It’s a Monday morning, and modern gospel pioneer Fred Hammond has kicked off his work week with an agenda that defines the word "ambitious." Holed up in his Detroit-area studio offices, there’s the constant ringing of beepers and phones in the background. Not surprising for a man who’s as legendary for his songwriting and producing skills as for his own albums. Right now, there’s work to be done in support of a new album, Purpose by Design (Verity). And any moment, perhaps during this interview, Hammond is expecting a crucial call about a movie project he’s working on, Human and Divine.

"It’s a little independent film that we’re doing about a young man who has been ca

Hammond, who co-wrote the screenplay, acknowledges that there’s a familiar ring to the tale. For all of his adult life, Hammond has sought to reinvent gospel and take that God-inspired sound to new heights—and new audiences. It has been far from easy. Hammond has survived leaving his original group, Commissioned, for a solo career. He’s endured criticism from corners of the African-American church for his cutting-edge sound and struggled to win the support of white Christian audiences. At times, he has felt that he strayed so far from his muse that he could no longer recognize himself or his music.

Then came 1998’s (Pages of Life) Chapters 1 & 2, a sweeping double album that Hammond described at the time as his personal equivalent of Stevie Wonder’s 1976 masterpiece, Songs in the Key of Life. Pages was something of a gamble: It was a definitive personal statement built on Hammond’s praise-oriented, modern gospel style and delivered without apologies. For sticking to his guns, Hammond was richly rewarded. Pages went platinum and garnered 1999 Stellar Awards for Artist, Song, Male Vocalist and Album of the Year.

Game Plan

With Purpose by Design, Hammond picks up where Pages closed the book. Dishing a sweet mix of live and studio textures, Hammond has produced a record that envelops the listener in love, majesty and awesome sonic force. This is Hammond making music at his peak.

Yet having scaled the modern gospel mountain—and enjoying a vista where he can see an expanding audience on the horizon—Hammond, 39, sounds tired, as if the climb has winded him down to his very core. There’s a weary edge to his voice, and it’s not because he’s missed his morning cup of joe.

The question is never posed, but Hammond, in his humility and transparency, offers a startling confession: "I’ve been talking about retiring, and it looks like I’m right there," he says. "It’s not bowing out totally, but I’ve been in the hustle and bustle for a long time. I’ve got a pretty good name, and I’ve got to do something a little different." It’s clear from the conversation that Hammond is still trying to define what that something different might be. "Maybe it’s like dc Talk taking a little sabbatical; that sounds like a good idea," he says. "I’ll probably do records and go with the flow of them. I’d like to be like Bill Gaither, sort of doing my own thing. That’s what my team and I are trying to figure out: the plan. I love motorcycling and jet skiing, and I’ve done none of that! My music has been my hobby."

Hammond sighs. "And I need a life."

Part of that hoped-for life clearly lies with his family. Hammond’s tentative game plan calls for spending less time on the road in the future so that he can be at home in suburban Detroit with his wife, daughter and newly-adopted son.

"When he is off the road, every Sunday he and his family are worshiping together," says Bishop Andrew Merritt, Hammond’s pastor at the Straight Gate Church in Detroit. "He’s an active participant. He is a servant here, as well as his wife. His whole family is involved in the ministry."

Hammond’s voice turns joyful when he talks about his new boy, two-year-old Darius Sean. "I knew that at some point, me and my wife wanted to have more kids," he says. "Every man wants a son, but it wasn’t an Abraham experience where I said, ‘I want a birth son.’ I wanted to help someone out, but why wait until he’s 20 and in prison? We can offer this boy God in his early stages."

Hammond confides that "it took from 1993 until the last few years for my wife to get on the bandwagon. There was this issue of whether we could love him [like a birth son]. Sometimes it hurts my feelings to think that he’s not my blood, and I want him to be my blood so bad. It literally brings tears to my eyes, and I want to give him a blood transfusion. But this is my son, and I love him. It’s just like the relationship God has with us. We’re not stepchildren. And he doesn’t know any other father than me, any other mother than my wife. It’s amazing."

Man With a Purpose

There’s a direct connection between Hammond’s own life history, his feelings for Darius and the music on Purpose. The shortest track, "My Father Was/Is," is also one of the most powerful: "Who was there when I first opened up my eyes?/Who was there to heal the hurt when I first learned to ride?/And who never missed a game, celebrate me won or lost?/Yes, my Father was."

"When my keyboard player played the music for me, I immediately thought of fathers," Hammond recalls. "My earthly father is gone, he died when I was 9. He never came to one of my singing performances. When I look back at my life, who was always there? My heavenly Father. I’d ride my bike to performances, then home late at night, and He was right there with me."

He pauses. "I’m still a loner kind of guy," he says. "It’s hard to break. So that song means a lot to me. I can see where God has always been there to protect me, cheer me on, lift me up. He has been my Dad... And the next song [on the album], ‘Our Father,’ is the church’s response. A lot of us see God as the one who, if we make a mistake, He’s going to bring the hammer down. But if you have a real relationship with your Father, you can say, ‘Have You ever had a problem in this area?’ That’s how I look at God; He’s my Dad, and I can take my real life stuff to Him."

For Hammond, being a Christian is all about keeping it real. The songs on Purpose are steeped in reality, and Hammond has little time for a faith that doesn’t embrace human frailty. "I know Jesus had to have had a regular life," he says. "He was tempted like me, He went through all of these things. Cool. ‘Now You know, and you can help me out.’ I can deal with Him in that aspect."

