Jennifer Knapp

By Martin Huxley

Mar 31 2000

Young singer/songwriter/guitarist Jennifer Knapp made a major splash on the Christian pop scene with her 1997 debut album, Kansas, which sold over 300,000 copies and earned the artist a spot on the 1999 Lilith Fair tour.

"I couldn't predict in a thousand years the type of response that our audience had," she reflects. "I kind of felt responsible for opening the healing process for some people, renewing their faith in God. It's difficult not to feel responsible for following that up."

Knapp's recently released sophomore disc, Lay It Down, seems likely to further expand her following. The album - which Knapp co-produced with Mark Stuart, who also handled production chores on Kansas - showcases the artist's gritty vocals, rootsy folk-blues-rock leanings and personally-charged lyrics.

On the album, original compositions like "Peace," "Into You" and "When Nothing Satisfies" find Knapp stretching out lyrically and testing the limits of her songwriting and leaving herself open to the unexpected.

"I swam around more on the inside," she explains, "left room for interpretation. Rather than knowing exactly how the songs were going to sound going in, I ended up letting it be surprising."