Beth Nielsen Chapman battled a brain tumor, lost her husband in his
battle
with cancer and won her own fight with breast cancer, which she beat in
2002.
Today, Chapman is back stronger than ever with a new, surprisingly
upbeat
CD packed with songs about love and joy.
She will make a stop on her tour for “Back to Love” on Saturday at
St.
Peter’s Episcopal Parish in Fernandina Beach.
She recently answered skirt!’s questions by phone between tour
stops from
her home in Nashville, Tenn.
How’s the tour been going so far?
It has been great fun. I’ve toured a lot in the United Kingdom over
the
years, and it has been really great to get back and tour in the States
more with
this record. It’s been really great to reconnect with my audience back
in the
States.
On the record, you teamed up again with your best friend
Annie
Roboff (co-writer on Faith Hill’s “This Kiss”) to write “Even As It All
Goes
By.” How was the partnership this time around?
It was an amazing song for me to finish. We started it in 2004, and
there
were a couple songs and another song called “How We Love” that I just
couldn’t
finish the lyrics on. When we were in the middle of recording, I ended
up waking
up one morning, and my ears were ringing real bad. I went to the
emergency room,
and had a scan done of my head, and they found a brain tumor pressing on
the
front of my right lobe, which is the part of your brain you use for
songwriting.
Literally, I woke up in the hospital after the craniotomy, and I started
to
finish writing the songs right away. Sometimes songs just have to
germinate and
hang out in the subconscious and they kind of write themselves that way.
What’s your favorite song on the record?
It kind of revolves around, but I would say it’s a toss-up between
“Even As
It All Goes By” and “How We Love.” I don’t know why, maybe because I
wrote it in
or around the craniotomy. It was such a powerful time. I’ve gone through
these
big things, like losing my husband, and going through breast cancer in
2000.
When they told me I had a brain tumor, I was like: “No, you can’t do
this. No
one’s going to believe this. How am I going to work this into my show?”
There were a lot of nature references on the record. Does
that have
anything to do with you living all over the country?
I’m sure moving around has impacted my music in a big way,
culturally and
musically. I think it’s just a natural thing to pull from nature in
trying to be
poetic. Analogies often come to me in a sort of nature zone. Again, I
really
write subliminally. The song kind of reveals itself from the inside out.
How have you been able to keep enduring despite the loss of
your
husband, cancer and a brain tumor?
Family and friends are a huge contributor, and my own personal
internal
salvation has been creativity. That’s one of the reasons I’ve gotten so
passionate about teaching about songwriting. I really love to inspire
people,
especially women, to reconnect. So many of us get really busy trying to
do stuff
for everybody — being a great mom, working. Women in particular are
multi-taskers, and I think that it is so essential to give yourself the
gift of
allowing some time for your own creativity. I’ve found in all these
things I’ve
been through, I go straight back to the piano or guitar, and I start to
work my
way through the tunnel of darkness, and the light is usually expressing
creativity. That has been my main medicine, art and music.
Did your music change when you became a mother?
Right before I got pregnant, I had made a record on Capitol Records
way
back in 1980. I had my life’s work, and it was just going out to the
world. I
was quite shocked that nothing
really happened after my record came out. Shortly thereafter, I was
dropped
from my recording deal and my publishing deal. I felt completely
rejected. It
was devastating at the time. Then I thought, “Fine, I’m not going to be a
songwriter, I’m not going to be a singer.”
I got pregnant, and my son was here, and that led to three or so
years
where I didn’t write a song. Those years when I literally stopped, I
completely
threw myself into motherhood, and I started sculpting with Play-Doh. I
would put
the baby down at 3 o’clock in the morning trying to fix the head on
something I
was sculpting.
One night, my husband came in and said, “Honey, it’s time for you
to start
writing songs.” I was denying and pushing away being a songwriter
because it had
been so painful. So when I went back to writing, I literally burst into
tears
when he said that … He said, “The best thing you can do for your child
is step
fully into what you were meant to do.”
I suddenly felt this ray of life. It was a big, big year for me. I
stopped
trying to please everybody, and I stopped being a writer to be
successful.
How’s the Whole Planet Foundation partnership with Whole
Foods
going so far?
It’s going great from what I hear. It’s such an amazing
organization.
There’s a donation process I’m doing with the proceeds from these sales
[at
Whole Foods]. It’s particularly satisfying to know that some of that
money gives
women micro loans in areas where they would have no way of scratching
enough
money to start their own business. It’s fantastic, because it’s more
wonderful
to give them a way to make their own
money.
You have the show in Fernandina Beach coming up. What can
people
expect?
I play piano and guitar and bouzouki, and I’ve been known to whip
out the
harmonica occasionally. I always play the favorites and hits, and hits
for other
artists like “This Kiss.” I’ll do a bunch of stuff from the new record,
of
course. I often talk about the songs and how they were written and throw
in all
sorts of crazy things I didn’t plan on.
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