Casting Crowns

The Christian pop group Casting Crowns formed in 1999 as a student worship band in Daytona Beach, Florida. Led by singer, songwriter, and youth pastor Mark Hall, the group's initial lineup also included violinist Melodee DeVevo and a pair of guitarists, Juan DeVevo and Hector Cervantes. The musicians relocated to McDonough, Georgia in 2001, and expanded their lineup by adding bassist Chris Huffman, keyboardist Megan Garrett, and drummer Andy Williams. This augmented version of Casting Crowns released… Show more two independent albums on CD, both of which were well received in the Atlanta area. One of the albums then found its way into the hands of Mark Miller, lead singer for the country group Sawyer Brown, who was struck by Casting Crowns' driving pop/rock style and Hall's vocal delivery of his hard-hitting but devout songs. Miller signed Casting Crowns to his fledgling Beach Street Records, a division of Reunion Records with distribution by the Provident Label Group, and took the group into the studio along with co-producer Steven Curtis Chapman, himself a popular artist on the CCM musical scene. The resulting album, Casting Crowns, was released in 2003 on the Beach Street imprint. It fared extremely well in Christian markets, eventually going platinum and peaking at number two on the CCM charts.

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