Fred Hammond, is a Grammy, Stellar and Dove Award-winner with nearly three decades in the music industry and ministry. His music is scripture based and has had an effect on many. Fred Hammond songs have over the years have become a vital component of Sunday morning praise services. “It’s easy for my audience to know where I’m coming from as an artist. They don’t want a lot of tricks, they don’t want to just listen-they want to participate."

 

Since the early 1980s, Fred Hammond has been making it happen on the Contemporary Gospel music scene, first with his group Commissioned and later as a solo artist with his own touring group, Radical For Christ. With several years in the music business, Fred Hammond is quickly becoming well known for his work as a Gospel-music entrepreneur . He has worked on over 80 albums since establishing his own production company, Face to Face, in 1992. Fred Hammond has also taken his music to thousands of fans by keeping a busy touring schedule. His own album releases have been accompanied by extensive promotional work to encourage urban radio stations to begin playing Contemporary Gospel music. Fred Hammond has made it a constant effort to broaden his audience, "People in the African-American church have this conception of praise and worship music as just being white music. So we decided that I would cover all the tunes they would normally do and remix them for the urban setting." Fred Hammond continues to push the boundaries as he and Roy Campbell, his business partner, have entered into an exclusive distribution agreement with Universal Music Christian Group (UMCG) for their new label venture, fHammond Family Entertainment. The inaugural CD project, "Life In The Word" has just been released. “The opportunity to form my label couldn’t come at a better time,” said Hammond, President and CEO of fHammond Family Entertainment. “Out of the box thinking and creativity is what we are producing here. The projects that we have in development will further my artistic expression and expose my devoted music fans and beyond to another dimension of the Fred Hammond brand.”

 

Inspired by the efforts of his friends in the Winan family to start recording and releasing their own music under the group name the Testimonials in the late 1970s. "We all lived together in the neighborhood, we all did music, we all did home recordings with cheesy albums that had covers drawn by our cousins," Fred Hammond says "But the Testimonials had taken it to a whole new level." Impressed by the Winans' professional approach to making Christian music, he toured with the group as its bass player and backup singer. Barely out of his teens, he had already established a career as a professional musician. However, with a forceful personality and a drive to succeed, Fred Hammond formed his own group, Commissioned, around 1982. The group released a series of albums in the 1980s with a sound and style that differed little from the contemporary sounds of urban-oriented music, aside from its Gospel-theme lyrics. "I'm from the old school. I've got a bit of [Edwin] Hawkins and the Winans and [James] Cleveland in me, but there is also Earth, Wind & Fire and Stevie Wonder and Gladys Knight. That's my musical heritage. That's what I grew up with. Put that together in one pot, and mix it with high praise and urban flair. My music is cultural."

 

Despite his activities as a producer, concert performer, and actor, however, Hammond continued to be best known for his music. His sophomore solo effort, Deliverance, in 1993 and his releases with Radical for Christ, 1995's Inner Court and 1996's The Spirit of David, sold about 350,000 combined copies. The 1998 release Pages of Life: Chapters 1 and 2, however, was Hammond's greatest success to date. In addition to hitting number one on the gospel album chart, the release eventually earned platinum sales certification. The 2000 release, Purpose by Design, was another number one album on the gospel charts. The album also earned a Dove Award for Best Contemporary Gospel Album of the Year. In the 1990s Hammond released a string of successful albums with his group backing him, Radical for Christ. The 12-to-15-member group also accompanied him on numerous tours, including the 1997 "Tour of Life" series, which played to over a half-million fans in about 70 cities. Typically, Fred Hammond and Radical for Christ spent about 30 weeks of each year touring throughout the decade. Their fans also saw them on such Christian shows as the 700 Club, Praise the Lord and the Pat Boone Show, where they made regular appearances.  

Fred Hammond takes a great deal of satisfaction that his work reached a large cross section of the audience for Gospel/Christian music. "We have a youth-oriented sound, but now our audience includes people from as early as eight years of age to 60 years old," Fred say. "Everybody is targeting the youth now, and although I understand that, I'm trying to give the general body something." Although he was an avid promoter of Contemporary Gospel music to a broad audience, Hammond remained focused on his primary reason for making music. "It feels now that people are starting to get into praise and worship. It's like I'm teaching them what to expect. It's like, 'Lord, I appreciate you for hooking me up! I'll teach the people with diligence," Fred Hammond said, adding, "Still a large part of the urban community is not into the praise and worship scene. They like my music, but they don't know why they enjoy what I do." The new album "Life In The Word" from a stylistic standpoint, Fred Hammond knows he’s taking chances, but he doesn’t get caught up in the guesswork of how the public will respond. “My core will like it,” he says. “I’ve known my audience for a long time, so I understand what they want; I’ve learned what I can do with my people. I believe that there are a million people who will buy good gospel music, and millions that love the Word of God. And they’ll go right where it is and they’ll get it.”