[Jonular]

Platinum selling Casting Crowns picked up three Dove Awards at last night's GMA Music Awards held at Nashville's Grand Ole Opry. The band took home the coveted Group of the Year trophy and the Inspirational Recorded Song and Pop Contemporary Recorded Song categories for "Voice of Truth" and "Who Am I," respectively. In addition, Mark Hall, the band's lead vocalist and primary songwriter, received individual recognition for his songwriting. He garnered the prestigious Songwriter of the Year title for the second straight year as well as honors in the Song of the Year category for "Who Am I," one of the most played songs on Christian radio in 2004. Hall also received Doves as songwriter for the band's two Recorded Song winners. With these new honors, Casting Crowns continues its journey into unprecedented levels of success with the RIAA Platinum certification of its self-titled debut album for sales of more than one million copies. This momentous occasion came only fifteen months after the Sept. 30, 2003 release of its award-winning album, making them the fastest selling debut artist in recent Christian music history.

Spurred on by record-breaking success at Christian radio, with three consecutive No. 1 singles, its latest hit, "Voice of Truth," is currently spending a record-setting thirteenth week at the top of R&R's Christian AC Monitored Chart. Two weeks ago, the band set a record at radio for being the first artist on the R&R AC Monitored chart to hold the #1 spot for 11 consecutive weeks. With massive touring already underway for 2005, the opening chapters of this amazing success story are still being written.

Upon its release, Casting Crowns quickly earned the highest first-week sales of any debut artist on Nielsen SoundScan Christian market sales chart for the year. In 2004, Casting Crowns was the most played artist on all Christian radio formats combined, and performed to more than one million people in concert, including 700,000 on solo spot dates. As Casting Crowns graced the February cover of CCM magazine's "Reader's Choice Awards" issue, it also hit the road for the second leg of the successful "All Things New" tour with Steven Curtis Chapman and Chris Tomlin. The tour launched February 10 in Oklahoma City, OK, and will hit 44 stops through the middle of May, promising to put this award-winning group in front of another quarter of a million people by mid-2005.

For more information on Casting Crowns, click here.