TRACY CHAPMAN

Born: Cleveland, Ohio, 20 March 1964

Genre: Folk, Pop

Best-selling album since 1990: New Beginning (1995)

Hit songs since 1990: "Give Me One Reason," "Telling Stories"

Tracy Chapman burst into the pop music scene in the late 1980s as a uniquely styled singer/songwriter whose straightforward songs chronicled diverse social problems. Chapman's rhythmic folk music features poetic lyrics framed in catchy, simple melodies while expressively sung in her rich alto. As her popularity dipped following her initial mega-success, Chapman's song topics became less about social crusades and more about love and personal issues. Chapman is a participating advocate in a variety of human rights causes.

Chapman was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and raised in lower-middle-class means by her mother. Her older sister, Aneta, gave her a guitar when she was eight and Chapman began writing songs soon after. Later, she won a scholarship to a private high school in Danbury, Connecticut, and went on to study anthropology and African culture at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts. Struggling financially at Tufts, Chapman was persuaded into playing her guitar and singing songs on the streets and later in coffeehouses around Boston. She earned a strong local following and recorded some demo tapes. After a series of rejections, she signed with Elektra Records and released the debut album, Tracy Chapman (1988), whose raw, acoustic sound contrasted greatly with the general radio fare of the 1980s.

Tracy Chapman was one of the most remarkable album debuts in music history. On the strength of her hit "Fast Car," the album sold more than 10 million copies, and Chapman immediately became a superstar and gained prominence as a voice for the voiceless. Her songs, tales about the hopelessness of growing up poor, racism, corporate greed, male dominance, and a plethora of other socially charged topics, struck a resonant chord with the burgeoning, upwardly mobile "yuppie" generation. Months after the release of her debut album, Chapman was in the forefront of social relevancy as she performed in a satellite-linked concert at London's Wembley Stadium in celebration of Nelson Mandela's seventieth birthday. Soon after, she headlined the Human Rights Now Tour with Sting, Bruce Springsteen, and Peter Gabriel. It was a long way from the coffeehouses of Boston.

Chapman's image as a social crusader was further enhanced with her following efforts, Crossroads (1990) and Matters of the Heart (1991). The songs on these two recordings continue in the honest, issue-conscious vein of the debut album. However, Chapman became a victim of her own success as critics, expecting her to build on her extraordinary first effort, were harsh over the sameness of Crossroads and Matters of the Heart. Sales fell dramatically as fans grew weary of the melancholy material. Exhausted and disenchanted with stardom, Chapman, reticent by nature, entered a reclusive period. Yet she continued performing for causes such as AIDS Awareness, Farm Aid, Nelson Mandela's Freedomfest, Neil Young's Bridge School concerts, civil liberties, minority rights, environmental causes, gender equity, sexual freedom, and many others. She also performed in 1992 at New York's Madison Square Garden with a lineup of stars in the thirtieth anniversary tribute concert for Bob Dylan. She performed his "The Times They Are a Changin'."

In late 1995 Chapman released her fourth album, New Beginning. As in her debut album, New Beginning was helped by a hit single. "Give Me One Reason," a chunky, twelve-bar pop-blues showcasing Chapman's honeyed belt, became her largest hit and won a Grammy Award. Unlike earlier albums, her attention to social issues was blunted in favor of songs focused more on personal issues and relationship intimacies. With more than 4 million in sales, New Beginning is her best commercial effort since the debut recording. Backed by a new band, the usually solo-performing Chapman promoted the album in a series of tours that took her all over the world. She also recorded a duet with blues legend B.B. King on his album Deuces Wild (1997). The album has King performing duets with a number of stars and Chapman sings his signature "The Thrill Is Gone."

Chapman waited almost five years to release her next album, Telling Stories (2000). The title song was released as a single, and its lyric, "there is fiction in the space between you and me," speaks to an uncommitted lover or possibly to a larger entity such as the media. Only one song on Telling Stories, an ode to the unimportance of materialism called "Paper and Ink," resembles the socially relevant songs of her earlier albums.

Chapman lives in the San Francisco area, where she recorded her sixth album, Let It Rain (2002). In 2003 she toured western Europe, beginning in France. She remains active in a variety of causes.

Folk music has never been regarded as a particularly commercial genre; nevertheless, Chapman raised the bar considerably. Although many fans feel that critics unfairly held her to the standards of her spectacular debut, Chapman is an uncompromising artist who resists trends and sets her own standards.

SELECTIVE DISCOGRAPHY:

Tracy Chapman (Elektra, 1988); Crossroads (Elektra, 1989); Matters of the Heart (Elektra, 1992); New Beginning (Elektra, 1995); Telling Stories (Elektra, 2000); Let It Rain (Elektra, 2002).

donald lowe