Several years ago, Christian rock singer Margaret Becker couldn`t have sat at home listening to one of her albums or watching one of her videos even if she had wanted to.
She didn`t have a stereo. Or a TV or a VCR. Not to mention too many other comforts of home, because she had given them away in an effort to simplify her life and get closer to the lifestyle Jesus calls his followers to in the New Testament.
”Before the album `The Reckoning` came out, I had gone to Europe and I was blown away by the way they intertwine culture and faith,” she said in a phone interview from her Nashville home. ”In America, some Christians see culture as an enemy of faith. But Europeans are not as materialistic as we are; Christianity seemed to be so simple there.”
So when she returned, she swept out her home like a human vacuum cleaner. ”I gave away the TV, the stereo, some furniture, pictures on the wall,” she said. ”I had too many clothes, too many coats, too many shoes.”
When she was done, about all that was left was a couch, a lamp and a desk. Hence, the name of her latest album, ”Simple House,” which just earned her the third Grammy nomination of her career.
Her current tour brings her to Judson College in Elgin for a Saturday concert. (Tickets are $10 in advance, $12 at the door; call 708-752-8959.)
”Simple House” is a metaphor for Becker`s life. For while she has allowed a few possessions back into her two-bedroom home in a middle-class neighborhood (”I probably make what an accountant makes”), she said she`s keeping her lifestyle simple. She`s applying the same measure to her earnings, choosing to divert a chunk of her wages to charity before she even sees it.
For every copy of ”Simple House” that`s sold, 55 cents goes to Habitat for Humanity, the social agency that helps poor people build modest homes for themselves. Becker`s fame may be leagues behind that of such Habitat helpers such as Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, but the 85,000 copies that ”Simple House” had sold prior to the Grammy nomination this month have helped build a house in St. Louis. A benefit concert in Nashville was aimed at funding a house in one night, and a Habitat representative is available for information at every stop on Becker`s tour. Becker has also hammered away at a couple of construction sites herself.
Becker also sponsors a needy Peruvian child through Compassion International, a Christian relief agency, and a Compassion brochure is included inside copies of ”Simple House.”
As Becker`s life has taken a dramatic turn in the last few years, so too has her music. When she first arrived on the Christian rock scene, her layered guitars and multioctave voice (she once auditioned for the Metropolitan Opera) drew dozens of comparisons to Heart. But as Becker`s songwriting has matured, she has begun to put a more personal stamp on her albums, with songs that owe more to Kate Bush than Heart.
”On my first album, I was very new at what I was doing,” she said. ”I didn`t know a lot about the production of songs, so I was a lot more quiet in the studio.”
But on ”Simple House,” she said, ”I came to the table with almost all the arrangements written out.”
Lyrically, Becker`s words, not to mention her vocal delivery, share the gut-level honesty and intensity of Melissa Etheridge as she deals with her hopes and fears, joy and alienation:
”Sometimes I dance like a gypsy,/Sing too loud, play like a banshee./
Sometimes I don`t eat for a week,/Spend my time talking to you on my knees./
I`m just a love-driven fool,/And whatever I can do/I`m gonna do for you.”
That kind of stark honesty-and commitment-is a bit unusual for Christian music, but Becker is something of an anomaly in her field. She`s a woman in a male-dominated industry and, in her early 30s, is still single and likes it that way, despite pressure from others in the Christian music business-and audience-to get married.
”I`m probably unique in this business in that I don`t want to get married,” she said. ”Maybe it`s because I live with guys day in and day out on tour. They`re close friends on the road, but when I get home I just want to hole up by myself.”
Even among Christian musicians, Becker may be taking the road less traveled. But it`s making it a much more enriching journey for her listeners.
