Monday, May 12, 2014

My Music Monday

I won't say I'm a huge fan of Tracy Chapman, but I do own her first two albums and then a handful of songs she released after that.

I saw Chapman in '87, before her self-titled debut album, when she opened for 10,000 Maniacs. She was very intriguing. Since no one had heard of her, no one knew what to expect and she really had them wrapped around her little finger for that short set.

Tracy Chapman is a great album. It's confessional, angry, a little down, but still well done, especially for a debut.

Some of her following material didn't fare as well, at least in consistency. She was here and there and perhaps I just moved on from her stuff.

She had additional hits in the mid-90s (at least one big one) and then settled into releasing music that, while appealing, rarely made commercial impact.

That said, I really like her title song from 2000's Telling Stories. Chapman had a few others on that disk, but none has remained with me like "Telling Stories".

The song has a great melody and very good lyrical phrasing. I still like her alto as well.  When "Telling Stories" rotates though my playlist, I never hit 'next'.

1 comment:

Bob said...

I love me some Tracy.
Saw her YEARS back at the LA Coliseum for an Amnesty International concert with Sting, Springsteen, Peter Gabriel, etc, all of whom had big shows with all kinds of effects.

But it was just Tracy with her guitar, and maybe a few backing musicians during her set and she really held the attention of the 100,00+ in the crowd.