DeGarmo & Key was formed in 1977 by Eddie DeGarmo and Dana Key. They grew up in Whitehaven, Tennessee. Key indicated in an interview that Elvis Presley was one of his earliest musical influences. Key and Degarmo met in first grade at Graves Elementary. They formed their first band, Globe. While at Hillcrest High School, Globe had signed with Hi Records. In 1972, DeGarmo and Key became Christians while seniors at Hillcrest High. They approached the other members in Globe wanting to change the direction of the band to Christian music. After much discussion, Key and DeGarmo parted with their bandmates as friends, leaving Globe at some point in 1972. The two put music on hold for a time and chose to do ministry work for Youth for Christ.

Influenced by Larry Norman’s 1972 album, Only Visiting This Planet, they saw in Norman’s work what they believed God could do through Contemporary Christian music. A decision was made to put together a trio which they called The Christian Band before changing their name to The DeGarmo and Key Band before their first commercial release. Youth for Christ loaned the band money to record a demo tape, which contributed to them securing a contract with Lion & Lamb and releasing their debut album, This Time Thru, in 1977. The Straight On album, which showed a prog rock influence, followed in 1979, later making the critic’s poll of the 100 best albums list published by CCM in 2001. The group’s third album, This Ain’t Hollywood released in 1980, became the first Christian rock album to be nominated for a Grammy for best Gospel performance, contemporary or inspirational. The album included a duet with Amy Grant, ”Nobody Loves Me Like You Do”.

This association lead to Grant touring with D&K as an opening act with D&K as her musical support/backup band in 1981. This was Grant’s first big tour and was a boost for both artists. This pairing did close to 40 dates and improved Grant’s act along with giving her a harder rock sound. Some of the dates were recorded resulting in Grant’s two releases, Amy Grant: In Concert and In Concert Vol. 2″.

With the release of their sixth album, Communication, DeGarmo & Key became the first American Christian group to have a music video appear on MTV. The video production of ”Six, Six,Six”, one of the songs included on Communication, became the first song from a religious record label to be placed in MTV’s regular rotation. The original video for the song was one of a number of videos that MTV pulled from rotation due to violent content. The removal was prompted by a public reaction to the U.S. Senate hearings on sex and violence in music. MTV had misinterpreted the song ”Six, Six, Six” as an anti-Christian statement. According to industry news reports at the time, MTV executive Sandra Sparrow was unaware that DeGarmo & Key were a Christian band when she included the video in a list of videos to be excised. MTV allowed DeGarmo & Key to submit a re-edited version which was placed back into light rotation. Removed from the re-edited video was a short scene of a man representing the Antichrist being set on fire.

The first 100,000 copies of D&K, the group’s ninth album, was packaged with a free second copy with identical content so the buyer could give the copy to an ”unsaved friend”. Promotion for their eleventh album, The Pledge released in 1989, used the tag line ”Take the Pledge – Read the Word” and was made in concert with the publisher of the New International Version of the bible. For the 1991 album release, Go to the Top, the duo developed and published a bible study curriculum to go with the album. During their time together both Key and DeGarmo recorded two solo albums apiece.

In 1994 they released their final album together, ”To Extremes”. This album had a much edgier, more modern rock-based sound than their previous albums. Key was also experimenting with different tunings, some songs tuned down as low as Drop B.

The group was nominated for seven Grammy Awards and five Dove Awards. DeGarmo & Key disbanded in 1995.