CRAZY TOWN TIME -BETH NIELSEN CHAPMAN

Beth Nielsen Chapman is one of those astonishingly talented Nashville singer-songwriters with a huge back catalogue of songs and albums that have earned Grammy nominations and lade her the envy of many of her musical peers. With songs picked-up, recorded and covered by the likes of Elton John, Willie Nelson, Vince Gill, Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris, John Prine, Bette Midler, Waylon Jennings, Olivia Newton-John and many more. With a UK tour in the pipeline, Blues Matters caught Beth at home in Nashville for a chat.

With so many great, international artists covering her material, I ask how it feels. Beth laughs, shakes her head in near disbelief, and says: “You know, it’s really unbelievable at times. When I read some of my Bios out there, I ask myself, is that really me!”

“It’s been a wonderful thing. Terry Wogan and Bob Harris, folks at Radio 2 really helped me build an audience so I just come back to the UK every year. I remember my booking agent calling and asking if I was coming over because I was getting lots of cover; Terry Wogan talking about me on the radio so ‘you need to get over here and tour’ So I was like OK; at the time I had never heard of Eva Cassisy but he would play Eva Cassidy then Sand and Water, and he’d say ‘These two girls, these two voices are like sisters.’ And I was thinking, ‘Eva who…?’ Then I looked her up and I thought, Oh my God! What a compliment.”

“I love writing songs, many for other people; that’s been a huge joy for me.” So I’m curious about whether she prefers writing to performing:

“It’s kinda like asking somebody ‘Do you prefer to eat or sleep?’ Because it’s so intertwined and one depends on the other. If I write and don’t perform for a long while then I kinda yearn to go out and perform. But when I’m out performing on tour then I’m yearning to get home and write again. I’m never totally satisfied wherever I am but I feel really enriched by both sides of that so it’s not something I can imagine separating and picking only one! “

And she expands on the theme: “I started writing songs with my little guitar when I was about eleven, playing in church, then playing weddings and parties, so I forgot to go to college because I was doing that stuff when I was really young. Then I got my first deal, then another and ended up recording my first album in 1980. I was 21 or something and it was produced at Muscle Shoals with all those legendary guys there; that album came out, very much a singer-songwriter album, disco hit and the world changed; I was an unmarried mother with a baby who swore she was never gonna write another song. I was just mad at the world cause my record flopped. Then I went to see the movie Coal Miner’s Daughter, about Loretta Lynn. My husband had been trying to get me back to writing cause I was miserable, and I saw a scene where Loretta Lynn has this song coming through – she’s planting potatoes and kids are climbing all over her but she has this song in her, so I thought if she could do that, I should just get off my butt!”

“So it all started with writing songs and my voice was always a part of it and it was another ten years before I made my next record; I had a lot of time to hone the songwriting thing and that’s why I found myself writing for other people; you see I wasn’t just writing songs that were just for me, I found it fulfilling to write for other people “

“John Prine was my biggest hero. He never recorded one of my songs but one time I tricked him into singing background vocals. His wife, Fiona, said, ‘He doesn’t sing background vocals.’ I thought, OK, got in the studio and I pulled down the melody and pushed up the background vocals. He arrived, he loved the song so he agreed to come and sing but he thought he was going to sing the melody! I said ‘I’ve changed the melody just slightly, John,’ and he goes, ‘Sure, but that’s not as good as your original melody.’ So, I said let’s get it down one time then go back maybe. So I tricked him into it, singing a melody he thought sucked; then when he came in the control room I chqnged it all, played it back and said, ‘Now, John, you’re singing harmony.’ He turned round and said , ‘Well, I’ll be damned!’ He was so proud of himself, it was just great.”

“It’s like John Hiatt, another favourite. I feel like I’ve been very lucky to work with so many of these greats. Robert Plant is another - I’ve gotten to have dinner with him a couple of times and he’s good friends with Bob Harris and Trudie Myerscough Harris, who manages me, and we have the most delightful conversations with him not having to be Robert Plant! He’s interested and fascinated by so many things. He pulls stuff out of people in many ways and I don’t think he gets credit for that enough. It’s hard to understand that the stature he’s had as an artist and at times he doesn’t take himself seriously,” she says with a wistful laugh.

