Tracy Chapman becomes the first Black person to win Song of the Year at the CMAs

[IwantToRetire]

Just posting this because I really like her music.

I think Fast Car is one of her best songs.

She has always been a bit under the radar, so even if it has taken 35 years for this song to be acknowledged, it is well deserved.

And she is a woman in an industry that isn't that good at acknowledging women's musicality.

And it was Country Music Awards!! (I wasn't aware it had been rerecorded)

Yeah for Tracy Chapman

Thanks for your music.

@HangTheJib well that'd explain it 😂

I loved her story. She was at Wembley a Mandela gig, did an early set, Stevie Wonder could not go on, so she was shoved out a girl a guitar. And that song Vaguely known, in the states not at all. Everybody dashed out and bought her album and boom that was that she broke America.

i always wonder if Stevie did on purpose nice thought ….

Would it have been even better if they had recognised the song when she sang it, tho? As the cover is almost identical in its production.

It's one of the best songs ever.

Tracy Chapman isn't a country star at all. The whole point is, she's a black woman songwriter, which is a fairly unrecognised category at the CMA.

Fast Car is a beautiful song.

@PonyPatter44

Yep

She was never classed as country music

I love Promise

Would it have been even better if they had recognised the song when she sang it, tho? As the cover is almost identical in its production.

Rolling Stone (which I didn't know was still being produced) did a slightly more cynical article about Country Music not acknowledging (probably not knowing) her until a white man sang her song 35 years later.

This is a biography of her musical career that shows she has made choices that dont exactly make her fodder for mainstream music papers.

https://www.about-tracy-chapman.net/tracy-chapman-biography/

Although it was a long journey on a very hot day / night I got a last minute ticket for the 2012 ANC 80th anniversary celebration at London's Brixton Academy.

Got there late and it was chaos, so many acts wanting to perform, and everybody over running their time and still Tracy Chapman hadn't played and some started to leave because of missing last trains etc..

But when she came on what had been a very loud (and very hot) audience went totally quiet and we sat there well past the time the concert should have been over, whilst she sang.

And then it was it was like we were transported back to some sort of hippy "happening". Everybody was hot and thirsty but every thing was closed. No buses. The someone reopened their cafe and we all sat on the pavement and had snacks and drinks.

Then unexplectedly an Inspector from TfL turned up and starting explaining to people that their was a night bus service and in those days they all started from Trafalgar Square. So he packed us off in groups to get there and which bus to get after that!

Sorry should have said there was an amazing speech by Walter Sisulu just before she performed which was also inspiring.

There was a wonderful photo of the 2 of them together, but stupid google doesn't seem to know anything about it.

oops - date error -

the 2012 ANC 80th anniversary should be
the 1992 ANC 80th anniversary

Love Tracy Chapman. I didn’t realise it was classed as country music though. My Dad had the album at the time and my friend and I listened to it endlessly after nights out years later. Fast Car is an amazing song. Had no idea it had been covered!

I know what you mean by under the radar. I think that has been partly her intention of course.

What a wonderful memory @IwantToRetire

Ask a teenager who Tracey Chapman is. Even better, do as I did and okay her original version of Fast Car, and listen to them all saying, "Oh, is that an old song? I thought Luke Coombs wrote that."

My 15 yo knows who she is and has had fast car on her Spotify playlist for a couple of years at least.

Kids these days know a lot more about older music than my generation did. We mostly went by what was on the radio whereas they've got Spotify, YouTube etc chucking all kinds of random stuff into their feeds. I've been quite surprised at some of the stuff I'd heard coming out of her bedroom over the years.

Lots of teenagers barely know who Madonna is. Certainly many 80s & 90s artists who they have no idea of. It was quite some time ago

I enjoyed reading the accounts of seeing Tracey Chapman live. I didn't see her live but definitely remember a time when her music was played a lot. We can still acknowledge that her career goes back many years while also wanting to mark this achievement.

Tracey Chapman never went down the road of being a 'managed' star who compromised on her music and/or her image. Let's be pleased she has had this belated recognition in a field in which black women have been under recognised.

On the teens today 🤣
I remember when I was growing up in the 80s and a load of 60s stuff had a revival, either re released or covered or whatever (The Twist, Dusty with the Pet Shop Boys, even Roy Orbison), it all seemed so OLD to us, great music but from the Land Before We Were Born.
If you go back the same time now, that would be 2003. Not even the 90s.
Yikes.

I had a chat with DD about this a couple of years ago, and I don't think kids see the music of 30 years ago the way we saw the music of 30 years before our time.

DD is about to turn 16, and see's music from 1993 as old, but not ancient, and will happily listen to (some of) it. Whereas I can't imagine me or my friends being happy listening to anything from 1969 when I was 16.

I think "popular" music changed so much between 1955ish and 1990, that anything over a decade old sounded absolutely ancient to my generation. Whereas I think things have slowed down since then, and todays music doesn't sound so different compared to stuff from a decade or two ago.

I went to a gig with DD the other week for a band called Lovejoy, her current favourite. Bunch of 20 year olds, all original songs but it would have sounded perfectly at home during the heyday of The Killers or Arctic Moneys.

I think the famous scene with Marty shredding his guitar in Back to The Future sums it up. 1985 music in 1955 = the crowd being completely bemused.
Release the film today with 2023 music in 1993, and I can't work out how you'd play that scene. Some of the staging might cause raised eyebrows, or maybe the explicitness of the lyrics (Wet Ass Pussy anyone?), but I can't see the sound itself causing any consternation.

Anyway, I'm risking thoroughly derailing this thread so I'll shut up now. Tracy Chapman, awesome, very glad she's been recognised. As you were.

DD is about to turn 16, and see's music from 1993 as old, but not ancient, and will happily listen to (some of) it. Whereas I can't imagine me or my friends being happy listening to anything from 1969 when I was 16.

Different to my experience as a 90s teen. I was into a lot of American alternative music but also loads of stuff from the 60s and 70s. I remember several of my friends being utterly obsessed with The Doors for example.

I do agree with you about the rate of change occurring in popular music having slowed somewhat though.

You’ve got a good point there @Bobbotgegrinch
Also possibly the fact it’s all colour, production values were good, etc, means the 90s seems less far away than the 50s/60s?
And it’s probably cooler today to have eclectic tastes than it was when you had to choose Duran Duran or Wham, or Blur/ Oasis.

Just putting this here because it's one of the most beautiful songs ever written.

Tracy Chapman to Receive Lifetime Achievement Award at 2024 International Folk Music Awards

https://www.billboard.com/music/awards/tracy-chapman-lifetime-achievement-award-2024-international-folk-music-awards-1235582432/

The article doesn't say much about her, but thought I would add this to this "tribute" thread!

I've been a fan of Tracy since I was about 8 so happy she's received this award.

Fast Car is great but so is Subcity, Across the Lines, bang bang bang, talking about a revolution and so many more.

I really think she's a living legend.

I'm Ready - 1st time I heard this I burst into tears, everything about it is sheer perfection. Would do literally anything to see Tracy live, wonder if she'll ever tour again?

Agreed. Also, Mountains of Things, For My Lover, All That You Have Is Your Soul, and my favourite Be Careful of My Heart.