In the early 1990s, Amy Grant led the charge of Christian music artists crossing into mainstream popular music on the strength of the single “Baby Baby,” an infectious song that will probably be stuck in your head the rest of the day. The No. 1 hit, off 1991’s “Heart in Motion,” was one of five from the album to land Grant high up the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Before her solo move into the mainstream, Grant did “The Next Time I Fall,” a 1986 duet with Peter Cetera, who had a Midas-like effect on songs in the 1980s. “The Next Time I Fall” hit No. 1.

Not all Christian purists were pleased with Grant’s slide into the mainstream, but more records with secular appeal followed.

Grant’s recording career slowed in the ’00s, and her latest record, “How Mercy Looks from Here,” out since May, is her first full album of new songs in about a decade. On it, she sings with some people you may have heard of: Carole King, Sheryl Crow, James Taylor and Vince Gill, her husband.

“I didn’t start off the record saying, ‘Hey, let’s get all these people,’” Grant, 52, told GO! Magazine in a recent telephone interview. “It was just amazing how other opportunities in life brought about a reason to make contact. I sang with James on a benefit in October; I sang with Carole in December on something else.”

Each time, she took the opportunity to ask, “Hey, are you free to (sing) on my project?” she said. “The planets (were) aligning. It never felt like we were trying to shove something through.”

The collaboration with King, “Our Time is Now,” just might be her favorite, if she had to pick one, which she was hesitant to do.

But it’s not just because of King’s presence. Grant’s father also sings background vocals on it.

“Just this ‘bom-bom-bom-bom,’” she said. “Gosh, my dad, he had the most beautiful voice, but he has really advanced dementia. He can’t say my name. He has that kind that he just says a few words, but they sound like nonsense.

“It’s been quite a long haul. But he loves music. And that melody, it’s just a little bass line going into the chorus,” Grant said. “And he could never learn something, but it’s the melody of ‘Frere Jacques.’”

Father and daughter were in the studio together for two days.

“We just sat around in tears (with) a microphone between us. We got him sort of engaged, and then we would sing ‘Frere Jacques,’ but just do the melody, because he can’t do words anymore. Some of it wasn’t perfect,” she said. “Now, I can’t hear that song without wanting to laugh and cry.”

It seems like everyone on the Internet has an opinion about Grant, who has a special way of tuning out the chatter.

“I’ve been on my website over all the years five times,” she said. “I’ve never been in a chat room.” (Her manager asks her before she posts stuff about Grant on Twitter.)

Since her teens, when her recording career began, she’s made it her policy to follow the cues of her family — and not just go along with things because they come with the music.

“I have three sisters, and none of them wake up in the morning and find some location where strangers are talking about them to see what they’re saying,” she said. “I probably won’t read the article you’re going to write. It’s just not normal.”

She and husband Gill, Grant confessed with a laugh, are grateful they aren’t trying to make it now.

“Every once in while my husband and I will say, ‘I’m so glad we had the zenith of our careers in a different decade,’” she said. “I look at all these — ‘The Voice,’ ‘American Idol’ — all those and I go, ‘It is no mystery to me. I would have not even made it to the city.’

“Now it seems like you have to be able to ‘wow’ on first impact. I grew up in a generation where it was just so much more about the experience of music, you know, and the songs. I don’t know. It’s just so different.”

Grant said that for her show in Bend, she’ll do songs from throughout her lengthy career.

“I don’t have a set list. I respond to the audience, like, ‘Have we played something you wanted to hear?’” she said.

When an artist has such an extensive catalog, there’s a certain amount of risk in doing things that way. At a show the night before she spoke to GO! Magazine, “somebody called something out,” Grant said. “I tried to do it — I didn’t think the band knew it — and I botched it so bad. But I didn’t care.”

If you go

What: Amy Grant, with Brandon Heath

When: 7 p.m. Thursday, doors open 6 p.m.

Where: Christian Life Center, 21720 E. U.S. Highway 20, Bend

Cost: $17.50 (general) and $35 (reserved) in advance, $22.50 (general) and $40 (reserved) day of show, plus fees; ticket outlets listed at the website below

Contact: www.j.mp/amygrantinfo or 541-389-8241