Suddenly back in the spotlight: US musician Chapman turns 60

Stars like Taylor Swift, Phoebe Bridgers, SZA, Victoria Monét, Miley Cyrus and Billie Eilish received the most and most important awards at this year’s Grammys – but the secret star of the show was someone who has actually retreated from the spotlight for decades: Tracy Chapman. Together with country musician Luke Combs, Chapman, who turns 60 on Saturday (March 30), sang a cover version of her 1988 hit “Fast Car” at the gala in early February.

Lively discussions on social media

Even before the performance began, the audience was cheering, which made Chapman, dressed simply in black and coming on stage with a guitar, smile briefly from ear to ear. During the song, the camera repeatedly captured the audience briefly and showed, among other things, how superstar Swift enthusiastically sang along.

After the performance, “Fast Car” and the album “Tracy Chapman,” on which the song was originally released, climbed the download and streaming charts, while there was a lot of discussion on social media: some people were hearing about it for the first time Chapman heard, others enthusiastically rediscovered her and many simply asked: Where was the musician for so long?

After “Tracy Chapman,” the award-winning musician, who was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1964, released seven more albums, the last of which was in 2008. A year later, she went on tour for the last time, in Europe. After that, she only appeared in public very rarely, for example at a gala at the Kennedy Center in Washington in 2012 or at the Sundance Film Festival in 2014. In 2020, she appeared on US host Seth Meyers’ late night show, performed her song “Talkin’ ‘Bout a Revolution” and urged people in the US to cast their vote in the presidential election.

Little is known about Chapman’s personal life

“Being in public and in the spotlight – that was and still is uncomfortable for me,” Chapman told the Irish Times in one of her extremely rare interviews in 2015. “I’m a bit shy.” Accordingly, practically nothing is known about the musician’s private life.

After her parents’ divorce, Chapman is said to have grown up with her mother, studied anthropology near Boston after school and then made her first demo recordings until she finally got a record deal, according to media reports. Nowadays she lives – extremely withdrawn – in San Francisco on the US West Coast.

But the country musician Combs, whose not entirely controversial cover of “Fast Car” conquered the charts last year, has brought them back into the spotlight. “I never expected to find myself on the country charts, but I’m honored to be there,” Chapman told Billboard magazine at the time. “I’m happy for Luke and his success and am grateful that new fans have found and grown to love ‘Fast Car’.”

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Around 35 years after its release, Chapman also received an award for the song, which had already received several awards in the original – in the “Song of the Year” category at the Country Music Awards. However, Chapman did not appear at the gala. “I’m sorry I can’t be with you tonight,” she apologized in a statement. “It’s truly an honor for my song to be recognized again 35 years after its release.”

After the surprise Grammy success, many old and new fans around the world now want to see and hear more from Chapman again. But that is by no means certain, the program director of the New York radio station WFUV, Rich McLaughlin, recently told the New York Times. “Tracy Chapman is an artist who follows her muse, not market demand. If her decisions were based solely on demand, she would have gone back on tour years ago.”