Texas Connects Us: The Man Behind the Music

The Dallas Wings are coming to Arlington in 2016.

The WNBA franchise was lured here, in part, by Chris Christian.

Christian is an accomplished signer, songwriter and music producer.

"I can sit down right now and write a song, and I can sit down five minutes later and I can write another song." Christian said with a smile. "They're not all good, but every once in a while, one of them, I think, 'well that's pretty cool.'"

When Christian was still in high school, he wrote a song that the "King of Rock and Roll" would later record. He remembers getting the news.

"I said 'get out of here, because I'm a nobody. I've done nothing. I've just driven to Nashville, I've got my guitar and here's Elvis recording the song,'" Christian explained. "That brought me into the playing field."

By the late 1970s and early 1980s, his popularity was soaring.

He signed Amy Grant to a recording contract when Amy was just 16-years-old.

"She was going to church, singing her songs about her faith, " Christian said.

Now, dozens of gold and platinum albums later, Christian's done just fine.

"When i look at the things that happened to me, they shouldn't have happened," he added. "I think God just kinda creates these opportunities and puts me in them and I hope I've done what I'm supposed to do with them."

But his real passion, is his family.

His youngest daughter, Savannah, excelled in basketball.

Remember that game in 2009, when a local private school beat a team 100 to zero?

That was Savannah's team.

"I said Savannah, 'what's your greatest memory,'" Christian later asked his daughter. "'I mean, we've flown to California to play with Nike elite clubs, you won a game 100 to nothing, you're four-time all state, you've done all these things. What's your greatest memory?'" And she just immediately looked and said 'it was spending time with you Dad.' I'm tearing up now. I mean, every time I say that, I tear up, but what I realized is I was a proud Dad because she was excelling, but she just wanted to be with me."

Christian's now trying to create that opportunity for other dads, with the recently formed Dallas Wings.

"This WNBA thing is a lot more than basketball," Christian said. "This is a golden opportunity to spend time with your family. Every minute you spend with your family, that's something you look back on at the end of your life and you go, I'm glad I did that."

Christian clearly knows his music and he hopes to help other families find that perfect harmony, too.

Contact Us