60 Christian Songs That Explain the '90s: "Another Time, Another Place" by Sandi Patty and Wayne Watson

Even the best voices need God's grace

Sandi Patty and Wayne Watson performing “Another Time, Another Place”, edited in Prisma

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Or so the saying goes. Anyone taking the time to playfully mock you means that person finds you interesting enough to mock. Right?

Take "The Rock" and Kevin Hart for example. True celebrity friends who have a great time impersonating each other.

See? Flattery. Kevin Hart and The Rock love each other. They've worked on movies together and seem to really be friends. They can wisecrack and laugh off the impersonations. But let's not let this go without Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson getting his due from Jack Black:

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Okay, that’s funny. Jack Black is funny. But has does the art of imitation look in the world of music, you ask? Well look no further than a guy named Al.

Back in the 1980’s, one musician took the idea of imitation to the next level. With horns, whistles, buzzers, an accordion, an outlandish outfit, and a song ripping off Queen’s “Another One Bites The Dust”, Weird Al Yankovic hit the late-night stage with “Another One Rides The Bus.”

I’m not sure the audience got it. Weird Al did. He was all in. I suppose when you’re aiming for comedic glory, you’ve got to be all in. Of course, Weird Al’s fame only grew from that moment. You could argue it climaxed when he took Coolio’s semi-serious hip-hop anthem “Gangsta’s Paradise” from 1996 and transformed it into…an Amish paradise. Oh boy. Hit it, Weird Al!

“I might have to get medieval on your heinie?” Okay, that’s great. That’s a hilarious line. At least I think so. And most people laughed in 1996 when it was released. Most people except Coolio. For Coolio, satirizing “Gangsta’s Paradise”  to create “Amish Paradise” was no laughing matter. It was not flattery.

Weird Al always gets permission from artists when he uses their songs so, in part, they can get a cut of the royalties from his music. Makes sense. And while Coolio’s label approved “Amish Paradise”, Coolio himself did not. 

So yeah, there was beef for a few years. Eventually, Coolio came around and realized that if Michael Jackson and Prince were cool with Weird Al using their stuff, he could be cool with it too. 

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I can’t help but think about this world of AI we’re living in. Artificial intelligence. Imitation at its finest. Or, what we’re often seeing, not so fine. AI is useful for a lot of things. As a writer, I’ve plugged some questions into Chat GPT myself to do some brainstorming. 

But there is still a lot AI can’t do. AI can’t write a great novel. AI can’t give me a more accurate jump shot on the basketball court. And AI sure as heck can’t provide a fix for the less-than-pleasant attitude my teenage daughters give me at times.

And AI cannot, I repeat, CANNOT sing a song with this voice.

There is a reason Sandi Patty’s nickname is simply “The Voice.” She is the Steph Curry of contemporary Christian music. Her range is without limit. She can hit the high notes that artificial intelligence can only pretend to hit. She cannot be imitated. She cannot be impersonated. Those who wish to do so can only come up beside her and hope for a chance to step into the spotlight her remarkable talent allows.

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This week, we’re discussing the 1990 hit “Another Time, Another Place” by Sandi Patty and Wayne Watson. And with apologies to Mr. Watson, Sandi will be the focus of much of today’s post.

Sandi Patty was born in Oklahoma City on July 12, 1956. As a child to a music minister father and pianist mother, Sandi was destined for a future in music. Of course, it began with singing in the church. But before long, Sandi was in her early twenties singing jingles for Juicy Fruit.

Her vocal talent led her to connect with legendary singer/producer Bill Gaither. From there, Sandi Patty’s career skyrocketed. She won her first Grammy in 1984 for “More Than Wonderful”, a duet with Larnelle Harris. She’d win again two years later for another duet with Harris entitled “I’ve Just Seen Jesus”. In 1987, yet again, Sandi won a Grammy for another duet “They Say”, performed with Deniece Williams. 

