Christian singer Sandi Patty gives fond farewell to her loyal fans

After 30 years of public performances, Sandi Patty is dropping the microphone.

The 60-year-old is highly decorated in the Christian-music world – she is the winner of 40 Dove Awards and five Grammys and is a Gospel Music Hall of Fame inductee – but she doesn’t want to overstay her welcome.

“According to the Metropolitan Opera world, a woman’s vocal prime is between 45 and 60 years old. I turned 60 this year,” she said, “and I just want to be mindful of the art form, like some of the athletes you see that we love but you think, ‘Man, you should have retired.’ ”

Her 90-city “Forever Grateful” tour, which stops at Gallo Center for the Arts on Friday, Feb. 24, serves as her extended “ thank you” to the longtime fans who have followed the singer through her up-and-down career.

Patty began her public singing career at age 2, when she sang a solo at the Oklahoma City church where her parents played music.

A shy child, Patty sang conversations instead of speaking them.

“I actually learned songs so I could tell somebody what was on my heart,” she said.

Patty started to open up while attending Anderson College (now Anderson University) in Indiana, where she sang solos and recorded corporate jingles.

When gospel music legends Bill and Gloria Gaither heard the college student’s soaring voice and almost-four-octave range, they invited her to travel with their show as a backup singer.

“That opened a lot of doors for me that I wasn’t expecting,” including recording her first independent album, Patty said.

A string of public appearances – singing the national anthem during an ABC special rededicating the Statue of Liberty and performing for three presidents count among her most notable – thrust Patty into the center of inspirational music.

Her faith and family life made her a role model for evangelical families until she and husband John Helvering announced their divorce in the early 1990s.

After she revealed her affair with backup singer Don Peslis after the two were married in 1995, Christian stores pulled her CDs and radio stations stopped playing her songs.

Patty doesn’t hold a grudge against her former supporters.

“I reached the point in my journey where I said, ‘God, it doesn’t matter if I sing again. I just want to be clear and clean before you,’ ” she said.

The Women of Faith traveling conference was the first Christian group to look beyond her missteps and draw Patty back into the fold.

“I was like, ‘I’m going to do one weekend with them, and they’re going to uninvite me,’ but they just loved on me and on my family and really began to open doors of people who heard me sing and invited me to come and be at their church,” she said.

Patty credits her church for guiding her through the rocky times. She emerged to record almost two dozen more albums on the other side of the 17 she had made before her divorce.

Although Christian music remains her focus, Patty also performs Broadway and standard tunes with orchestras nationwide. Her favorite show remains a 2009 stint with the Cincinnati Pops, longtime conductor Erich Kunzel’s last concert before his death.

More than anything in her singing career, though, Patty is most proud of her children. Between her and Peslis, they have eight children and three grandchildren, plus a son they adopted soon after marrying.

“I’m just so thankful for each of them, their uniqueness, their talent, what they bring to the world to make it a better place,” she said. “I think, when my husband and I look back, that’s what brings us the most joy.”

That doesn’t mean that she’ll forget the support of those who gave her a second chance years ago.

“I think that’s where a lot of the heart of the title of the concert comes from – ‘Forever Grateful’ – for there are just so many things for which I am grateful, and I do not take any of it lightly or for granted,” she said.

This story was originally published February 22, 2017 at 12:35 PM with the headline "Christian singer Sandi Patty gives fond farewell to her loyal fans."