What Hammond can’t deal with is what he calls the "fairy tale world" that so many Christians inhabit. "It’s where everybody is basically alright," Hammond says. "People have colds, and they’re sniffling, and you see the handkerchief, and you say, ‘Do you have a cold?’ And they say, ‘No, no, no, I’m healed.’ I don’t confess that. You have to understand that it’s okay; you can have stuff, negative stuff, and God can heal you of that. But you have to [acknowledge] that you have a cold, and you are sneezing like you are losing your mind."

The topic of who’s real and who’s fake offers Hammond a nimble segue to discussing his long rollercoaster career in Christian music. "I’ve always been a part of some sort of teen group, whether it was a baseball group or a music group," Hammond says. He got serious about music in 1981, when he formed Commissioned. As frontman and visionary, Hammond shaped a contemporary gospel sound that won him a loyal fan base. The group released its first album in 1985; in 1994, Hammond left to form Radical for Christ.

"It was just time for me," he explains. "When groups come together, they have one vision, and when there’s more than one vision, there’s division. I was just going into this praise & worship direction, and it kind of went on ahead from there, and it just blossomed. Commissioned was a good experience, but it had a lot of ups and downs and turmoil. Radical for Christ has been a more cohesive experience."

Cohesive, yes. But when it’s come to expanding his following—especially in white Christian circles—Hammond has continually run into roadblocks.

Whether it’s prejudice, indifference or ignorance (Hammond doesn’t speculate which), he sees the situation this way: "As far as the Gospel Music Association, as with America, there is color, and with color there is separation. So I make the music I make with no apologies. Whoever wants to listen to it will listen to it. If I get invited to a GMA function, I will go. But I won’t be going out of my way to do it. And that was a God choice. I won’t sever a relationship based on a group or clique of people."

Hammond says that for the most part he is enjoying his current association with Benson. "I feel like God has ordered my steps to be there, but Benson is very much pushing me into the contemporary Christian market, and we’ve turned a lot of backflips to try to fit in. And finally I said, ‘Hmmm, no thanks.’"

Still, industry moguls keep dogging Fred to appease the masses. He offers one anecdote of a recent struggle with a label strategist over a track on the new disc. "I played ‘Give Me a Clean Heart’ in its earlier stages, and he said, ‘Wow, if you just tweak it like this and like that, you could have a [radio] hit.’ And I said, ‘No thanks.’ I don’t want anyone looking at me from the contemporary Christian side, the urban side or any other side saying, ‘He’s trying to contrive a hit.’ If you like it, play it. If you don’t, don’t play it. I’m sorry. It was meant to come from me in this way for the person who was meant to hear it."

Life for a Psalmist

Why won’t Fred budge? For one thing, he considers himself to be a psalmist—a person who gets his musical inspirations straight from God. And we’re not talking in some abstract sense, though Hammond is humble and grasps for words to describe what a psalmist is. "David was a psalmist, a person who sang songs and exhortations of God. I’m a praise & worship guy, a person who sings vertical music. People can get from a song that it was Scripture or encouraging people based on the Word of God. I remind people that God has done marvelous works, therefore, don’t forget His beneficence." Bishop Merritt goes much further, stating that Hammond has a God-given ability resembling inspired improvisation.

"He’s a psalmist in the purest sense of the word," Merritt says. "He sings the song for the altar call—that’s his assignment here—and he allows God to use him to do whatever He has to do for that altar call. It’s like David; it’s an inspiration that comes from the Holy Spirit. He just stands there, he’s praying, and sometimes it takes a little while, and it comes. He just opens to the spirit of God, and God fills his mouth. The melody comes, and the musicians follow. It’s a gift. I’ve never seen anything like it."

God’s music may come out of Hammond’s mouth, but the power hasn’t gone to his head, Merritt insists. "He’s a real person; he breathes, he sleeps. Sometimes when you’re young, and you have that kind of success, you don’t know how to handle it. But he’s had all kinds of trials and tribulations and tests. That’s why a lot of the music that God has given him has come out of his life. No one can write the kind of music Fred has written about knowing God. You can’t make it up."

With a ringing endorsement like that, and musical chops to match, why would Hammond even think of calling it quits as an artist? For one thing, he’s a very busy man. He’s just launched his own label, F. Hammond Music. And he promises that Radical for Christ will continue, with or without him. "It makes no sense for me to be stopping without them going on," he says. "They’ve got fresh legs, fresh ideas, and they’re going to take it bigger and better."

Hammond says his parting shot may be a Christmas record, though he is still wrestling with how and when to call it a day, or at least time out. "There’s the emotional side where I’ve been doing this for so long I can’t even think of retiring," he says. "But the big thing is the need not to push. The fight is just not there, and I just can’t fight the way I used to. I’m going to go out this year, do dates [on the ‘Shout 2000’ tour with Yolanda Adams and other acts] and see what happens. I always sing, so I just can’t walk away from singing. But is there the need to scratch, claw and fight to maintain your artistry base? There’s got to be a different way.

"I’ve been out of town so much, and I’ve been through a lot of label shifts. You’ve been with one label, and you’re used to the team, and suddenly the team shifts, and not everyone is on the same page, and they don’t understand where I’m coming from. Back in the day, I could fight those battles. This has always been a joy, and the fire has always been lit. Now I’m searching harder for that fire. There’s a little less desire to leave home, and I totally miss my kids."

In a vintage Hammond move, he takes it back to Scripture, quoting Galatians 6:9-10. "Let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time if we do not give up. So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith."

In other words, the good work will go on, even if Hammond the artist doesn’t. "I don’t feel like I’m fainting from artistry," he says. "I’ve just run my course with it. Now it’s time to turn a corner."