Category: misc

What happened to Jennifer Knapp?

That’s apparently the question that drove at least one visitor here. And it got me thinking – what did happen to her? The last album I remember her releasing was The Collection back in 2004, which (in the 2-disc version) was a mix of hits and unreleased or hard to find b-sides, covers, and demos, and was a permanent fixture in my CD player until it was abandoned for my Zen. Gotee apparently also recently re-released Kansas, remastered and with a couple bonus tracks. To be honest, I hadn’t thought much about it until I saw the search and realized I hadn’t heard anything about her in years now.

Turns out that in 2004, she announced she was going on a sabbatical of sorts, and then rather disappeared off the face of the earth. Google has brought up dozens of totally unsubstantiated rumors, but the one link I could find was referencing a Relevant magazine article from 2004:

In an interview from the January/February 2004 issue of Relevant Magazine, Knapp stated that she was taking a break from music for a while, leaving the future of her career in God’s hands.

“It was definitely time for a break,” she said. “I was touring Lay It Down while recording The Way I Am, then went directly into touring that record. It got to where I was just doing shows to support the record, rather than having a record support the heart of the people I was supposed to be serving. I don’t want to make and tour another record just because that’s what people expect, or because ‘it’s about that time.'”

Knapp gave no indication of when new material will surface. “Truly, no plans and no promises of when,” she said. “At this time there’s really not enough material, and I don’t want to force anything just for the sake of getting a record finished.”

It’s too bad she’s retired from music, as she remains one of my favorite artists, but I can absolutely understand wanting to have a life back after the chaos that surrounds the modern musician’s lifestyle. I hope she’s still making music, even if it’s just for herself, as it would be a shame to think that so much talent could be left untapped.

Edit 10/28/09: For those of you still stumbling here via Google, commenter sami points out that Jen is back!

Edit 4/13/10: For all you stumbling across this post in reaction to the CT article, I’ve posted some new thoughts.

Taking Chance

Via Blackfive comes news of an HBO special that might be worth seeing.

This is based on Marine Lieutenant Colonel Strobl’s true story originally related to us by Blackfive of escorting the remains of Lance Corporal Chance Phelps home for burial. It’s a great story, and I really hope HBO honors the story and the people involved by not turning it into some sort of leftist propaganda machine they’re so fond of. If, however, it turns out to be as good as hoped, this will be on my DVD shelf.