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.

I really enjoyed their Grammy's performance.

I don't really understand the angst from some people over Combs having a hit with his cover version. It doesn't dilute Chapman's own original recording. That will always be a timeless classic. Which is why it was such a hit in 2023, a song like that does not date. I'm not much of a country fan but I do love the tone of LC's voice. And I really liked that he didn't change the 'I'll work in the market as a checkout girl' lyric. He's clearly a massive fan of the song and of Chapman. And I thought they both looked thrilled to be on stage together. Tracy was glowing.

Oh no! The video have been deleted for copyright reasons.

I was just going to give myself another few minutes of joy.

Its okay!

Now available on official Grammy web site:

Lindsay Zoladz in the NYT:

They traded a few lines and harmonized beautifully on the chorus — her tone opalescent, his bringing some grit — but Combs never overshadowed Chapman. He knew that in that moment, no one could. Something about the way he looked at her said it all: His eyes shone with irrepressible respect. Here was a grown man, an assured performer who sells out stadiums, visibly trembling before the sight and the sound of the folk singer Tracy Chapman. [...]
The song, during Chapman and Combs's five-minute performance, felt incredibly spacious — larger than the limitations of genre, welcoming and expansive enough to hold every single person it had ever touched, regardless of the markers of identity that so often divide us. It was a rare reminder of music's unique ability to obliterate external differences. "Fast Car" is about something more internal and universal. It is a song about the wants and needs that make us human: the desire to be happy, to be loved, to be free.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/05/arts/music/tracy-chapman-fast-car-grammys.html?

I love her and this song. Her voice is so beautiful. I’m happy if Combs’ version bring her more attention from a new audience. She’s untouchable by any cover version. He was rightfully aware how lucky he was to share a stage with her.

Thank you for sharing the link @IwantToRetire thats the most glorious way to start the day - absolutely sublime performance.

Not at all chastened by the facts? Nothing to say about Tracey Chapman being rediscovered rather than newly discovered?

Under the radar? She won a Grammy at the time. Her songs were never off the radio!

Correction. - several Grammys!

Also her duet of Baby Can I Hold You with Pavarotti is just sublime - one of the most beautiful performances

Under the radar? She won a Grammy at the time. Her songs were never off the radio!

Surely it is obvious that if you were alive at the time you know about it.

But between then and now and awful lot of peole have been born! And she is now under the radar because unlike more mainstream popular singers of that time, she doesn't get played on radio stations.

So many post have somehow got obsessed about this comment.

You knowing about her, as I did and do, doean's mean everyone else does.

There will be people who will think it is a C&W song and will probably have been totally gobsmaked to see who she actually is when playing at the Grammys.

This is what this whole thread is about.

Somone who was once if not front page news fairly well known, but has now been (re)discovered.

ie the point of the thread was to enjoy the irony of it for those of us who like her at the beginning.

sigh