Welcome to Paradise

Biography

Randy Stonehill, sometimes dubbed the 'Clown Prince' of contemporary Christian music, and later in his career nicknamed "Uncle Rand" writes and sings insightful and also lighthearted Christian light rock music. Randy Stonehill was born in Stockton, California on March 12, 1952, the son of Leonard Stonehill and his wife, Pauline Correia and is the younger brother of Jeffrey Stonehill. He graduated from Leigh High School, in San Jose, California, then moved to Los Angeles where he stayed with pi...

Randy Stonehill, sometimes dubbed the 'Clown Prince' of contemporary Christian music, and later in his career nicknamed "Uncle Rand" writes and sings insightful and also lighthearted Christian light rock music.

Randy Stonehill was born in Stockton, California on March 12, 1952, the son of Leonard Stonehill and his wife, Pauline Correia and is the younger brother of Jeffrey Stonehill.

He graduated from Leigh High School, in San Jose, California, then moved to Los Angeles where he stayed with pioneer Christian Rock singer, Larry Norman.

Stonehill's first album, Born Twice was released in 1971, with financial help from Pat Boone. The album—one side a live performance, the other side recorded in a studio—was recorded for a mere
$800US and according to Stonehill, "sounds like every penny of it!" [insert rim-shot here]

A year later, Stonehill made his film acting debut in The Blob sequel, Beware! The Blob (also known as Son of Blob), with Cindy Williams. He also made a cameo appearance in the 1973 Billy Graham film Time to Run, performing his song I Love You.

In 1976, Stonehill released the "Welcome to Paradise" album produced by Larry Norman with Andy Johns (The Who, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin) doing the engineering. This became a landmark album for the songwriter and was voted "3rd most important contemporary Christian album" in a mid-1980s poll of Christian music critics.(Contemporary Christian Music Magazine)

In the late 1970s, Stonehill then joined forces with Daniel Amos for the Amos n' Randy Tour. Stonehill would later provide backing vocals on several of Daniel Amos's musical projects.

1984, 'the album project "Celebrate This Heartbeat" Stonehill joined forces with longtime friend Phil Keaggy for the song Who Will Save The Children? The two later formed The Keaggy/Stonehill Band in 1989 with Daniel Amos bassist Tim Chandler and Swirling Eddie's David Raven on drums. Keaggy and Stonehill would also team up with singer Margaret Becker, drummer Joe English (former member of Paul McCartney and Wings) and others, in 1988 for the Compassion All Star Band's album "One by One".



UPDATED by Mark"The Shark" Christian Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.