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December 2008 |
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Photo: Bob Sherman |
| Visit Beth's
website to learn more about this amazing talent, check out her tour
schedule, and purchase her CDs and DVDs. |
Beth Nielsen Chapman’s name
resonates powerfully with music lovers.
Beth was a regular on the
Adult-Contemporary popularity charts in the 1990s with such hits as “The
Moment You Were Mine,” “Walk My Way” and “I Keep Coming Back to
You.” In 2000, she appeared on the soundtrack of the Ashley Judd film,
“Where the Heart Is,” with “Shake My Soul,” landing another A/C
hit. In 2004, her single, “Free,” went #1 on the BBC-Radio 2 chart,
leading to her third U.K. concert tour of the year. She also has performed in
Japan, Ireland and elsewhere.
Stateside, her CDs, “Beth Nielsen
Chapman” (1990), “You Hold the Key” (1993), “Sand and Water”
(1997), “Greatest Hits” (1997), “Deeper Still” (2002) and
“Look” (2004) have earned her wide acclaim and a devoted
following.
Such stars as Bonnie Raitt, Neil Diamond, Willie Nelson,
Waylon Jennings, Emmylou Harris, Michael McDonald, Bette Midler, Anne Murray,
Amy Grant, Keb Mo, Roberta Flack, Emmylou Harris, Patti Griffin, and Brenda Lee
have recorded Beth Nielsen Chapman songs.
“This Kiss,” as recorded
by Faith Hill, won ASCAP’s 1999 “Song of the Year” award and was nominated for a
Grammy.
Country hits “Happy Girl” (Martina McBride), “Nothing I
Can Do About it Now” (Willie Nelson), “Strong Enough to Bend” (Tanya
Tucker), “All the Reasons Why” (Highway 101), “Here We Are”
(Alabama), “Five Minutes” (Lorrie Morgan), “Almost Home” (Mary
Chapin Carpenter) and “Down on My Knees” (Trisha Yearwood) – are all from
the Beth Nielsen Chapman songbook. Elton John popularized her ballad, “Sand
and Water,” during his 1997 World Tour.
The soundtracks of such films
as “The Rookie,” “Practical Magic,” “Calendar Girls,”
“We Were Soldiers” and “Message in a Bottle” included her songs.
So have the television series “Dawson’s Creek,” “ER,” “Touched
by an Angel,” “Providence” and “Felicity.” “All I Have”
became familiar to millions as the recurring love theme on NBC’s “Days of Our
Lives.” Beth also wrote and performed a duet with Randy Travis for the
animated television film, “Annabelle’s Wish.”
“My success as a
songwriter has given me the opportunity to have a lot of freedom as an artist,”
she said. “Because of it, I haven’t had the pressure of having to be a slave to
the charts. I’ve always been really grateful that I can make whatever kind of
record I want artistically.”
Beth Nielsen Chapman has been on path rich
with many musical influences throughout her life. As an “Air Force brat,” she
was brought up on military bases from New England to Germany. Music was her
source of stability from a very early age. Adept on guitar and piano, she began
performing as a teenager in Montgomery, Alabama. She signed her first
song-publishing contract in 1979, and then recorded “Hearing It First” as
her debut LP in 1980.
Moving from Mobile, Alabama to Nashville, Tennessee
in 1985 with her husband and then-five year old son, Beth began to pursue her
music with more intensity. She signed a second songwriting contract in 1985 and,
by the end of the decade, was regularly providing hits to others.
She
signed with Warner/Reprise records in 1990, releasing “Beth Nielsen
Chapman,” which included Adult Contemporary hits, “Walk My Way”,
“The Moment You Were Mine” and “I Keep Coming Back to You.” In
1993, the release of “You Hold the Key” occurred simultaneously with her
husband Ernest's diagnosis of a rare form of lymphoma. His illness would span 18
months.
When Beth's husband died in 1994, she worked through her grief
by creating ever more emotionally profound songs, one of which was “Sand and
Water,” which was performed by Elton John on his 1997 Tour to honor the
memory of Princess Diana. The CD, “Sand and Water,” traversed the deep
journey through grief and spawned many inspiring and healing songs that are
regularly used in helping people to access and release the deeply held emotions
of loss.
Incredibly, in 2000, Beth was diagnosed with stage-two breast
cancer. Her next collection of songs, the already completed “Deeper
Still” would be shelved for a year as she underwent chemo and radiation.
During this time Beth also added acupuncture, nutrition, meditation and other
adjunct healing modalities as a way of holistically coming back to perfect
health.
Her subsequent release, “Deeper Still” (to which John
Prine, Emmylou Harris, and John Hiatt, contributed background vocals), came out
in 2001, and was voted “Album of The Year” by BBC Radio 2's Terry Wogan. Beth
embarked on a promotional tour, sharing her experience and encouraging women to
be vigilant with their health.
In the summer of 2004, following the
release on Sanctuary of “Look,” her single “Free” was A-listed at
BBC-Radio 2, leading to her third U.K. concert tour of the year. She also has
performed in Japan, Ireland and elsewhere.
In the fall of 2004, Chapman
astonished fans with “Hymns,” a collection of centuries-old Latin
liturgical pieces. This CD, following an interview on NPR’s “All Things
Considered,” shot up to #3 on Amazon.com and garnered a deluge of emails and
letters.
In 2006 Beth released a live DVD in the UK, “If Love Could
Say God’s Name”; a concert for peace – beautifully filmed at St Paul’s
Cathedral with the London Oriana Choir (musical director David
Drummond).
From the opening song, “Prayers of an Atheist” (written
and arranged by Beth) … (“The prayers of an atheist, sent from the
emptiness—even they find the way back home….”), the tone of peace unfolds
through songs in Hebrew, English, Latin and Zulu – celebrating “one human family
all across the world.”
Punctuating these gorgeous pieces, which include a
stunning a cappella arrangement by David Drummond of “The Color Of
Roses,” (from Beth’s 1997 CD, “Sand & Water”), are inspiring
readings and quotes from Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Jody Williams, and other Nobel
Peace Laureates; all of whom have survived conflict and violence with the
courage to remain peacemakers.
A portion of the proceeds for this DVD
supports Peacejam, an international organization that, through meetings with
Nobel Peace Laureates, teaches young adults about peacemaking.
Beth
continues to work with Peacejam (peacejam.org) serving on their Board of
Advisors, as well as serving on the Board of Directors of “Healthy World Healthy
Child” (www.healthychild.org); an
organization that provides a resource for learning about the effects of the
environment on kids.
In addition to her CD releases, Beth has
donated a version of “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” to Terry
Wogan’s “Children In Need Campaign,” and it has been a featured track on BBC
Radio 2 in support of their fundraising efforts.
With the 2007 UK/Ireland
release of “Prism” as well as the upcoming US release in Jan ’08, Beth
will be traveling and promoting this collection for a while.
“And then
I’m going to disappear to write this backlog of songs I’ve been holding inside
me while finishing this huge project!” said Beth. “But ‘Prism’ is just
something I had to do. I never dreamed when I first started it in 1998
how much the world would change or how timely the collection of these songs
would be.”
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