Who was/is Beth Nielsen Chapman ? - CDs, Vinyl LPs, DVD and more

Beth Nielsen Chapman

Born in Harlingen, Texas, smack in the middle of a family of five children, to an Air Force Major and a registered nurse, Beth grew up all over the place, a self-described “geographical mutt.” Her family finally settled in Alabama in 1969 when Beth was just going into the ninth grade, moving there from Munich, Germany. Crossing back over the ocean, along with her came her first guitar, a German made “Framus” that, though intended as a gift for Father’s Day, had ended up in her room some months earlier. Writing songs was immediate for her from the first chords she picked out by ear. “With the Vietnam war blazing, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s death still fresh in the news, and my heart reeling from the shock of a school trip to Dachau (a concentration camp in Munich), the bubble of my childhood’s view of the world burst and I started to sense the existential depth of human suffering for the first time,” she recalls. “Then my Dad came home with the orders that we were moving to Montgomery, Alabama, the hotbed of the civil rights movement! I held onto that guitar for dear life!”

Alabama proved to be a place of much richness for Beth. She lived in Montgomery until she married in 1979 and relocated to Mobile, Alabama. Hearing It First, her debut album, was recorded in Muscle Shoals and produced by Barry Beckett. Alas, it was released by Capitol Records in 1980 in the midst of the disco craze. So she took a few years off and gave birth to a son, Ernest Chapman III. In 1985, with the help of music legends Mac MacAnally and Barry Beckett, her young family made the move to Nashville.

By 1990, she was writing #1 hits for Tanya Tucker and Willie Nelson and was signed as a pop artist to Warner/Reprise. Her first two albums for the label were critically lauded, sold respectably and spawned eight AC pop hits, earning her a devoted fan base at home and overseas, particularly in the UK, where she has consistently been embraced by the vastly popular BBC Radio 2.

In 1993, just before the release of her second Reprise album You Hold The Key, Beth’s world was turned upside down when her husband was diagnosed with cancer. Three years after his death, the singer released a fourth album, 1997’s Sand And Water. The album’s title song, a highly moving meditation on life, loss and surviving, took on a life of its own, bringing hope and comfort to countless people struggling with grief. It was even performed by Elton John on his 1997 U.S. tour in place of “Candle In The Wind” to honor the memory of Princess Diana.

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