Lenny Kravitz was able to tour to support his debut album by playing as an opening act for Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, and David Bowie. He also earned more press when he co-wrote and produced the song “Justify My Love” for Madonna as a new track on her Immaculate Collection hits compilation. All of this led to greater expectations for Kravitz’s second album, 1991’s Mama Said. Mama Said met the higher expectations that Kravitz now had by becoming his first album to reach the Top 40, while also spinning off several successful singles. The lead single was the funky rocker “Always On The Run”, but the album’s big hit was the Curtis Mayfield and Prince-inspired soul ballad “It Ain’t Over Til It’s Over”. Unlike many of Kravitz’s peers of the time who shunned the arena rock and soul sensibilities of the 1970’s, Kravitz embraced them and it is easy to play “spot the influences” on Mama Said, but his use and blending of these influences was relatively unique at the time and on the best work, like “It Ain’t Over Til It’s Over”, Kravitz is able to rise above these influences and create something special. Indeed, “It Ain’t Over Til It’s Over” became Kravitz’s biggest hit reaching #2 in the USA, #11 in the UK and charting highly in many other nations.
Lenny Kravitz was born in New York City and spent most of his early years living in either New York or Los Angeles. Kravitz was exposed to the entertainment industry at a young age as his mother was an actress and his father was a television producer for NBS News and this, combined with easy access to the music scenes in both L.A. and New York, meant that Kravitz grew up with an interest in a wide array of musical genres. This would prove to be a fact that would impact his career over the years as Kravitz would become known for his blending of the rock, pop, soul, blues, R&B, and other genres. After his parents divorced Kravitz spent most of his high school years in Los Angeles when his mother moved there after landing a role on the television program The Jeffersons. This led to Kravitz attending high school with singer Maria McKee, actor Nicholas Cage, and Guns ‘N Roses guitarist Slash, among other prominent figures. With all of these influences in his life Kravitz had turned to music as a young man and had become quite skilled on the drums and guitar. Kravitz decided that he wanted to be a musician and so began working on music to shop around for a record deal. Kravitz however did not find much interest as most labels found his music to not be “black enough” to promote to a black audience while simultaneoiuly not being “white enough” to sell to a mostly white rock audience. Undeterred Kravitz kept working on his music and drew on his show business connections to help him overcome the labels disinterest. Without the backing of label money Kravitz’ father paid for studio time for Kravitz to work on an album and Kravitz found a musical partner in studio engineer, bassist, and keyboardist Henry Hirsh, who Kravitz had previously met through his industry connections. Kravitz, with the help of Hirsh, and a few guest musicians, created his debut album Let Love Rule, a genre-blending album that mixed rock, soul, R&B, and psychedelic pop into something very unique and interesting, but also quite out of step with the music that was popular in the slick and glossy world of late 80’s music. Indeed, the title track (which would eventually be used as the lead single), was an effective and catchy example of how Kravitz was able to blend all of his influences. However, while Kravitz had an album, he still didn’t have a record deal. Kravitz was once again able to turn to his connections to remedy this situation though when he asked his friend Stephen Elvis Smith to manage him and help him get a record deal. Smith had worked with Kravitz’s mother on The Jeffersons and currently was the music advisor for the TV show A Different World which starred Kravitz’s girlfriend (and soon-to-be wife) Lisa Bonet. Once Smith was on board to promote Kravitz self-made debut album Let Love Rule he became the center of a five-label bidding war and eventually signed to Virgin Records. Virgin released Let Love Rule in September of 1989 and “Let Love Rule” became the first of five singles released from the album. “Let Love Rule” showed the potential star power of Kravitz, while the success of the hard to classify sound of both the song and album hinted at the changes that were coming to the music scene.
