A Texas-based CCM singer/songwriter known for his wide-ranging fusion of pop, rock, folk, electronic, bluegrass, and hip-hop, David Crowder rose to success in the early 2000s as the leader of the praise & worship group David Crowder Band. Over the next decade, the band racked up numerous Dove Awards for their inspirational rock sound, releasing popular albums like Illuminate (2003), Remedy (2007), and Give Us Rest (2012). Rebranding in 2012 simply as Crowder, the singer launched an equally successful, though more stylistically varied, solo career with albums like 2014's Neon Steeple and 2016's American Prodigal.nnCrowder first stepped into the music industry when he realized that over half of the students at Baylor University, a Christian school that he attended in Waco, Texas, were not going to church. He began to actively recruit students for worship services and started writing songs to draw more young people in. He eventually started releasing the songs, leading to his debut album, 2002's Can You Hear Us? The album was released under the name the David Crowder Band, as Crowder was joined by guitarists Jack Parker and Jason Solley, drummer Jeremy Bush, bassist Mike Dodson, and electric violinist Mike Hogan. Their sophomore effort, Illuminate, appeared in the fall of 2003 and was followed a year later by The Lime CD, which comprised two earlier live releases (The Green CD and The Yellow CD) that had been given out to fans who had either pre-ordered prior albums or attended various CD release parties.nn Sunsets & Sushi appeared in early 2005 before the band's next studio album, the bluegrass-tinged A Collision, was issued that fall. A spinoff of the latter album, entitled B Collision, came out a year later and focused even more on the group's delvings into bluegrass. Remedy was released in 2007, followed by Church Music in 2009. A four-song EP, Summer Happiness, featuring acoustic versions of songs from Church Music, appeared in 2010. Arriving in 2012, Give Us Rest; Or, A Requiem Mass in C (The Happiest of All Keys) was the David Crowder Band's sixth and final studio album. It was followed in 2014 by Crowder's solo debut, Neon Steeple, which was released under the moniker Crowder. The album was a major success for Crowder, topping the Christian chart and reaching number nine on the Billboard Top 200 as well as earning a Grammy nomination for his song "Come as You Are." He followed up in September 2016 with American Prodigal. Collaborating with Royal Tailor's Tauren Wells, Crowder landed a hit with the non-album single "All My Hope" in 2017. Continuing to branch out into a variety of musical styles, he issued I Know a Ghost in 2018, which pulled from electronic, bluegrass, and hip-hop influences. ~ Bradley Torreano