Mary Chapin Carpenter
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Biography
Born in Princeton, New Jersey, on February 21, 1958, Mary Chapin Carpenter grew up in Washington D.C., where she listened mainly to jazz and opera. As a teenager, she developed a passion for the folk music of Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan and Judy Collins, and began performing in bars while still attending university. Her meeting with guitarist John Jennings, who became her accompanist, encouraged her to sing her own compositions. Signed to the Columbia label, Mary Chapin Carpenter recorded her first album, Hometown Girl, released in 1987. Notoriety soon followed with State of the Heart (1989), featuring the Grammy-nominated hits "How Do", "Never Had It So Good" and "Quittin'Time". Released a year later, the album Shooting Straight in the Dark brought her her first gold disc, as well as a Grammy Award for the track "Down at the Twist and Shout" . In 1992, Come on, Come on sold four million copies and earned the songwriter, guitarist and singer a quadruple gold disc, her country-folk style setting her apart from the artists of her generation. The albums Stones in the Road (1994) and A Place in the Sun (1996) were also highly acclaimed, while Time*Sex*Love* (2001), Between Here and Gone (2004) and The Calling (2007) were more serious, social and political. His synthesis of country, folk and rock makes The Age of Miracles (2010) and Ashes and Roses (2012) eclectic albums, while Songs from the Movie is devoted to orchestral covers of film songs. In 2016, The Things That We Are Made Of was released on his own Lambert Light Records label. Three years later, Sometimes Just the Sky was released, produced by Ethan Johns. Holder of five Grammy Awards, Mary Chapin Carpenter is the only artist to have won Best Country Vocal Performance four times in a row, from 1992 to 1995. In 2012, she was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. These honors didn't stop her from continuing to record and perform, as in 2020 she released the album The Dirt and the Stars, recorded again with Ethan Johns, live at Real World Studios in Bath, England. This was followed by his first live recording, One Night Lonely (2021), and Looking for the Thread (2025), a trio with Scottish artists Julie Fowlis and Karine Polwart.
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Albums
Top Tracks
- Track Popularity
- Shut Up and Kiss Me
- Passionate Kisses
- I Feel Lucky
- House Of Cards
- Why Walk When You Can Fly
- Tender When I Want To Be
- He Thinks He'll Keep Her
- Heroes and Heroines
- Never Had It So Good
- Quittin' Time
- Only A Dream
- I Am a Town
- 4 June 1989
- The Bug
- Flesh and Blood featuring Emmylou Harris
- I Take My Chances
- You Win Again
- Not Too Much To Ask featuring Joe Diffie
- Dreamland
- The Way I Feel
- Learning The World
- What To Keep And What To Throw Away
- The Swords We Carried
- A Heart That Never Closes featuring Karine Polwart
