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Dove award winner, Phil Keaggy talks about his music and his ministry

The lights in Lytle Gymnasium dimmed and stage lights illuminated the 3-foot tall stage on March 17. Junior Dan Hutchison and a short man carrying two guitars walked up on stage. The audience erupted in applause. Hutchison introduced the man, and Phil Keaggy--five-time CCM Magazine no.1 favorite guitar player, three-time Dove Award winner, and two-time Grammy nominee--stepped up to the microphone.

The audience cheered as Mr. Keaggy played the first few notes of his song, "Salvation Army Band."

Mr. Keaggy said he plans 75 percent of his concert content, but the other quarter is improvised. He'll create something new during the middle of a song.

"Take 'Salvation Army Band' for instance," Mr. Keaggy said. "I don't think I've ever played that song the same way twice. I sort of go off and do different things in the middle of it. I can create things on the spot; it keeps things fresh for me."

He also said he doesn't do the same list of songs twice.

Mr. Keaggy has released more than 30 albums since his first, "Glass Harp" (1970).

"Each album contains special things and memories," Mr. Keaggy said. "I really like the 'Find Me in These Fields' album (1990). I listened to it for the first time a while ago."

"I like my 'Inseparable' album (2000). In some ways, vocally, it's an album that I'm really pleased with because I took some chances and went some new places with my singing.

"Instrumentally," he said, "I think the 'Lights of Madrid' (2000) is a very nice project. My 'Master and the Musician' album (1978), which was my first instrumental album, holds some really good memories for me."

Mr. Keaggy played many songs from his "Beyond Nature" album, released in 1991 and winner of a Dove Award for an instrumental album. He said the instrumental album, inspired by things in his life such as a video of England's Cambridge College, is special to him. Mr. Keaggy wrote the song "Addison's Walk" after watching a documentary of the life of C.S. Lewis, he said.

At intermission, Mr. Keaggy took his nephew and family, who live in Corbett, Ore., backstage with him, and the house lights came on. Students flocked to the stage to gaze at Mr. Keaggy's numerous effects pedals, which allow him to create different sounds with his guitar.

After intermission, Mr. Keaggy returned, and the notes from a song from his album "Beyond Nature" bounced off the walls of the gym.

"I really like playing gymnasiums," Mr. Keaggy said. "They work well for acoustic music because the ambiance is really good. I'd take a gymnasium over a carpeted, plush church any day, just because acoustic guitars like to resonate around a building. Playing with a band in a gym can be a hard thing, but if you have a lot of people there, it works.

"I like playing colleges," Mr. Keaggy said. "I also like playing coffee houses, which I do occasionally in Nashville. I like to play for people in general. It doesn't matter where. I'm put in different circumstances every time I play, so there's usually nothing that's the same. Every place I go, it's like 'Let's see what we have here.' It keeps you on your toes, it really does."

At the Multnomah concert, Mr. Keaggy also played a new song, "Seventeen," which he wrote for his daughter, Olivia's, 17th birthday on Feb. 14. "She's my little valentine," Mr. Keaggy said.

Mr. Keaggy's oldest daughter, Alisha, turned 21, and he celebrated his 50th birthday in March.

Mr. Keaggy had come straight to Portland from playing a wedding in Tacoma. He said he gets invited to play quite a few weddings, but one in particular sticks out in his mind.

"I was invited to sing and take my wife up [to a wedding in] the Hamptons in New York," Mr. Keaggy said. "Laura had arranged her wedding date around when I was available. She told me, 'By the way, the McCartneys will be in the wedding party.'" Mr. Keaggy said that Laura, the bride, was Paul McCartney's wife's sister.

"Paul, Linda, Heather, Mary, Stella and James were all there," Mr. Keaggy said. "I played three songs and an instrumental. I'm the only music in the whole wedding, and there's Paul standing 10 feet away.

"We had dinner the night before and had a chat. We got to spend a little time strumming some tunes the day of the wedding. It was really fun to meet him; he's such a legend, such an influence. I'm just one of the millions he's met. I'm not a significant acquaintance, but he's a significant acquaintance to me," he said.

After the concert, a few students sneaked backstage to meet Mr. Keaggy.

Freshman Mark Hinkleman was one student who was able to get past security and talk to the Christian artist, who remembered Hinkleman from a previous concert.

"At a concert three years ago at Sunset Presbyterian Church, I ran up on stage after his last song, got down on both knees and yelled as loudly as I could, 'Phil, would you sign my guitar?'" Hinkleman said.

"He took us backstage; I got my guitar signed," he said. "At this concert, I got my 8x10 picture of him signing my guitar signed."

"I like playing for people; it doesn't matter where," Mr. Keaggy said. "Playing in Portland, playing for my friends there, was a very special event.

"I want to encourage people with my music and my concerts to love one another and to keep their eyes on Jesus."