![]() In the beginning, Mary Chapin Carpenter in 1987. I wanted him to know how grateful I was for that.” He made feel it was a noble thing to want to be an artist in the world. As she said in an interview with Nashville journalist, Robert Oermann, “A divorce is like a death.” Remembering her father’s passing, she said, “I wrote him a letter that thanked him for everything he had done for me in my life. In the years of recovery that followed, her father died and her marriage ended in divorce. In 2007 she was diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism, a life-threatening lung disorder. This has contributed to a deepening of her songs. She has also won five Grammys, two Country Music Association (CMA) awards, and two Country Music Awards.Įven so, Mary Chapin Carpenter has experienced her share of challenges over the years. Most recently, in 2012, she became one of 15 women to be elected into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame as she joined the company of Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, and Cindy Walker. ![]() So much so, that she appears to be on a direct path to induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame, which is an honor that has yet to be awarded to the singer-songwriter and trailblazer who helped merge country, rock, and folk music into what today is called Americana music. Her hit songs have included a classic cover of Lucinda Williams’ “Passionate Kisses,” “He Thinks He’ll Keep Her,” and “Down at the Twist & Shout.” A survey of her albums since 2010 have consistently sold well on the country and folk charts but, more important, they have portrayed an artist who continues to grow in all areas of her art.Ĭarpenter’s accolades are many over the years. During her career she has made music that can make us dance and hypnotically sway to her lyrics that often border on poetic literature at its best.Ĭarpenter on tour with Shawn Colvin, 2013.Īlthough her days of multi-platinum selling hit songs are long behind her, over the last 30 years since she championed the country and pop charts, she has produced work that has enlarged her legacy, as she has opened musical doors that bridge meaning and poetry to folk and country idioms while keeping a solid fan base happy with her richly satisfying albums and concert performances.ĭuring the ’80s and ’90s, her hit songs crossed over to mainstream pop music charts. It is her voice, in all the dimension of meaning of the term, that carries her 30-plus year cycle of albums, gifting her audience with skilled songwriting, rich production, and music that is as soothing as it is engaging. No singer-songwriter alive today carries this as soulfully and authentically as Mary Chapin Carpenter. They carry voices of reason, healing, compassion, empathy, understanding, and a sense of beauty rooted in their visions, and in their words and music. But there’s another voice that call us: those of musicians, poets, and artists. With empty promises of “thoughts and prayers,” they are shrill and defensive as children needlessly die at the crucible of political ideology. ![]() There so many noisy voices in the recent world at large. Mary Chapin Carpenter sings “Between the Dirt and the Stars.” Everything I’ve ever felt, every place I’ll ever dream of finding, as well as every place I’ve ever been, can be found in a trance-like memory of riding in a car on a hot summer night listening to the radio. I still believe in the innocence of first love, perfect songs, and a sweet buzz from a can of cheap beer. I’m still in one piece, and I still believe that most people are good. In an interview recently published on her website, Carpenter further describes her impressions of the pivotal song “Between the Dirt and the Stars.”įast-forward to where I am now. Nor can we let an album like this fade into the background. ![]() And, indeed, the chorus of the classic, “Wild Horses,” rings true as the listener remembers and knows no one can drag us away from these critical moments in our lives. This moment is captured in the title song from her 2020 release, The Dirt and the Stars, which includes a masterful collection of songs that yields with it personal and universal insight like this one. Illuminated in her soul was her path of life and the years that would follow. There was joy and sorrow side by side in her heart in this timeless moment. The lyrics, especially the chorus to the song, drew her in like a rope to a native, wild Palomino. In the epiphany of that moment, she knew she was simultaneously free and lost. She leaned her head back, closed her eyes and “Wild Horses” by the Rolling Stones came on the car radio. ![]() It seemed her entire life was ahead of her. Back when she was a young girl on the brink of a bright road to musical success, Mary Chapin Carpenter was in a car with friends going down a dark road at one in the morning. ![]()
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