High Valley is a Canadian country music duo from Blumenort, Alberta, a small community near the town of La Crete. The band is composed of brothers Brad and Curtis Rempel. Bryan Rempel was a member until March 2014.[1] All three graduated from La Crete Public School.[2] All three grew up in a family oriented Mennonite community. High Valley’s album Broken Borders was named Album of the Year at the 2007 GMA Canada Covenant Awards, while the song “Back to You” was awarded Country Song of the Year.[2] High Valley’s second album, High Valley, was released in Canada and the United States on September 14, 2010. In 2011 the band won five GMA Canada Covenant Awards, including Artist of the Year and Group of the Year. Their third album, Love Is a Long Road, was released on June 12, 2012.

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In college, she met Shane Williams, of the band Silers Bald.  He soon asked her to join the band as their bassist in 1996.  She soon begin writing  some songs for the group. Five years and four indie albums later Laura Story’s manager encouraged her to go solo. She didn’t consider herself a strong singer at the time, but after much thought she decided to go for it.

In the year 2000 Laura Story released a solo independent album featuring songs she had written with Silers Bald and one new song, the album’s title track “Indescribable”.

Though she didn’t realize it at the time, that song would change her life. Four years later Chris Tomlin would record the song. It was a hit, spending 7 weeks at #1 on the Adult Contemporary Music Charts. Avalon also recorded the song.

As Laura Story’s song was becoming famous she released her second indie album There is Nothing. That year she also married her high school sweetheart Martin Elvington, moved to Atlanta, Georgia and became the Worship Leader / Women’s ministry leader at a large church there.

In 2006 Laura Story got a record deal. She signed with INO records. Her joy was short-lived, because two weeks later, she found out her new husband had a brain tumor.  Doctors removed the tumor, but in the process he got meningitis. He spent a long period of time in intensive care. Laura Story was by his side in rehab as he re-learned how to walk and how to use a fork. Martin still suffers from 50% vision loss and short term memory problems.

Laura Story’s trials would become an inspiration to many as she released her first studio album Great God Who Saves (2008), which featured the song “Mighty to Save”. She won the Dove Award for Inspirational Album and Female Vocalist of the Year.

The title track to Laura Story’s 2011 album Blessings reached #1 on Billboard Christian Songs Chart.  She also received a Grammy for Best Contemporary Christian Music Song 2012 and three Dove awards including Song of the Year.

In 2012, she and her husband welcomed their first baby, a girl named Josephine.

Matt Redman started leading worship as a teenager at St.Andrews church in Chorleywood, England. At age 15, he joined pastor Mike Pilavachi as he started a new church called Soul Survivor. Matt was the worship leader and inspired an annual worship festival for youth, which started in 1993. That year, he also released his first worship album in the UK called Wake Up My Soul.

He began leading worship full-time the next year at the age of 20. His next UK album was Passion for Your Name (1995) featuring the song “Better is One Day” which would go on to be made famous by Chris Tomlin as the title track to the 1999 Passion album and by Kutless’s 2005 Strong Tower album. Matt Redman’s next album The Friendship and the Fear (1997) was his first US release. That was followed the next year by the album The Heart of Worship. The title track was made famous by Michael W Smith on his 2001 album called Worship.

Matt Redman was becoming well known as a worship songwriter as his next album The Father’s Song (2000) featured “Let My Words Be Few”. That song became the title track for Phillips, Craig and Dean’s 2001 album. His 2002 album Where Angels Fear to Tread featured a song Matt wrote with his wife Beth called “Blessed Be Your Name”. That song became a hit for the band Tree63 in 2004 and was also recorded by the Newsboys later that year.

In 2004 Matt Redman released an live album of mostly new music called Facedown. That was followed by an album of his hits from the same live concert, only enhanced by instrumental and vocal overdubs. It was called Blessed Be Your Name: The Songs of Matt Redman Vol. 1 (2005). That album featured the song “Once Again”. Beautiful News followed that the following year.

In 2008 Matt and his family moved to Atlanta, Georgia to join Chris Tomlin and Pastor Louie Giglio in a new church plant called Passion City Church. Matt appeared on the Passion worship albums. His next solo album was We Shall Not Be Shaken (2009). That was followed by a best-of album called Ultimate Collection (2010). He has now moved back to England and is the worship leader at a church in Brighton.

Even though Matt Redman has been making music for decades and has been well respected as a worship leader, his greatest success is recent. In 2011 he released the album 10,000 Reasons. That album was his first to reach #1 on Billboard’s Christian Album chart. The title track is also featured on his latest album, another best-of called Sing Like Never Before: The Essential Collection (2012).