The Grammy for Best Pop/Contemporary Gospel Album in 1990 went to Sandi for Another Time, Another Place. That’s the last Grammy she’s won. But when you look at the Dove Awards from 1983 through 1999, Sandi Patti won at least one each year. She won for individual songs, videos, and for instrumental and children’s albums. Her album Libertad de Mas won the Spanish Language Album Dove Award in 1999.

For me, and for many who preferred the more contemporary songs of Christian music, “Another Time, Another Place” was the Sandi Patty song we wanted. Strong vocals, an enjoyable hook, and enough of a modern feel to make it feel like a slight departure from her previous works. 

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And Wayne Watson, to his credit, was a Christian music mainstay himself. In college we did a skit to “Friend of a Wounded Heart” at a church service. I can’t remember now if I was running around pretending to hold a beating heart in my hand showing the congregation. And now I can’t recall for sure if it was that song or Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart”. Either way, I can assure you neither Wayne Watson or Bonnie Tyler would have been impressed by my performance.

What I love most now as a dad of teen girls is Watson’s frequent references to fatherhood in his music. “Somewhere In The World” and the lesser-known “Teenager In the House” are good. But “Watercolour Ponies” is best listened to alone if you’re a parent because nobody wants to watch a grown man or woman weeping while listening to a decades-old CCM song about kids finger-painting horses.

These days, Wayne Watson is a Director of Contemporary Worship at the late President George H.W. Bush’s former church. And I imagine it’s pretty cool, having someone with such a rich musical legacy leading your worship each week, especially if it’s anything like this.

So, Wayne Watson is good. He’s great. Super-talented singer and songwriter. The same can be said about Larnelle Harris and Deniece Williams. Any of the others Sandi Patty has performed with, they’ve all been talented. Even if they’re making a parody of Sandi’s own song with her.

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I figure if you’re an artist that’s actively participating with the person making a parody of your music, you can’t be mad at them. I’d say if you perform a duet with them, you’re cool with it. There’s no Coolio vs. Weird Al friction here. In fact, Sandi Patty and Mark Lowry have some great chemistry even if they’re not singing.

As great as Wayne Watson or Larnelle Harris are, and as talented (at joke-telling and singing) as Mark Lowry is, they take a backseat when Sandi Patty is on stage with them. It’s not that she makes them. It’s not that she’s ego-driven or a diva. It’s that her voice demands it. Her vocals, her talent, those things that earned her the nickname “The Voice” require attention. 

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If you’re reading this, and the name Sandi Patty means anything to you, then you know there’s more to talk about than the music. Behind “The Voice” is a story. It’s a story that at one time screamed scandal. It’s a story that, if it happened today, would be the top headline on Christian Post for an entire month. 

In 1992, Sandi Patty and her then husband John Helvering divorced. In 1995, she married a backup singer named Don Peslis. It turns out her relationship with Peslis began while she was still married to Helvering. 

I don’t know the ins and outs of how the infidelity was uncovered. It’s not my place. The point is, it was. Just weeks after marrying Don Peslis, Sandi Patty stood in front of her church and confessed. After the divorce was announced, Christian retailers pulled her music from their shelves. Radio stations stopped playing her songs. Churches no longer invited her to sing. At least one key Christian speaker at the time publicly pulled his support for her music. 

In the Christian entertainment business, if you fail in your personal life, your career is bound to go down in flames as well. When it comes to pointing fingers, the dividing line between the secular world and the Christian one seems invisible. One headline from a 1993 article reads For years Sandi Patti has been the epitome of the squeaky clean, ‘Mom’s apple pie’ entertainer. But a messy divorce has challenged that image. Yeesh. If there’s one thing many Christians are good at, it’s eating their own. That headline makes me all the more glad this scandal didn’t take place in the here and now, lest Twitter and Facebook buzz with half-baked judgmental opinions.

