Back to Article Index |
Volume 114, Number 357 - Thursday, November 19, 1998
Halley Came to Jackson, Carpenter comes to UCONN
by John Friedlander
For a musician, Mary Chapin Carpenter sure is a good doctor. And a nurse. And an author. And a magician.
There's no question that she's an accomplished musician. A shelf load of Grammy and Academy of Country Music awards for songwriting, singing and video production attests to that. Her recordings regularly go gold, platinum or even higher (1992's "Come On Come" on went triple-platinum), proving she's not only good, but very popular.
And what a doctor she can be -- she really knows where it hurts. If you've ever had a feeling you just couldn't describe, Carpenter probably has a song about it. Her lyrics seem to find every nerve you didn't know existed, every ache that won't go away, and every secret you always knew but just couldn't say.
As a nurse, Carpenter's caring is obvious. Her songs dig into the hard stuff of life without disregarding the dignity of her subjects. Without being maudlin, she sings of an aging, blind, deaf-mute newly confined to a group home after a life of freedom on his own. Without cynicism, she describes an older-than-young tipsy-dancing woman with a tad too much makeup on. Carpenter never sneers, never insults, never derides.
She doesn't just sing about care, she also sings for CARE. On the fiftieth anniversary of the CARE Foundation, Carpenter donated proceeds from the sale of her Stones In The Road Tour Book 1995, a collection of her own essays and photos by Time Magazine photographer William Campbell. A humanitarian spirit infuses her lyrics and those she sings for. These include UNICEF, the Voiceless Victims Project of the Institute for Intercultural Understanding, and other environmental, literacy and social change organizations.
Carpenter is the author of many essays, and two children's books. The latest is Halley Came to Jackson, a book and tape package illustrated by Dan Andreason and published in September by Harper Collins. A song set to pictures, the book tells the story of a father showing his daughter Halley's Comet in 1910, and of the comet's return in 1986.
As a magician, she pulls breathtaking tricks out of her musical hat. Whether improvising goofy medleys on stage with her superb band, reducing her audience to tears with a poignant love song, or drawing crystalline vignettes of personal remembrance with a few words and a simple melody, she constantly dazzles with her control of emotion and atmosphere.
Carpenter brings a stripped-down version of her band to the University of Connecticut's Jorgensen Auditorium tonight. Carpenter will play with longtime producer and guitarist John Jennings, guitarist Duke Levine and pianist Jon Carroll. This intimate grouping should provide an excellent opportunity to hear one of the best folk/pop singer songwriters in the business.
If you've ever loved, grown up, missed someone, gone home or wept over nothing, Mary Chapin Carpenter is an artist you should know of.
Tickets are still available for her performance tonight at UCONN's Jorgensen Auditorium. Catie Curtis begins the show at 8:00pm. Call the Jorgensen box office at 860-486-4226 for information.
Back to Article Index |
Though I wrote this column, the Middletown Press owns it now, including the copyright associated with it. The column appears here by permission, and no other publication is allowed without express permission from the publisher.