“I’ve never known where I’m going, and that’s my good spot, that’s my happy place! When I teach workshops on creativity, when I start every song I’m walking out to the edge of the cliff of what I can do, I’m hanging one foot over the cliff and I don’t know what happens after this! I’ve gotta let go of this cliff sooner or later and I just go out. And that’s where most energy and creative wisdom lies; I think of it like this giant thing that’s all around us and it’s like oxygen, if we’re in the same room you can’t not have oxygen when I have it! And I think it’s one of the things humans struggle with, the right to be creative! “

“I’m passionate about teaching cause I love to see the change in them, the look in their eyes when they think ‘Yea, can I do that!’ It might be painting, or music, or writing a song, or baking; it doesn’t matter what it is, you can choose your passion and not to have creative ways to live is one of the great sadnesses.”

“Nashville to me is like a vortex. There’s an energetic pull of creative flow here that’s up and running everywhere. It’s like being on a fast cycle all the time. You do have to step out of it – I used to go down to Music Row every day, signed to Warner brothers Publishing, then I signed to different publishers, and I’d be out on the street asking ‘who’s around, what’s happening today’ Those were such fun days but now I’m travelling back and forth, doing the artist career and so I don’t get down to take the pulse of Music Row but I know it’s still going. If you’re a young songwriter, it’s a fantastic place to be.”

“I played Merlefest one of the last years Doc Watson was alive. I was talking to Steve Buckingham and the headliner was Dolly Parton. I was backstage looking for Steve, her producer, and I just wanted to say hello to Dolly – I don’t really know her but just wanted to say hello. I asked if she was around and he said, ‘Oh, she’s gone off to get a hamburger!’ I said, ‘By herself!’ and he said, ‘Yea, she just takes the wig off and nobody recognizes her! ‘And sure enough, she just went off, got a hamburger and came right back! I just loved that. She’s amazing!”

Recalling how she started playing guitar, Beth explains: “My dad got a guitar for Fathers Day and my mom stuck it in the closet. I found it, got in there with a little tuner thing, pipes. We were living in Germany and I couldn’t find any books in English, so I just figured out where to put my fingers, to sound good, and I just named them like, say, X or something. So I taught myself the chords but without knowing the names of them. It was very weird but I loved music and Bob Dylan, The Beatles, all that was happening on the radio. I was always just looking for great songs. I feel sorry for young people today, it’s all gotta be some genre or other, it’s hard to find the sense of community there used to be with music, I think. I do all different kinds of music really, I guess. I’ve done some unusual records.”

“I’ve been fortunate as a writer to have made enough income to be able to do whatever I want as an artist.”

And Beth confirms she’s also a huge fan of another US singer-songwriter, Lucinda Williams, now a resident of the Ville: “It’s all amazing to me – Ray Kennedy my producer on this last album, Crazy Town, has done all Lucinda’s major records too. He produced Car Wheels on a Gravel Road and even having had a stroke, she’s still out there, doing amazingly well. She’s really a songwriter’s songwriter. I was recording with Ray in between her sessions with him recording her new album, Stories from a Rock ‘n Roll Heart. So I got to hear a lot of it as it was going on. I was talking to her about playing guitar following her stroke, she’s not playing much yet, and I said well look Dolly Parton’s got enormous fingernails but she just puts them down on the fretboard and gets on with it! She said, ‘I’m getting there, I’m getting there!’ But she has her husband, Tom, and her band all help her bridge the gap, I think. I told her I’d be happy to play guitar for her anytime! “

Beth also confirms her love of Blues-cum-Americana master Keb Mo, a near neighbour, and is credited with co-writing a track on his last album!

With a UK tour about to kick-off, I ask again about her love of working in the UK. She quips half-seriously: “From the minute you step off the plane you can get a proper cup of tea!” before adding, “ I love the audiences and I feel that I’ve grown up with them, and now they’re bringing grandchildren, their kids to gigs, and it’s just lovely.”