Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Beth Nielsen Chapman chatted about her new album “CrazyTown,” and she remembers Olivia Newton-John.
On the song selection approach for the new album, she said, “I worked with my producer, Ray Kennedy, and we recorded 17 songs altogether and it was a real struggle to melt them down to 12. I can’t tell you any specific way I finally decide. I try not to think too much in my head about it but I try to feel more in my gut about what songs really want to be grouped into this album. Usually, the songs are smarter than I am, so I’ve learned to try to listen to them.”
She listed “With Time” as her favorite song on there. “If I had to pick one I would say “With Time” I feel that that song is a very deep human reach emotionally and I worked on it over a period of seven years with my co-writer Annie Roboff,” she said.
On her music and songwriting inspirations, she said, “All of my life informs, where my songs end up going, but in the actual process of writing them, I am not usually planning too directly to excavate things from my life rather, I am starting with a melody and listening for the sound of the vowels that want to be where the melody rises and falls. Yes, I know that sounds crazy!”
“I’ve just done that ever since I was 11 years old, and somehow with this method the shape of a song starts to become clear to me, and at that point, I use more of the analytical part of my brain and start to see what the song is about and hone it in that direction,” she added.
For young and aspiring singer-songwriters, she said, “As you grow an explorer as a developing writer, I want to always emphasize that it is a fantastic idea not to plant your little seedlings too close to the super highway of the music business. We all have to live with rejection and learn how to navigate it and not let it deplete the energy of our creative nature. This takes some doing. Often, if a young, talented songwriter has success too quickly and too early, it can lead to a rather short burnout.”
Champman continued, “From which you can always recover but to avoid that I always just emphasize that it is a process of becoming fully developed as a songwriter, and one of the most important aspects of great songwriting is a childlike wonder at life and the world. And it’s easy to get crushed by the business, but that part of ourselves as writers is very important to protect from being crushed permanently. The best Gross I ever had as a songwriter was coming out from under my first album not having been successful and there was a 10-year gap between my first album on Capitol records in 1980 and my next album that came out in 1990 on Warner Bros.”
“In those 10 years, I went from giving up and feeling devastated to coming back, stronger than I would’ve ever been without the lessons of that failure so, even if you’re failing or having a hard time, there are things to harvest out of that experience,” she added.
The digital age
On being an artist in the digital age, she said, “I would have to say it is exhausting and confusing and deeply disorienting to most of the creative community even while at the same time, the technologies provide incredible opportunities that never existed before, and many have embraced those, and been able to benefit greatly from that.”
“For me, personally, I have worked very hard to keep what I consider my creative accomplishments in one column, separate from whatever accolades or monetary successes. I might have through my work,” she said.
“Of course, if I win a bunch of Grammys, I’ll be happy as pie, but there’s also a deep satisfaction that is priceless to me when I receive a letter from someone who needed to hear one of my songs at a time in their life when everything was falling apart, and the song was like a little piece of medicine for them. I’m so grateful for the gift of that,” she elaborated.
She fondly remembered the late but great Olivia Newton-John who collaborated with her on the album “Liv On.” “I will always cherish the time I spent with Olivia when Amy and I were getting together with her over many weeks to write the songs on ‘Liv On.’ I would have to pinch myself every day to be working with Olivia and helping her to create songs around grief, which is something she had been very passionate about for some time,” she said.
Chapman listed Annie Lennox and Sting as her dream duet choices in music. “I have always thought it would be fantastic to do a musical project with Annie Lennox. If she’s not available, I’d be happy to work with Sting,” she said.
She opened up about her song “Happy Girl,” which she co-wrote, and subsequently became a No. 2 country smash single for Martina McBride. “I wrote that song with Annie Roboff, who had just come back from a retreat, and was feeling really empowered by some of the things she learned about how to be in the present moment,” she said.
“I had gone on the same retreat a few weeks before, so I knew how she felt, and we were trying to capture that sense of overcoming one’s own lack of self-worth,” she added.
She remarked about her new album, “I had more fun, making this record than any other one I think, and I let go more than I ever had and of course, even though it was finished in the midst of the overwhelming waves of panic of the pandemic, the songs were so catchy and uplifting, and it was medicine for all of us who were working on it at the time.”
“I would want folks to take away a feeling of being uplifted, and also acknowledge the depth of our experience being humans on this little blue marble, twirling around through space and time,” she added.
“CrazyTown” is available on digital service providers by clicking here.
