Music: Beth Nielsen Chapman
Jeff Hemmings talks to Texas-born singer songwriter
Texan born Beth Nielsen Chapman is the consummate singer songwriter, an artist who has been releasing albums since 1990 and has penned numerous hits and written songs for the likes of Elton John, The Indigo Girls, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson and Bonnie Raitt. As someone who has embraced musical diversity she is also forthright campaigner and teacher on the ‘magic of creativity.
For her new album though she decided to record songs she had written but never recorded before.
Aptly enough it is called UnCovered. “I’m taking them back!” she says over the phone. “All the songs bar one I had never recorded before. Bob Harris [Whisperin’ Bob Harris, the legendary broadcaster] saved me! I had been toying with the idea, but hadn’t really got my head around it. He said, ‘Well, Beth [in his whispering way], this is so obvious. The tracks are almost done and it’s screaming out to be called ‘uncovered’,’ which was perfect, not ‘recovered’ which might have sounded like I was in AA or something.”
She’s been spending much of the new year here in the UK, performing at Celtic Connections and getting ready to tour the UK. But just after this conversation and before the tour started she was due to fly back to America to attend the Grammys, where she was nominated (but didn’t win) for Best Children’s album, The Mighty Sky. “I did that album with Rocky Alvey, he runs an observatory in Nashville, and he wrote a lot of the lyrics for The Mighty Sky, which is about astronomy in general.”
As well as writing for children, she has composed an album sung in Sanksrit, written a accapela collection of ancient Latin Hymns and released Prism (2007), a ten-year labour of love that resulted in an album of songs from all paths of faith sung in nine languages!
Her obvious passion for life has perhaps been further fired by a couple of major events in her life; the death of her husband in 1994 and the breast cancer she fought and beat a few years ago. “My refuge is to write. I’ve only had one or two times when I wasn’t writing for any length of time; once when I had cancer and was having chemotherapy, but I’d still be thinking about melodies, I just had too much medicine going on in my head.
As for UnCovered, one of the songs is called Strong Enough To Bend, a song she initially gave to Willie Nelson. “I got a call from him, he liked what he’d heard… I didn’t have any expectation he would actually record that song, but he liked it and I was so honoured to be asked to write for him. That song gave Willie his 14th country number one.”
How does she stay inspired? “Just fill the tank with something other than a reality show! Luckily, I had some hits when the industry was a bit different. Now, its’ more difficult to survive even if you have hits. But we juts gotta keep working… it’s more important to be doing it rather than the thinking about the immediate gains. If I have to I will stand on a street corner and busk for a living… And as long as there is wheelchair access, I’ll be gigging.”
Saturday 22 February, St. George’s Church, 7.30pm, £24.50
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