Newer readers may be forgiven for not knowing this but I have an occasional series I call Listen To The Band. You can see the series so far in the menu link at the top of the page, and if you do you’ll see that my most recent post for it was last September, the one before that was in June 2024, and before that September 2022. I think that’s a pretty good reason to call this ‘occasional’ – very occasional! So it’s about time for another, I think. As I said in the very first one I take ‘band’ as a general term and also include singer-songwriters in my selections: four of them so far, and today makes five.

I have often remarked how much I love the music of Mary Chapin Carpenter, and for me this feels long overdue. MCC was born in February 1948: her father was an executive for Life magazine and her mother a singer-songwriter, who helped teach her daughter to play guitar and ukulele and encouraged her early songwriting efforts. Her first album, Hometown Girl, was released in July 1987, and while it wasn’t a commercial success it gained traction via word of mouth in folk music circles, which led to her being invited to play at the Philadelphia Folk Festival and to open shows for Emmylou Harris. To date MCC has released eighteen albums, the most recent being last month’s Personal History, all of which are characterised by her intelligent, thoughtful lyrics and her beautiful, warm voice. Whilst I take a deeper dive with these posts there are just so many of her songs that I could play you, so I have decided to keep this to just her first six albums – a follow up may arrive at some point!

After that first one didn’t do so well MCC made a conscious effort to make her second album more appealing to country radio, and this worked well for her. The album was State Of The Heart, released in June 1989, and it peaked at #183 on the main US Albums chart and at #28 on the Country one. Four tracks from it were released as singles, all of which made the US Country top twenty. Quittin’ Time was the one that fared best, reaching #7:

As she remarks in the brief introduction, she has a longstanding friendship with another superb singer-songwriter, Shawn Colvin: they have toured and shared shows together, and Shawn seems to be having a ball on backing vocals in that clip. She also contributed to the album. A small point to note is that MCC has occasionally recorded songs written by others and this is one such – it was by Robb Royer (formerly of Bread) and Roger Linn, the drum machine man. On the strength of this album she won Top New Female Vocalist from the Academy of Country Music in 1989 and was also Grammy nominated, though she didn’t win.

The follow up to that album, Shooting Straight In The Dark, also did well, making #70 in the main US Albums chart and #11 in the Country one. This is the one which contained what I still think is my all time favourite of her songs, which I have written about at length in a dedicated post. Hopefully you’ll hear why:

As you can tell from the lyrics, the song relates to the appearance of Halley’s Comet in 1910, and was inspired by the writings of a lady called Eudora Welty, who told a story like this about her own childhood in Jackson, Mississippi. MCC also turned the song into a book for children, and several of the pictures in the video are taken from that. I first wrote about what this song means to me back in 2016, and gave that post a reprise and an update in 2021. It is here if you’d like to know more.

MCC’s next album, Come On Come On, was released in June 1992 and was the one with which she hit the big time. Not so much in terms of chart placings – #31 in the US and #6 in their Country chart, with a #4 in  the Canadian Country listings – but in sales terms it was massive, going 4x Platinum in the US, 2x Platinum in Canada, and it even went Silver here in the UK despite never making our chart! Seven of its twelve tracks were released as singles, and all made the US Country top twenty. I’m playing three of them today, starting with a collective performance of one of them:

He Thinks He’ll Keep Her was the sixth single, released in December 1993, and it reached #2 in the US Country chart and #6 in Canada, and even made an appearance in our main chart, reaching #71 in the UK. The live performance I played was from a TV special, Women Of Country, which explains the stellar backing band of Emmylou Harris, Kathy Mattea, Trisha Yearwood, Pam Tillis, Patty Loveless and Suzy Bogguss.

The album’s title track was only ever a B-side to a single: the final one, I Take My Chances, released in April 1994 and peaking at #2 in both the US and Canadian Country charts. It is a fantastic song, a real gem which I have always loved:

That beautiful performance is from Jubilee: Live At Wolf Trap, a DVD released in January 1996. I’ve seen her play this in concert and it is a real ‘hairs on the back of the neck’ moment.

And this is the third one I’m playing from that album. Not an official video but it’s still a great song:

The Hard Way was the fourth single from the album, released in March 1993, and it got to #11 in both the US and Canadian Country charts.

The title of that live DVD, Jubilee, was actually the name of a song on her fifth album, Stones In The Road, which came out in October 1994. It peaked at #10 in the US and #29 in Canada, but made #1 in both of their Country Albums charts, and also became her first UK hit album, reaching #26 here. This is it:

For me, that is a prime example of the depths of her lyrics. Apologies for the audio only clip, but if you’d like to hear her play it solo and live you’ll find it here, in her Songs From Home series during the pandemic.

This just leaves me with one more album to feature from those earlier days: her sixth, A Place In The World, released in October 1996, which reached #20 in the US, #3 in their Country chart, #13 in the Canadian Country listings, and #36 in the UK. I’m playing two songs from it, both of which are utterly gorgeous. This is the first, not an official video but it has some nice images of a wonderful country:

What If We Went To Italy conjures up such fantastic images; like the video it’s a photo album in music. This is another that MCC played as one of her Songs From Home, and you can find that here.

And this is the title track, A Place In The World. This is a fan video, which I think gets to the heart of what the song is about, i.e. a special place that has meaning:

I could go on playing Mary Chapin Carpenter songs all day, but I really have to bring this to a close so as not to outstay my welcome. I’ve given you eight, a mixture of upbeat tunes and slower songs of real beauty, and I hope I’ve managed to convey why I am such a huge fan of this amazing singer-songwriter. As I mentioned, I saw her in concert some years back and it was a real ‘tick it off the bucket list’ event for me. She was wonderful, and well worth the trouble of Sunday travel around London when the tube lines are misbehaving. If you enjoyed these, do please let me know, as I’m thinking a second set might be in order if you’d like.

That’s all for today. Enjoy the rest of your week, and I’ll see you again for Song Lyric Sunday 😊