Tracy Chapman followed up 2000’s Telling Stories relatively quickly, releasing her sixth album Let It Rain in 2002. Let It Rain largely continued in the warmer, more produced tone of New Beginning and Telling Stories. For 2005’s Where You Live Chapman chose to work with Tchad Blake as producer. Blake and Chapman pull back a little from the richness and warmth of Chapman’s recent work to create an album with Where You Live that evokes some of the starkness and simplicity of Chapman’s early career. Where You Live isn’t an attempt to strip Chapman back to her roots, there is still a lot of percussion and production tricks added to these songs, but there is space in this music that feels like an update of Chapman’s early music. This can be heard on the album’s lead single “Change”, the excellent “3,000 Miles”, and in the lightly carnivalesque sway of “Going Back”, among others. While all of Chapman’s albums find her singing about social issues and ills Where You Live’s second single, the percussive and propulsive “America”, finds Chapman drawing on her righteous anger in a way that she has not done in some time as she examines the tumultuous history of her country as it seeks its “manifest destiny”. “America” is a perfect blend of her early protest songs with her new willingness to use wider instrumentation and studio production. Chapman released another album, Our Bright Future, in 2008 before largely withdrawing from public life. In 2014 Chapman appeared on one of the last episodes of the Late Show with David Letterman at his request to perform a cover of Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me”, which Letterman introduced as one of his personal favorite songs. However, after that notable performance Chapman largely vanished from the public eye again until 2023 when country music star Luke Combs’ cover of Chapman’s “Fast Car” became a massive hit. The success of Combs’ version brought Chapman back into the public consciousness and in February of 2024 Chapman joined Combs’ onstage at the Grammy’s to perform a duet of “Fast Car”. This served as something of a celebratory, even triumphant, moment for Chapman as a songwriter and performer; in a way bringing her career full circle.
Chapman has always been a private, even reclusive, person. She is an artist who is far more interested in saying something with her art than in being a star. This can be seen in her relatively quiet demeanor (although she can be very funny), her reluctance to heavily promote herself, and her understated music videos. However, the biggest indicator of this may simply be that Chapman waited five years to follow-up her massively successful single “Give Me One Reason” and the accompanying album New Beginning with a new album. By the time 2000’s Telling Stories was released any momentum from her previous album’s success was pretty much gone. Somewhat ironically, Telling Stories feels much more like a new beginning than her previous album ever did. While Chapman never strays too far from her core sound on Telling Stories the songs on this album are much fuller and more diverse than that of her previous albums. Telling Stories feels more like it is a sonic cousin to the music of Sheryl Crow, Natalie Merchant, and The Wallflowers, more than of Chapman’s earlier work or her late 80’s folk revival peers like Suzanne Vega or the Indigo Girls (although by 2000 Indigo Girls had moved in a similar direction to what Chapman is exploring here). This more rock and Americana influenced sound can be heard on the warm and propulsive title track “Telling Stories”, which also served as the album’s lead single. Of course, as is typical in Chapman’s strangely hit-and-miss commercial career, playing to the mainstream did not score her any major hits, but the album did go gold and is another excellent record in Chapman’s already discography.
