Mary Chapin Carpenter

Mary Chapin Carpenter (born February 21, 1958) is an American country and folk music singer-songwriter. Carpenter spent several years singing in Washington, D.C.-area clubs before signing in the late 1980s with Columbia Records. Although her first album, 1987's Hometown Girl, did not produce any charting singles, she broke through with 1989's State of the Heart and 1990's Shooting Straight in the Dark.

Carpenter's most successful album is 1992's Come On Come On, which accounted for seven singles and was certified quadruple platinum in the United States for shipments of four million copies. Follow-up Stones in the Road appeared two years later and won Carpenter the Grammy Award for Best Country Album, while certifying double platinum for shipments of two million copies. After a number of commercially unsuccessful albums throughout the first decade of the 21st century, she exited Columbia for Zoë Records. Her first album for this label was 2007's The Calling. Since leaving Zoë Records in 2015, Carpenter has recorded for her own Lambent Light label, distributed by Thirty Tigers.

Carpenter has won five Grammy Awards, from 18 nominations, including four consecutive wins in the category of Best Female Country Vocal Performance between 1992 and 1995. She has charted 27 times on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, with her 1994 single "Shut Up and Kiss Me" reaching number one. Her musical style takes influence from contemporary country and folk, with many of her songs including feminist themes. While largely composed of songs she wrote herself or with longtime producer John Jennings, her discography includes covers of Gene Vincent, Lucinda Williams, and Dire Straits.

Mary Chapin Carpenter was born February 21, 1958, in Princeton, New Jersey. Her father, Chapin Carpenter Jr., was an executive for Life magazine. When she was 12 years old, the family moved to Tokyo, Japan, and lived there for about two years, as her father was looking to begin an Asian edition of Life. Her mother, Mary Bowie Robertson, was a folk music singer and guitarist. As a child, Carpenter learned to play her mother's ukulele and classical guitar in addition to writing songs. She was also inspired by her seventh-grade science teacher, who was a guitarist as well. After her family moved to Washington, D.C., in 1974, Carpenter played folk venues in the area. She attended Brown University and graduated with a degree in American civilization. She began performing cover songs at the folk venues, but by 1981 she had added original material. She befriended John Jennings, a songwriter, instrumentalist, and record producer. The two began collaborating and put together a demo cassette of several of Carpenter's songs which she sold at concerts.

Jennings had originally planned to sign Carpenter to an independent label, but the owner of a Washington, D.C. nightclub submitted some of Carpenter's demos to a representative of Columbia Records' Nashville division. This led to her signing with that label in 1987, only two days before she was slated to sign the contract with the other independent label. Columbia released her debut album Hometown Girl in 1987. The label hyphenated her first name as "Mary-Chapin" to indicate that it was a compound given name and lessen the possibility of her being referred to as just Mary. Her albums would continue to punctuate her name in this fashion until 1994. Of the ten songs on Hometown Girl, Carpenter wrote or co-wrote eight. The two exceptions were "Come On Home" and a cover of Tom Waits' "Downtown Train". She had also recorded John Stewart's "Runaway Train" with the intent of including it on the album, but Columbia removed this song because Rosanne Cash had also recorded it and wanted to issue it as a single. Jennings played guitar, synthesizer, piano, bass guitar, and mandolin on the album, while Mark O'Connor contributed on fiddle and Tony Rice on acoustic guitar. Musician Jon Carroll played piano and also provided percussion by shaking a Cream of Wheat can. While the album did not produce any charting singles, it received word of mouth attention in folk music circles, which led to her being booked to perform at the Philadelphia Folk Festival in addition to serving as an opening act for Emmylou Harris.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.