Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 22, 1990 TAG: 9006220544
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BY ROBERT HILBURN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Don't you eat of the bitter fruit
Hunger only for a taste of justice
Hunger for a world of truth
'Cause all that you have is your soul.
- Lyrics by Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman usually appears shy, even fragile on stage and in photographs. But she's no pushover.
The woman who has been called the "new queen of protest pop" writes hard-edged, uncompromising songs about social injustice and personal values, and she exhibits the same independence in her personal life.
During a recent interview in Hollywood, Chapman, 26, controlled the tempo of the question-and-answer session right from the opening moment. She wasn't reluctant to set limits.
A typical exchange:
Why did she recently move from Boston to San Francisco?
Answer: "Personal reasons . . . I don't want to go into it."
This kind of resistance to media examination since her dramatic 1988 breakthrough tended to force critics in recent months to turn to the lyrics of Chapman's second album for possible clues about this fiercely private woman's feelings.
Many felt they found a message to the media and the record industry in the biting opening lines of the title track from the recent album, "Crossroads":
All you folks think you own
my life
But you never make any sacrifice
Demons they are on my trail
I'm standing at the crossroads of hell I look to the left, I look
to the right
There're hands that grab me
on every side.
Sitting on a sofa in a dressing room on the Paramount Studios lot where she was about to perform two songs on "The Arsenio Hall Show," Chapman stared idly at the floor when asked whether the lines are a declaration of independence from the record industry and the prying media.
"Well, that's one way to interpret it," she said, speaking tentatively. "And I don't think there is any such thing as a right interpretation and a wrong interpretation of a song. A song is whatever it means to the listener.
"But the truth is I wrote the song before the first record, so it wasn't a direct response on my part to dealing with the record industry or anything like that."
She paused, then added:
"That interpretation does fall very nicely into the scenario of how artists deal with the music industry. There have been a lot of songs about that, but for me it just relates on a more general level to the challenges that individuals face in their lives. There are lots more important things to write about than the record business."
Just as her songs speak for the underdogs in society, she, too, seems to see herself as an outsider in the pop world.
Chapman saw a lot of pain in the disadvantaged neighborhoods of her youth, and she still feels strongly about it. Her spiky dreadlocks hairstyle serves as a symbol of roots in a pop world that generally encourages artists to tone down their ethnicity.
Chapman doesn't just sing about a revolution of thought in her songs. She contributed to at least a minor revolution in pop.
No U.S. recording artist has been more closely identified with the re-emergence of social conscience in pop music than this Tufts University graduate.
The success of her debut album in 1988 sent a message to record company executives and radio program directors that pop audiences were willing to deal with music of substance.
The folk-flavored collection - highlighted by "Fast Car," a much-admired statement about an inner-city woman held captive by poverty and romantic self-delusion - sold an estimated 10 million copies around the world and earned Chapman a Grammy Award as the best new artist of 1988.
Chapman, too, emerged as arguably the most inspiring figure on Amnesty International's heralded two-week, five-continent "Human Rights Now!" tour, which also featured such high-profile acts as Bruce Springsteen, Sting and Peter Gabriel. Appearing solo, she served as a symbol during the massive stadium shows of what a single individual can accomplish.
So, you'd think that Chapman would have come out of that experience filled with optimism herself - a strong believer in the power of music to affect social change, right?
Not exactly.
"For most of the people at the Amnesty concerts, I think it was just a case of going out for a day or an evening and seeing a show," she said. "Music can have a role in making people more aware, because I think people are more receptive to hearing messages or social issues expressed in songs, but people are exposed to hundreds of things every day. . . .
"It's not realistic to think a record or a song is going to [cut through] all that information and push you in a different direction."
That's not the answer her fans probably want to hear. But Chapman seems to have doubts about society's desire to change, and she thinks any false optimism is self-defeating.
"On one hand, from my own experience, I know that I have changed over the years. I have become a different person and in most ways, I think, a better person. . . . Considering that, I think people have the ability to change.
"But there are so many things that I've seen . . . the trial in Bensonhurst . . . and then the Stuart case in Boston. Those kinds of things don't lead me to think that people have the ability to change, and that's what I think is necessary in order to be optimistic about the future."
Chapman was born and raised in a mostly black working-class neighborhood of Cleveland. When she was 4 her parents separated, and she and her sister were raised by her mother.
"I was very aware of all the struggles my mother was going through, being a single parent and a black woman trying to raise two kids," she once explained. She also noticed "all these forces in society making things more difficult than they ought to be."
These observations would later surface as themes in Chapman's songs.
Thanks to a minority placement program, the teen-ager was awarded a scholarship to a small private school in Danbury, Conn. While there, Chapman, who had listened to a lot of Motown and gospel music as a child, started listening to contemporary folk artists such as Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell. The style seemed ideal for the personalized songs she wanted to write.
After enrolling at Tufts, where she studied anthropology, she began to sing in Boston clubs and coffee houses. A fellow student heard her singing and introduced her to his father, music-publishing titan Charles Koppelman, who got her an audition at Elektra Records. The debut album was an immediate critical and popular success.
The second album, titled "Crossroads," hasn't caused as much of a stir this year. Reviews were generally favorable, but nowhere as enthusiastic as for the debut collection.
When no hit single dominated the airwaves, many pop observers may well have figured the album flopped. However, worldwide sales are at an impressive 5 million, according to Elektra Records.
Looking back on her hectic embrace with stardom, Chapman said there were times when the success did seem overwhelming.
"But I stay very grounded, the way I live my life," she said.
What about the pressures to have the second album equal the sales and acclaim of the first?
"I tried not to even think about that. There's no point. I remember once in the studio when one of the musicians listened to what we had just done and said, `You know, you've beaten the first record with this.' I turned to him and said, `That's not what this is about. This is something new and different. We are here to do the best we can now.' "
by CNB