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Rachel
Lampa
“Blessed”
 A day in the life of Rachael Lampa looks like that of any
given student at Monarch High in Louisville,
Colorado, near Boulder. “I get up at 6:30,
crawl to the shower, dry my hair, finish my
homework from the night before,” says
Rachael, a typical American suburban
teenager who occasionally peppers her
usually articulate conversations with “like,
you know?” and this-or-that “thingy.”
Talking with Rachael is like talking with
any other happy, well-adjusted adolescent
girl, for the most part. There’s basketball;
she’s a stand-out point guard on the girls’
jr. varsity team (“I love playing, but I
don’t watch it on TV--it bugs me”), church
(“I love my church...our youth group leader
is so cool...”) and school (“My favorite
subject is lunch—it’s very educational. I
taught myself how to peel an orange in one
piece with an aluminum pop-top”).
But Rachael Lampa, the Monarch High point guard and
champion orange peeler, and Rachael Lampa, the budding pop diva, would seem to
have very different schedules. Sports and
school lunches had to wait when Rachael went
to London for the recording of the
prestigious London Session Orchestra’s
contribution to her much-anticipated Word
Records CD, “Live For You.” The church youth
group and Fellowship of Christian Athletes
met without her when Rachael stayed in
Nashville for meetings with some of Music
City’s most successful songwriters. And her
brother Ryan drove to Monarch High by
himself the week that Rachael flew to
Nashville to record a duet with the
legendary Aaron Neville, an event that
seemed almost ho-hum until Rachael was told
about Neville’s famed duet with one of her
heroes (“THAT’s him? The guy who sings
‘Don’t Know Much’ with Linda Ronstadt? I’m
singing with HIM? Oh my gosh!”).
Aaron Neville wasn’t the first to be wowed by Rachael
Lampa’s prodigious talent —it was evident early on in her young life. Very early, in
fact: family legend has it that Rachael
belted out tunes from her baby crib and
could sing perfect harmony by age 4. From
time to time, her singing got her in
trouble—despite her parents’ pride in their
child’s talent, enough was enough, and
singing too loud at the dinner table won
Rachael a trip to her room more than once.
“We knew she had a God-given talent from the beginning,”
says Marianne Lampa, a stay-at-home mom of 4
who met her husband Phil while both were
working as nurses in an Indiana hospital.
“We’ve encouraged her to sing whenever and
wherever it’s appropriate. Just not while
the rest of her brothers and sisters are
trying to eat or do their homework,” Mom
says, laughing.
 “I’ve dreamed of being a recording artist, for as long as I
can remember,” says Rachael. “I grew up
listening to Christian music, especially Amy
Grant—‘El Shaddai’ from Age To Age was the
first thing I heard.” She was quickly at
home on a stage, from The Jenny Jones Show’s
Young Talent Search (at 12) to finishing in
2nd place at the World Championship of
Entertainment and her frequent performances
of the national anthem at Colorado Rockies
baseball games, Rachael’s childhood dreams
seemed destined to come true.
Though Rachael had already been a regular performer by the
time her age hit double-digits, it was a
“chance” incident that brought her talent to
the rapt attention of Nashville record
executives at a conference in Estes Park,
Colorado. “I had never even heard of ‘Praise
in the Rockies,’ but this guy who was lining
up the performers happened to be staying
with one of our friends, down here,” says
Rachael. “He heard my voice on a demo tape
of our friend’s song, and he wanted to hear
more.”
Two days later, Marianne Lampa got a phone call from Estes
Park—it was the same fellow, Danny Meeker,
asking if Rachael could come up the next day
and perform two songs. Rachael remembers the
moment: “I was, like, getting my hair cut or
something, and Mom called me and said, ‘Oh,
by the way, there will be people from five
record companies there listening to
you...and you’ll be singing after Amy Grant
and Michael W. Smith.’”
A daunting task for a 14-year-old, but she handled it like
a pro—at least on the outside (‘I was
freaking out!’)—and the record execs swarmed
like flies to honey.
“When I got done singing, I started to walk backstage and
the first person I saw was this guy who
said, ‘Hi, I’m Brent Bourgeois from Word
Records.’ I thought, ‘A record company?’ I’d
never met anybody from a record company
before!”
She met plenty of them—that week, mother and daughter made
daily trips up to the mountains to meet with
several record representatives, and, shortly
thereafter, the drives became flights to
Nashville for more meetings. At the tender
age of 14, Rachael Lampa signed a long-term
artist agreement with Word Records and her
new friend Brent Bourgeois. Looking back
just a few short months, the teen sensation
is surprisingly reflective. “I would not
have been prepared for this to happen any
earlier,” she says. “When I went to Estes
Park, I had just been to a great youth
conference in South Dakota, and my faith was
building fast. It was the right time—I was
really ready for this to happen, and God
opened all the doors.”
Indeed, it’s her vibrant, personal faith in Jesus Christ
that is at the center of
 Rachael Lampa’s busy young life. From the parental
discipleship of the senior Lampas (“My
parents are from really strong Christian
homes themselves”) to her close
relationships with adult role models at St.
Louis Church and her high school’s chapter
of Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Rachael
is fully supported and thoroughly grounded
in reality, despite the whirlwind of
recording sessions and media interviews.
In the midst of juggling all of these priorities, Rachael
is quick to count her greatest blessings.
Without pausing for a breath, and with the
unbridled enthusiasm of a teenager in love
with life, Rachael rattles off her list: “An
awesome, supportive family and friends! The
ability to keep up a normal life in a
regular high school...people that care about
me and pray for me…the privilege to have
grown up with faith and the knowledge of
God. God around me, and God’s presence,
always with me.” |
