Michele Pillar

Joel Caballero
1 day ago
3 min read

Updated: 25 minutes ago

Michele Diane Zarges Pillar (born July 26, 1955) is an American contemporary Christian music singer. She is known for her association with Calvary Chapel's Maranatha! Music and Focus On the Family. Raised in Long Beach, California, Zarges got her start on The Maranatha Singer's 1976 release Praise II credited as Michele Takaoka. She also appeared in Praise albums III, IV, V and VI. In 1979, still a member of The Maranatha Singers, Zarges married Steve Pillar and was leading a singles ministry for several years, drawing on her marriage for examples and illustrations of a stable romantic relationship grounded in friendship and mutual respect.

Also in 1979, Pillar teamed up with musician and songwriter Erick Nelson and released The Misfit, a concept album where a common thread of concept of being an “outsider” or outcast weaves its way throughout each and every song. The different topics range from faith, love, loss, doubt and more, but all with a singular focus as coming from the outside looking in. In 1981, Pillar provided backing vocals on Phil Keaggy's release Town to Town, including a duet with Keaggy on "What a Wonder You Are." That duet brought her to the attention Christian music label executive Billy Ray Hearn and a recording contract with Sparrow Records.

Pillar released her debut solo album Michele Pillar in 1982 and gave her, her first Top 10 Christian radio hit "Walk Across Heaven." Her next album, Reign On Me, brought her more hit songs like the title song and "He Rolled Away the Stone." Pillar earned her first Grammy Award nomination in 1984 for her second release. Pillar's third and final Sparrow release Look Who Loves You Now was released in the fall of 1984 and produced her first number one hit with the title song. Pillar also collaborated with Steve Camp with their duet hit "Love's Not a Feeling," for Camp's Fire and Ice album. Both her album and the duet earned her two more Grammy nominations in 1985.

After Look Who Loves You Now, Pillar appeared on Camp's charity single "Do Something Now." Pillar took a break from music, divorced Steve Pillar in 1985 and in 1987 married musician Larry Carlton. Carlton produced and performed guitar on Look Who Loves You Now. Pillar's career came to a standstill in 1988 when her husband, Carlton, was nearly killed in a random shooting in the doorway of their Los Angeles house. A year later, Pillar provided guest lead vocals on Carlton's Christmas project Christmas At My House with "Ringing the Bells of Christmas."

Pillar returned to Christian music one more time with her 1991 release Love Makes All the Difference on Benson Records' Urgent label. Pillar then took another hiatus from recording. Pillar also studied acting and was represented by the William Morris Agency. Pillar was featured in commercials for Lexus, Levi Strauss, and others. She toured with The Billy Graham Association singing for massive crusades and toured up to two hundred concert dates a year. Pillar's voice was featured on The Simpsons on a number of occasions imitating the voice of Karen Carpenter and others. Pillar recorded the theme song for James Dobson's Focus On the Family radio show, wrote a children's book called The Angel Tree and was affiliated with Prison Fellowship's Angel Tree program.

Pillar returned to recording with her Christmas album I Hear Angels Calling in 2006, released through 335 Records. After more than 25 years of marriage, Pillar and Carlton divorced in 2013. Shortly afterward, Pillar married Matt Rettick on December 29, 2013. A year later, Pillar released a retrospective "Best of " CD entitled Forever Young independently covering her three Sparrow releases and her 1991 album Love Makes All the Difference. Pillar's most recent album, You Untangle Me, was released in 2016.

Currently, Pillar and Rettick live in Franklin, Tennessee. Pillar is a speaker, writer and tours nationally with the Clothesline Women's Conferences, which is a mixture of music, talking and testimonies.

More information on Michele Pillar at Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michele_Pillar

Discography

the solo albums:

Michele Pillar (1982)

Reign On Me (1983)

Look Who Loves You Now (1984)

Compact Favorites (1989) (Sparrow Records compilation album)

Love Makes All the Difference (1991)

I Hear Angels Calling (2006) (Christmas album)

Forever Young (2014) (compilation album)

You Untangle Me (2016)