The legend around Tracy Chapman’s fourth album New Beginning is that after seeing diminished sales for each record since her debut album (which boasted “Fast Car”) she decided to shake up her formula somewhat dramatically to score a hit and regain her relevance. Indeed, the title of the record, New Beginning, seems to support this narrative. As does the choice of “Give Me One Reason” as the lead single, which eschews Chapman’s usual folk rock in favor of straightforward, old-fashioned blues. This feeling was reinforced when “Give Me One Reason” became Chapman’s biggest American hit, going to #3. The only problem is that this narrative isn’t really the truth. Initially the album continued the trend of increasingly poor sales for Chapman’s albums, but then as word-of-mouth about the quality of the record began to spread among her fans sales of New Beginning began to take off. In fact, the album went gold the same week that “Give Me One Reason”, which initially stiffed as a single, began to take off as a radio hit. Thus, New Beginning was already selling very well before “Give Me One Reason” brought in a more mainstream audience. Furthermore, with the exception of the bluesy “Give Me One Reason”, New Beginning is firmly within the folk and Americana traditions that Chapman had always drawn upon. If anything, New Beginning, is a quieter and more reflective album than anything Chapman had done before. If there are any “new beginnings” to be found here it is in Chapman’s willingness to expand. The songs are longer (only “Give Me One Reason” and the closer “I’m Ready” – which is 4:55 – are under five minutes in length) and there is a broader palette of instruments used. Chapman also brings in background singers on several of the songs. Still, none of these changes – with the exception of “Give Me One Reason” – ever push New Beginning beyond the realm of folk music. New Beginning is absolutely a folk record, something that may have come as a shock to the legions of people who bought an album called New Beginning that featured a classic-sounding blues song for a hit lead single. However, it is a masterfully crafted folk record, one the pushes the boundaries and expectations of what folk music is, without ever sounding like it is anything else but another superb Tracy Chapman album. Indeed, anyone who was shocked or surprised to discover that this album was not Chapman’s “blues record” would also soon discover that, as good as “Give Me One Reason” is (and it won the Grammy for Best Rock Song), that it’s far from the best moment on the record. New Beginning proved to be exactly that, but it was a new beginning for Chapman because of its quality, not because of its new musical direction.
Tracy Chapman made some subtle changes to her formula for ther third record Matters Of The Heart. While not a radical departure from the sound and style that had made her a success, Matters Of The Heart is a quieter and more reflective record that draws on both a wider range of human experiences and on a more diverse set of musical influences; all filtered through Chapman’s style, of course. Still, Matters Of The Heart generally has less anger running through its songs and stories while Chapman’s traditional folk music finds more room for pop, blues, jazz, and reggae music to lend it a little color. On much of the record these changes work, giving Matters Of The Heart a distinct flavor in Chapman’s discography. However, not all the changes are completely positive. For one thing, on a few tracks the slicker, more radio-ready production undercuts the emotion and immediacy of the song. For another, while still a strong album, there are a few moments that are not quite up to Chapman’s usual high standard of songwriting. To that end, it may say something that one of Matters Of The Heart’s best songs is the album’s opening track and lead single “Bang Bang Bang”, a song whose simplicity, emotional honesty, and social messaging all strongly recall Chapman’s earlier work.
Tracy Chapman followed up the success of her debut album by being one of the artists on 1988’s Amnesty International Human Rights Now! Tour. The tour featured Chapman along with Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Sting, Peter Gabriel, Youssour N’Dour, and was meant to promote the cause of Amnesty International and to raise awareness to the lack of basic human rights many around the world faced. Shortly after the tour Chapman began work on her second album and in October of 1989 she released Crossroads. The lead single from the album was the title track “Crossroads”. “Crossroads” is similar in tone and timbre to her earlier hits, it is a melancholy song that deals with the ills and pains of the world, but it also isn’t a rewrite. “Crossroads” has subtle percussion in it that lends the song both an exotic quality and a slow burning feel, while there is a light influence from Caribbean music in the bridge that adds just a perfect touch of lightness and hope. “Crossroads” however was not the hit that “Fast Car” or even “Talkin’ About A Revolution” had been, peaking at #90 in the US. That lack of commercial success has nothing to do with the quality of the song though as it is a beautiful and emotional song on another very good album from Chapman. And Crossroads is a very good album, expanding on the sound of her excellent with a more professional production, wider instrumentation, and another batch of excellent folk songs from Chapman.
