Career History
Watson originally planned to pursue a career playing baseball, but while in college he began dabbling in music, and after graduation regularly performed in area churches. While leading worship at a Christian youth camp, the father of one of the children videotaped Watson's performance and sent it to a record company.
Wayne Watson’s connection with his audience has to date produced a history of 23 No. 1 singles in Christian radio—including “Friend of a Wounded Heart”, “When God’s People Pray”, “Almighty", "Be In Her Eyes”, “Watercolour Ponies”, “More of You”, “Another Time, Another Place”, and “Home Free” (which became the most played song at Christian radio in 1991).
His litany of career credits include a dozen Dove Awards wins, including those for Male Vocalist of the Year in 1989, Song of the Year in that same year (“Friend of a Wounded Heart”), Pop Contemporary Song of the Year and Contemporary Album of The Year (1988) for Watercolour Ponies, and Pop/Contemporary Song of the Year (1992) for “Home Free”. He has twice been nominated for the Grammy Award—both for his performance of Watercolour Ponies (1987), and for Best Pop Gospel Album in 1992 for A Beautiful Place.
In the 1990s, he gave a groundbreaking emotionally charged performance of “Another Time, Another Place” with fellow artist Sandi Patty on NBC-TV’s The Tonight Show—an event that was deemed a defining moment in Christian music’s move to wider audiences. In the late 1990s, his inspirational hit “For Such a Time as This” became a centerpiece theme of the CBS-TV series Touched by an Angel.
Wayne is currently the associate director of music at Chapelwood United Methodist Church in Houston, Texas.
On January 1, 2011, Wayne was among 7 artists inducted into the Christian Music Hall of Fame.
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