wilderness, then clearly, he could guide the Crowders to what they needed to be doing. It turned out that God’s plan was perfectly, uniquely and personally detailed, not just for Toni, but for Crowder himself.
The couple ended up in the Cabbagetown section of Atlanta, a residential area for what were once employees of the Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills, established in the 1880s. Crowder began revisiting his childhood interest in bluegrass music. It turns out that Ralph Peer took recording equipment to this area of the city and began collecting the music he found there, including, much to his chagrin, the first known recording of “hillbilly” music.
In 1923, Peer recorded a song by Fiddling John Carson: “The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane.” The Scots-Irish men and women, working the mill and stomping the grounds, would have been listening. The song was a huge success. And, it was recorded at the Nassau Street Studio, which was only about two miles from where the Crowders were now living on Carroll Street.
And that is how God works. Crowder determined that it was time to focus on his wife’s dreams. He was uprooted, unsure of the direction or how it would all work out, but in that process, God showed him that he’d had a plan for him, too, and that it dovetailed perfectly with his wife’s dreams. That’s grace, letting go to serve our spouses and being shown that God will guide us not only to be better husbands and wives, but that all along there’s a plan specifically designed for us, too.
Crowder will be performing Oct. 12 at the Crown Coliseum, 1960 Coliseum Drive, Fayetteville. Contemporary Christian worship band Passion Music and worship leader Kari Jobe Carnes and husband Cody Carnes are slated to warm up for Crowder. His pastor Louie Giglio will also take the stage. Attending the event supports Awakening Foundation, which provides meals, child sponsorship, and bible translations. For tickets, visit https://www.crowncomplexnc.com/events/detail/the-grace-and-glory-tour

(Photo courtesy of Anna Deaton, Oak View Group/The Crown)