Tracy Chapman had scored a massive hit with her debut single “Fast Car”. “Fast Car” had been politically adjacent as it had powerfully shown the effects of poverty and its cyclical and generational nature. However, to follow it up Chapman released the much more politically direct “Talkin’ About A Revolution”, a song that pulled no punches about the need for change and that time for it is now. The song had been one of Chapman’s earliest songs. She had sung it while street busking in Boston while attending university and recording an early version of it for the college radio station at Tufts University where she was a student. In fact, it was this early recording of the song that was taken by fellow student Brian Koppelman and given to his father, who was a record executive at SBK Records, that scored Chapman her first record contract. While “Talkin’ About A Revolution” did not earn the widespread mainstream appeal of “Fast Car”, peaking at #75 in the US, it do somewhat better in several other markets and has become one of Chapman’s signature songs. The message of the song has not gone unnoticed though and “Talkin’ About A Revolution” has been embraced by many groups who have wanted change over the years. In 2011 “Talkin’ About A Revolution” was given major airplay in the North African nation of Tunisia during the period of the Tunisian Revolution. The song has also been used by several political candidates over the years. Following “Talkin’ About A Revolution” Chapman would release “Baby, Can I Hold You?” as a third single from her debut album and it peaked just inside the US Top 50, continuing the momentum of Tracy Chapman which would go multi-platinum and lead Chapman to win three Grammy Awards.
Born in Cleveland, Ohio and raised by a single mother after her parents divorced when she was four, Tracy Chapman was raised poor and frequently bullied as a child. Music became an outlet for her and with the help of a program that got her into a college preparatory high school in Connecticut she was able to attend Tufts University. Chapman had continued to write songs over the years and would frequently busk on the streets and rail stations near Tufts while she was going to school. Chapman was also able to record a few demo tracks while at Tufts so that they could be played on the local college radio station. A fellow Tufts student named Brian Koppelman heard these songs and then saw Chapman perform as the opening act at a local show and was impressed. Koppelman was able to smuggle out one of the demo tapes from the local radio station and get it to his father Charles Koppelman, who ran SBK Records, and he too was impressed and offered Chapman a recording contract. Chapman soon recorded and released her debut album Tracy Chapman which saw solid sales as part of the college radio scene and the neo-folk revivial that was taking place at the time. However, Chapman was invited to perform at Nelson Mandela’s 70th Birthday Celebration in London and this proved to be her big break. Chapman had performed a set earlier in the day but when Stevie Wonder was forced to delay his primetime televised performance due to technical difficulties Chapman was sent back out to perform “Fast Car” again to buy some time. Chapman’s primetime performance showed the world what an impactful song “Fast Car” was and what an amazing songwriter and performer Chapman could be. “Fast Car” flew up the charts all over the world and became a bona fide mainstream hit and in the process boosted sales of Chapman’s debut album as well, making her one of the key voices and (reluctant) leaders of the growing neo folk scene.
Sarah McLachlan went on an extended hiatus following the release of 2003’s Afterglow to be a mother and live a more normal life. She did release the Grammy nominated seasonal album Wintersong in 2006. Wintersong consisted of holiday and seasonal songs but was of a higher quality than the average cash grab seasonal release. Indeed, Wintersong saw McLachlan release her version of Joni Mitchell’s “River” as a single and it went to #71 in the US. Wintersong mixed traditional hymns and carols with McLachlan’s covers of modern classics like her superb version of Gordon Lightfoot’s “Song For A Winter’s Night” and John Lennon’s “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)”, along with one original new song in the title track. 2010 saw McLachlan release her first batch of new songs since 2003 when Laws Of Illusion came out. In part inspired by the dissolution of McLachlan’s marriage, much of Laws Of Illusion was melancholy in its tone. For her next album, 2014’s Shine On McLachlan made a conscious effort to create music that was more organic and earthy than some of her earlier work had been. McLachlan also chose to push herself to write with various co-writers across the album, including the Eagles’ Don Felder. However, the album’s best song and second single is a co-write with her longtime collaborator Pierre Marchand, on “Monsters”. “Monsters” is still definitely the work of McLachlan but it has a touch more bite to it than anything she had released in some time. It’s not that McLachlan’s work over the years didn’t delve into the darkness and explore painful things, because much of her work has explored those feelings and themes, but “Monster” has just a touch of aggression and defiance to it and these are moods that have often been missing from McLachlan’s work for a long time. “Monster” wasn’t a hit but it is one of the best songs she has written in years and should satisfy her devoted fan base. Shine On to date is McLachlan’s last album of new material although she did release a second holiday album titled Wonderland in 2016.
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