Updated 6/2 Christian Recording Artist Carman asks for prayer

TULSA, OKLAHOMA (ANS) — Carman Licciardello, the recording artist and Christian evangelist who earlier this year revealed he has terminal cancer, said on his Facebook page Wednesday he was admitted to the ER.

Carman

Carman wrote that while driving to the gym he had to pull his car over due to extreme nausea. He said he then made his way home.

He continued, “Over the next few hours my body vacated everything including most of my water. I couldn’t even take a sip of water without getting violently ill. My temperature started to rise by the hour and my doctor knew that I was dehydrating pretty quickly. This is a war I’m fighting on a daily basis and I might be trying too hard. I don’t know … But as of right now, this is not good.”

Carman asked readers to pray. He said, “You all are my lifeline to the other side of this horrible journey. We’ve come this far – God can’t allow this testimony of his blessing to stop now. It just can’t happen. I may feel like I’m losing control but God hasn’t.”

Carman is involved in a new album and video project through Kickstarter, a funding platform for creative projects.

A May 28 update on the project read in part, “So … the Kickstarter program (is) giving me an opportunity to record again, and everything above the $200,000 is going into the stage production. I’m now feeling very responsible to get healthy so I can perform on tour and not pass out from lack of oxygen.”

For more information go to www.kickstarter.com/projects/886460906/new-carman-album-and-music-video

Heres more on Carman from Religion News Services 6/1/13

Cancer diagnosis gives second life to Carman’s music career. WhenChristian music veteran Carman found out on Valentine’s Day that he had terminal cancer, he thought God just might be calling him home because he had nothing more to give.

“I’ve had so many harsh things happen to me over the last 12 years, it was almost a situation that made sense,” he said after he was given three to five years to live and no chance of being cured of multiple myeloma, a cancer of the blood that affects the bone marrow.

“I thought I could see this coming to a close,” Carman said in an interview. “I wasn’t really doing anything. I’ve had hardly any requests for concerts. I wasn’t recording. I wasn’t productive. The things I needed to do best, I wasn’t doing. I figured my time was up.”

Once one of the biggest names in Christian musicwho could sell 10 million albums and fill stadiums with his concerts, the man born as Carmelo Domenic Licciardello said he had been rejected by every Christian music label in the last 12 or 13 years and couldn’t even find a record company to distribute one of his CD projects for free.

It was only after he went public about his terminal illness that the 57-year-old singer-songwriter from Trenton, N.J., discovered that he still had an audience.

Carman’s comeback started when he announced on Facebook that he had cancer; the number of “likes” on the page soared from 3,000 in April to more than 159,000 today.

His manager, Sam Chappell, and marketing expert Chris Estes advised him to bypass the recording industry altogether and go directly to the fans to raise the money for a new CD, video and concert tour.

Using the grass-roots fundraising website Kickstarter.com, Carman set a goal of $200,000. If the target wasn’t reached within two months, the project would be scrapped and all donations refunded.

“If God’s in it, I want to know,” Carman said. “I’ve got cancer, I don’t want to play around. If it’s my time to go, let me go in peace.”

His Kickstarter campaign was launched on April 19 and raised $15,000 in the first two hours, $58,000 within two days, and reached his goal in 25 days. So far, more than $306,000 has been donated.