Artist:Geoff Moore & The Distance
Song:A Friend Like U
Album:Greatest Hits
By the early 90s, CCM record companies were interested in crossing artists over to the mainstream. So they tried to make the music and videos as mainstream as possible. So when you watch the video for the 1992 single A Friend Like U by Geoff Moore & The Distance, it looks like a mainstream pop music video. Moore even looks like Huey Lewis. This actually helped record sales in the CCM market. But Moore never crossed over to mainstream. He was born Feb. 22, 1961 in Flint, MI. His father played for the minor league baseball team the Toledo Mud Hens and then owned a steel fabrication plant. Moore got interested in music while attending the Christian college Taylor University in Upland, IN. He was friends with future White Hearts lead singer Rick Florian and he sang in his roommate's band. After his 1983 graduation, Moore married and moved to Nashville to get into the music business. While working in a clothing store, he met CCM star Michael W. Smith and got a publishing deal with Paragon Music. He met another CCM star Steven Curtis Chapman and the two have been writing songs together ever since. Moore recorded three albums for Benson's Power Discs label in the 80s and then switched to Capitol/EMI's Sparrow label. This when he formed the band The Distance. After two albums, he switched to ForeFront owned by Eddie DeGarmo of DeGarmo & Key and he seemed to have a better handle on how to market CCM. The 1992 album A Friend Like U was Moore's second album for ForeFront. The title song got Moore his first taste of Christian radio play. Moore wrote the song A Friend Like U with Chapman. The band was Roscoe Meek on guitar, Geof Barkley on keyboards, Gary Mullett on bass and Greg Harrington on drums. Moore had his best run on ForeFront until they were sold to Capitol/EMI in 1996. This included a couple of Grammy nominations. Moore ended The Distance in 1998 and recorded a couple of solo albums for Sparrow. This 2CD budget comp has all of Moore's hits. He released his latest album on his own label in 2016. He last posted on Facebook in 2020. I would say that he is semi-retired. He says he is open to performing but he hasn't done that lately. Here's the video for A Friend Like U by Geoff Moore and The Distance.
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