She then took a position at Gateway Church as one of the worship leaders. The church band released an album on Integrity Records in 2003 called Unsearchable. That was followed by Masterpiece the same year. Gateway worship returned in 2006 with Drawing Closer and the live album Living For You, then The Battle in 2007. Her songs stood out and were put together for a special compilation album called simply Kari Jobe.

She continued to lead worship as this church of about 200 members grew to over 20,000 members. In 2007 Kari Jobe released a solo Christmas album called Bethlehem.  In 2008 Gateway Worship’s live album Wake Up The World debuted at #2 on Billboard’s Christian Music Chart.

She then signed a record deal as a solo artist with Integrity Music and in 2009 she released a self titled album which would go on to hit #1 on iTunes Christian Music Chart and #3 on Billboard’s Christian Music Chart.  She also released a version of that album in Spanish called Le Canto and won two Dove awards that year.

In 2011 Kari Jobe signed with Sparrow Records and released Where I Find You (2012). Kari Jobe continues to lead worship at Gateway Church and has contributed to eight more of their albums in that time.

Bluetree is an Irish worship band. The lead singer is Aaron Boyd, Guitarist Pete Nickell, Bassist Peter Comfort, and Drummer Jonny Hobson.

Aaron was put in charge of leading worship at Christian Fellowship Church in Northern Ireland. They began performing at a number of worship events. In 2005 the band started playing for thousands of teens at the Youth for Christ “Manifest” events held in Belfast on a monthly basis. As a band their goal was to love others, but their focus was on musical excellence. They didn’t want to allow good intentions of worship to allow them to get sloppy. Their big hit “God of This City” was written while playing live, in a bar on a missions trip to Thailand. Worship lead Robin Mark attended their church at the time. He introduced the band to producer Paul Mills, who they asked to produce their album Greater Things. The band started calculating how much it would cost to rent the proper equipment to record the album, and it was getting expensive. Instead they asked a friend of Paul Mills’ to use his studio. The friend was Van Morrison and the studio was one U2 often recorded at. The album was released independently in 2007. In 2008 it was picked up by Fierce Records for UK distribution. Meanwhile Chris Tomlin heard their song and decided to cover it on both the albums Passion and Hello Love.
Bluetree signed with Lucid Entertainment on which the released the album to North America in 2009.  

They are planning to release a new album in September 2011. It’s expected to be titled “Kingdom”.

Amanda Cook is a Christian recording artist from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. In 2004 she released her self-titled debut album on Avante Records, which went on to win a Juno Award. She also won the GMA Canada Covenant Awards as Female Vocalist of the Year in both 2005 and 2006. Amanda Cook went on a Beautiful Unique Girl Tour (or BUGIRL) in 2006-2007, to help boost teenage girl’s confidence, as well as appear with other bands across Canada.

Her latest album is called In Between Now and Then, which was released in 2010.

In 2001 and again in 2002 Casting Crowns released independent albums. They were discovered by Steven Curtis Chapman who co-produced their self titled album in 2003. The album was hugely popular, eventually going platinum meaning it sold more than 100,000 copies. Casting Crowns was one of the fastest selling debut artists in Christian music history. The album won Mark Hall the Dove awards for Songwriter of the Year and the whole band received awards for New Artist of the Year, Contemporary Album and Song of the Year.

The following year they released a platinum-selling live CD/DVD called Live From Atlanta and in 2005 they released their second studio album. Lifesong debuted #9 on the Billboard top 200 Albums chart. This album was also certified platinum. That year Mark Hall received the Dove award for Songwriter of the Year again, and the Group of the Year and Song of the Year awards. The next year they released a second live CD/DVD called Lifesong Live, followed in 2007 by their latest studio album The Altar and the Door. This album debuted #2 on Billboard and of course, that was followed by a The Altar and the Door Live CD/DVD. Casting Crowns released a Christmas Album called Peace on Earth in 2008.

Casting Crown’s fourth major studio album, Until the Whole World Hears, was released on November 17, 2009, debuting at #4 on the Billboard 200. It sold over 167,000 copies in its first week alone, setting a new record for the highest Christian album debut in history. That was followed by Until the Whole World Hears…Live the following year.

Casting Crowns’ latest album features the song “Courageous” which is also the tittle track on the soundtrack of the Courageous movie. The album is called Come To the Well (2011).