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In 2006, Sandi released her memoir Broken on the Back Row. In an interview, Sandi Patty discussed some of the fallout from her affair: 

“I think the main reason I wrote this book – because it’s no fun to sit down and write and tell all the junk about your life – is that there is hope that follows all of that and when you can get in a place when you can go down that road towards restoration, it is a beautiful thing. God is part of truth and wherever there is truth, and even though that truth is hard to bear sometimes, God is part of it! He is part of that healing process and I want people to know that they don’t have to be stuck in their sins and they don’t have to be stuck even in their grief and their guilt; that God can move them through and truly He is the God of second chances.”

Sandi Patty is 67 years old now. She’s still married to Don Peslis. They regular post videos on YouTube. Their blended family is full of grown children and several grandchildren. She’s not touring anymore, but will occasionally sing when asked to. Even with Mark Lowry.

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Maybe for a season, Sandi Patty was an imitation. Maybe she was really faking all of us when she’d get on stage and sing “In The Name Of The Lord” or “Love In Any Language”. Maybe the smile was a lie when she blew us all away with her rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner”. Maybe she was defrauding viewers when she sat down with Johnny Carson and laughed at his banter. 

In another interview, Sandi talked about those years leading up to her divorce. She remembered standing on stage singing “There is Strength in the Name of the Lord”, feeling like a fake, knowing her personal life was in shambles. She said, “I sang those words as something I hoped for, something I clung to, thinking ‘Maybe I’ll find it.”

Many, many years ago, I would’ve sneered at Sandi Patty’s story. A Christian singing about one thing, living out a different thing. But now, more than ever, I’ve got a deep compassion for Sandi for one simple reason: I’ve been there. I’ve stood in front of a church and confessed my darkest, most shameful sins to those who thought they knew me. I’ve exposed my personal struggles, my marital failures, and the most depraved parts of my life. It ruined my career for a season, like Sandi’s. The only difference is that my stage, my influence, was much, much smaller.

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“The Voice” has some of the most massive hits ever played on Christian radio. I haven’t even discussed “Via Dolorosa”, her haunting song about Jesus’ crucifixion. You don’t earn a boatload of Grammys and Dove Awards by not having an incredible catalog of beloved music.

Sandi Patty’s music, that voice, her legacy in the world of gospel music is not an imitation. It’s all very, very real. And so is she. There is no faking it anymore. She may be broken on the back row, but Sandi is as authentic as they come. She’s a simple woman with a beautiful gift in need of a perfect Savior. In need of His grace.

That’s the funny thing about God’s grace. It shows who we really are despite what the world outside thinks about us. And it covers all of those shameful things that plague our souls. And so when I think back on Sandi Patty’s music, all the hits, the duets where she graciously allowed someone else to share the stage, and all the attention given to her life, one of her earliest songs strikes me the most. It’s her 1984 song “The Stage Is Bare”. 

The stage is bare
The crowds are gone
The love we shared still lingers on
We sang and played and we laughed and cried
And in our tumbling way we tried
To say that only hearts can know
And all too soon we had to go

But now here in this darkened room
Just empty seats, there's just me and you
It was so easy to call you Lord
When a thousand voices sang your praise
But there's no one to hear me now
So hear me now, be near me now

On the studio version of this song from her album Songs from the Heart, Sandi ends with a stanza from the hymn “I Need Thee Every Hour”. I wonder if 1984 Sandi knew just how true those words would become or how impactful her music would be. I wonder if she could have imagined how meaningful her story, both on and off the stage, would be. I think in some way she probably did. And I’m certain she knew then what we all know now, that we’re all a bunch of broken people, sitting on the back row, faking our way through life, simply needing grace. Desperately needing the Lord.

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Thanks for reading this week’s “60 Christian Songs That Explain the ‘90s”. And now, please enjoy a live version of “Another Time, Another Place” performed at the 1991 Dove Awards by Wayne Watson and Sandi Patty. Catch you next week.