Tracy Chapman is an American singer-songwriter, born in Cleveland. Her parents divorced when she was four years of age. She was raised by her mother, who bought her music-loving three-year-old daughter a ukulele despite having little money. Chapman began playing the guitar and writing songs at age eight. She says that she may have been first inspired to play the guitar by the television show Hee Haw. Chapman’s family received welfare. In her native Cleveland, school desegregation efforts led to racial unrest and riots; Chapman experienced frequent bullying and racially motivated assaults as a child. Chapman made her major-stage debut as an opening act for women’s music pioneer Linda Tillery at Boston’s Strand Theater in May 1985. Brian Koppelman, heard Chapman playing and brought her to the attention of his father, Charles. Koppelman, who ran SBK Publishing, signed Chapman in 1986. After Chapman graduated from Tufts in 1987, he helped her to sign a contract with Elektra Records.
At Elektra, she released Tracy Chapman (1988). The album was critically acclaimed, and she began touring and building a fanbase. “Far Car” began its rise on the U.S. charts soon after she performed it at the televised Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute concert in June 1988; it became a number 6 pop hit on the Billboard. Rolling Stone ranked the song number 167 on their 2010 list of “The 500 Greatest Songs of All TIme”. It is the highest-ranking song on the Rolling Stone list that was both performed and solely written by a female artist.
“Talkin’ ’bout a Revolution”, the follow-up to Fast Car, charted at number 75 and was followed by “Baby Can I Hold You”, which peaked at number 48. The album sold well, going multi platinum and winning three Grammy Awards, including an honor for Chapman as Best New Artist. Later in 1988, Chapman was a featured performer on the worldwide Amnesty Internatiolnal Human Rights Now Tour.
Chapman’s follow-up album, Crossroads (1989), was less commercially successful than her debut had been, but it still achieved platinum status. By 1992’s Matters of the Heart, Chapman was playing to a small but devoted audience. Her fourth album, New Beginning (1995), proved successful, selling over three million copies in the U.S. The album included the hit single “Give Me One Reason”, which won the 1997 Grammy Best Rock Song and became Chapman’s most successful single to date, peaking at Number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Following a four-year hiatus, her fifth album, Telling Stories, was released in 2000. Its hit single, “Telling Stories”, received heavy airplay on European radio stations and on Adult Alternative and HOt AC stations in the United States. Chapman toured Europe and the United States in 2003 in support of her sixth album, Let It Rain (2002).
Chapman performed Ben E King’s “Stand By Me” on one of the final episodes of the Late Show with David Letterman in April 2015. The performance became a viral hit and was the focus of various news articles including some by Billboard and The Huffington Post. In November 2015, Chapman released Greatest Hits, consisting of 18 tracks including the live version of “Stand by Me”, the album is Chapman’s first global compilation release.
Chapman is a politically and socially active musician. In a 2009 interview with the American radio network NPR, she said, “I’m approached by lots of organizations and lots of people who want me to support their various charitable efforts in some way. And I look at those requests and I basically try to do what I can. And I have certain interests of my own, generally an interest in human rights.” She has performed at numerous socially aware events and continues to do so. In 1988, she performed in London as part of a worldwide concert tour to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with Amnesty International. The same year Chapman also performed in the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute, an event which raised money for South Africa’s Anti-Apartheid Movement and seven children’s charities.
