Satin Love Orchestra’s co-founder honored

Christopher Stevens might not be an “Overcomer,” but the Eugene native is definitely an up-and-comer among the producer ranks of the Christian music industry.

Stevens, a former North Eugene High School and Lane Community College student who in 1997 helped start longtime local disco-funk band Satin Love Orchestra, won two Grammys at the 56th annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles on Jan. 26.

The honors, for co-producing and co-songwriting, were awarded for best song and best album in the contemporary Christian music category for gospel singer Mandisa’s inspirational song and album of the same name, “Overcomer.” Stevens shared the awards with his production partner, David Garcia.

But it was not the first time the 46-year-old Stevens had stepped to the Grammy podium.

That happened last year, when Stevens won his first Grammy for producing and mixing Christian hip-hop artist TobyMac’s 2012 album “Eye on It.” Stevens said it made music history, becoming the first album ever released by a Christian artist to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard magazine 200.

So it would seem that Stevens made the right move just more than nine years ago, when he and his wife, Nancy, decided to sell their Eugene home and pack up themselves and their four children and head for Nashville, Tenn.

It all seemed a little crazy at the time, Stevens recalled during a phone call last week from Portland, where he was spending the night before boarding a flight back to Nashville.

(He was headed back to Tennessee after spending a couple of post-Grammy days in Eugene with his mother, Vivian Stevens.)

“I didn’t know what was going to happen,” Stevens said of the December 2004 move to Nashville. “I guess it was meant to be.”

After leaving North Eugene early in the mid-1980s, Stevens began taking electrical engineering classes at LCC and received his high school diploma there. Then he got a job as a game composer at former Eugene video game maker Dynamix.

A lifelong musician, Stevens began tinkering with the idea of producing music around the year 2000, he said.

He began searching online and found a couple of websites where artists shared their music. That’s how he discovered the music of two other Eugene natives, Paul Wright and Shawn McDonald, both of whom have since made a name for themselves in the business.

“Both got record deals in Nashville from the work we did,” Stevens said.

Then, while still living in Eugene, Wright introduced Stevens to TobyMac (aka Toby McKeehan), and Stevens ended up producing his 2004 album, “Welcome to Diverse City.”

“And (TobyMac) encouraged me in making the move (to Nashville),” Stevens said.

Stevens immediately began to get work in Nashville producing music for Capitol CMG Publishing, a division of Capitol Christian Music Group.

In addition to his three Grammys, Stevens has earned 10 GMA Dove Awards, which honor the gospel music industry, and two BMI Christian songwriter-of-the-year awards.

He has worked with country stars Blake Shelton, on his “Red River Blue” album, and Carrie Underwood, on “Cowboy Casanova.”

And this past September, he received a call from friend Mark Bright (Underwood’s producer) and was asked to hop on a plane to Barcelona, Spain, to work with Colombian singer-songwriter Shakira on her new album, helping her program beats and tracks for a few songs.

All in all, not bad for a guy who starting playing the piano and any other instrument he could get his hands on around age 4 or 5, and who started playing the drums as a student at Eugene’s Colin Kelly Middle School.

Where does all this musical aptitude come from? Perhaps the headline above the photo of an 8-year-old boy in a 1934 edition of The Register-Guard provides a hint.

“He Stopped the Show” it says above the photo of “Jackie” Stevens, who would grow up to have a son named Christopher.

John “Jack” Stevens Jr., who died on Eugene on Nov. 30, 2012, at age 86, sang “Oh, Susannah” in front of a crowd of about 6,000 people in Eugene at the 1934 Oregon Trail Pageant in Eugene.

The pageant was an annual event held from the mid-1920s until about 1950 or so. And the 1934 crowd “cheered lustily” when young Jackie sang.

“Whatever ability I have, I must have gotten from him,” Chris Stevens said.