Ellie Holcomb
There’s a story etched into the walls of the Grand Canyon. It’s a story of one disaster after another. Layer upon layer of landslides, mudslides, volcanos, droughts, and floods. Yet, at the bottom of that valley, the Colorado River snakes its way through the dry and dusty rocks flowing with a current of running water. Singer/songwriter Ellie Holcomb found herself camping on the banks of that river, captivated by her vast surroundings. In the wake of COVID-19, rising racial tension, and deep division across the country and around the world, Holcomb marveled at how this canyon felt like a picture of many people’s hearts in this crazy hard and chaotic season. Lying on her back at the base of that canyon a mile deep into the surface of the earth, it hit her: “We all know what it’s like to have our hearts break and split wide open like a canyon, but there in the middle of our deepest pit of sorrow, there’s a river running through, a current of God’s love ever-present, ever-flowing, ever-ready to carry us through our darkest nights and our deepest ache.” And all at once, her new album, CANYON, was born.
CANYON serves as Holcomb’s third full-length solo project—and her first in partnership with major label Capitol Christian Music Group—but the mother of three is already a seasoned artist. She recorded and toured full-time with her husband’s band, Drew Holcomb and The Neighbors, for eight years before stepping off the road when her first child was born. Her solo debut, As Sure As The Sun (2014), landed her a Top 10 hit at Christian radio with “The Broken Beautiful” and a GMA Dove Award for “New Artist of the Year.” Her critically acclaimed sophomore LP, Red Sea Road, followed in 2017. In subsequent years, Holcomb has released two children’s books—each with a companion EP of original music written specifically for kids, the second of which earned her a Dove Award for “Children’s Album of the Year” in 2020. She’s consistently writing, touring and performing while raising three kids with Drew in her hometown of Nashville, Tennessee. (They’ve been dancing in the kitchen to the new songs on CANYON, and she can’t wait to share them with the world.)
Holcomb wanted to write a soundtrack to this healing journey and to the beautiful discovery that God’s love runs deeper than our greatest pain and division. “CANYON is a record about an enduring love that holds us, even when we are falling apart,” she shares. “There’s a current of love that will carry us when we can’t carry on any longer.”
That transformative night camping on the banks of the Colorado, perhaps in the darkest place she’d ever been, void of any ambient light, she realized the stars appeared to be shining more brightly than ever before. It was an expansive picture of the hope she discovered in deep valleys of personal and global grief. She couldn’t shake it.
Building on this idea, Holcomb came home and wrote upwards of 60 songs for her new project, co-writing with like-minded songwriters like Natalie Hemby, Thad Cockrell, Bear Rinehart (NEEDTOBREATHE), Christa Wells, Jon Guerra and David Leonard, among others. Holcomb also penned several selections with the project’s producer, Cason Cooley (NEEDTOBREATHE, Ingrid Michelson, Drew Holcomb and The Neighbors).
“Constellations,” the first track released from the album, proved to be a fitting introduction to the poetic lyricism and imagery-rich themes woven throughout CANYON’s dozen tracks. Meanwhile, Holcomb’s raw vocal on “Constellations”—recorded in one take—previewed a new facet of her voice she hadn’t unearthed prior to CANYON. “I think in some ways, that song opened up a new place vocally for me,” she reflects. “I sang in a different way on this record than I’ve ever sung before, and I wrote differently. I think part of that came from experiencing a deeper level of healing personally. I accessed a deeper level of my voice that I didn’t even really know was there.”
