Her voice is deep, rich and capable of raising goosebumps, dance moves and tears. Her songs range from wistful, slow-tempo ballads of personal journeys to roadhouse country rock.
But over Mary Chapin Carpenter’s more than three decades of record-making, a career that includes five Grammy Awards, it’s her words, and the bridges that link her to fans, that matter most. It’s why Carpenter is one of only 15 female members of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
“I have no words to describe how important that connection to my fans is,” Carpenter said. “It’s everything.”
Carpenter’s songs — whether about love, romance, joy, heartache, life’s experiences or moments of keen observation — are paintings come to life via poems and melodies.
Consider this passage from “I Am a Town,” from her 1992 breakthrough album, “Come on Come On:”
I am peaches in September, and corn from a roadside stall
I’m the language of the natives, I’m a cadence and a drawl
I’m the pines behind the graveyard, and the cool beneath their shade, where the
boys have left their beer cans
I am weeds between the graves.
My porches sag and lean with old black men and children
Their sleep is filled with dreams, I never can fulfill them
I am a town.
Carpenter, 60, will play the first of three Colorado summer shows Friday night at Denver’s Botanic Gardens, followed by a Saturday night show at Boulder’s Chautauqua Auditorium and a Sunday performance at the Belly Up in Aspen.
Carpenter, speaking from her home in rural Virginia, provided a peek into her personality and her craft during a wide-ranging, 45-minute phone interview with The Denver Post:
Q:The most important question: Do you still own golden retrievers?
A: I lost my oldest golden, Finn, just before Thanksgiving of last year. She had a really great life and it was time to say goodbye. When she passed away it was the first time since 1994 that I didn’thave a golden retriever under my roof. You can imagine the hole in my life that she left.
Way back when, in the ’90s, one of my beloved friends, Reilly, loved to run out on stage during the up-tempo songs. There were a couple of places where people were right up at the foot of the stage. The joke going around our band was that while we always loved it when someone brought flowers to the stage, people were bringing dog biscuits to shows because they knew that Reilly would come running out and lick everybody’s faces in the front row. Goldens are the greatest creatures in the world.
Q:Your newest release, “Sometimes Just the Sky,” is a celebration of your 30-year recording career. It’s overseen by acclaimed producer Ethan Johns. It was recorded live at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios outside Bath, England. You include reshaped songs from every one of your first 12 albums, plus the title track, which is a new song. Listening to album, the word “wistful” came to my mind. Does that fit?
A: I think that’s one word among many. I think there are certainly moments in the music that are wistful. I think it’s a beautiful word, by the way.
But the context of this new album is important to me.Last year was the 30th year since I put out my first record (“Hometown Girl”) and I wanted to mark that anniversary in some way. I felt very joyful about it and it means so much to me to be writing, making records, touring the world after all of these years. … I wanted to reimagine these songs and see how time affected us and the songs and the music. It was a fabulous adventure.
I’ve had these songs for so many years, but I was struck by how new they felt. Yet I could sit there and feel like I was completely transported back to places and moments, like some sort of time travel. I was immediately taken back to who I was during that song, to what I was feeling. It was so emotional.
Q:What can fans expect when they see you and your band in concert?
A: This is my full band from the last few years, and we’ve had a great time. My fabulous drummer is a Colorado boy named Nate Barnes. The great Don Dixon is on bass, the amazing Jon Carroll is on piano, a fabulous guitar player Johnny Duke is on one guitar and I’m on the other. We are cranking, and it sounds great.
Set lists are very important to me, and I really sweat putting them together. I believe that when you have a new record out, its really important to share a certain amount of that, but I also want people to feel like they are going to hear things that they know very well, and hopefully care about, love and connect to. I just try to find the right mixture of all of that.
Q: You have been playing in Colorado for years, from the Telluride Bluegrass Festival to Red Rocks to the Botanic Gardens to Chautauqua. You seem to have an affinity for Colorado, am I right?
A:Yes, I feel very connected to Colorado. I think it’s very a lovely, special place. It’s just serendipitous that my wonderful manager (ChrisTetzeli, who also manages Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats) is located out there. And some of my best friends live in Colorado.
I’vehave always had this dream of living out there and I just never got around to it. I came pretty close a few years ago but it just didn’t work out.
Q. In the title track to your album “Stones in the Road,” you sang:
When I was ten my father held me
On his shoulders above the crowd
To see a train draped in mourning
Pass slowly through our town
His widow kneeled with all their children
At the sacred burial ground
And the TV glowed that long hot summer
With all the cities burning down.
That was a reference, of course, to Sen. Robert Kennedy’s assassination in 1968, when you watched his funeral train pass by your town. The 50th anniversary of his death was earlier this month. How did that affect you?
A:It was hard. I certainly felt it. We were at Princeton Junction (N.J.) when the train went by and my dad put me on his shoulders. I will never forget that. (Kennedy) provided so much hope.
Now, we are such a polarized culture and society again. We need to find things that connect us. We need to find connections and bridges to each other, seek that light in one another.
Q: You address that in your song “The Middle Ages” (from the 2016 album, “The Things That We Are Made Of”). You sing about “that jagged lightning bolt of recognition, that love and kindness are all that matter now.”
A: Yes, that’s what you learn when you get older.When we are in our 20s and 30s, we think we are invincible and life seems like it will last forever. The whole thing about getting older is that the wisdom comes with age, and hardships as well. Those are the things that life teaches you, that truly, love and kindness are all that matter.”
Q:In your hit song, “I Feel Lucky,” you sing, “Dwight Yoakam’s in the corner, tryin’ to catch my eye …Lyle Lovett’s right beside me with his hand upon my thigh.” So, who’s in the corner now? Who has his hand upon your thigh?
A:Well,Dwight and Lyle were heartthrobs to many, and they still are, but my crushes probably have gone away with life’s experiences. But if I had to substitute them, it would be a figure from literature. Mr. Darcy from “Pride and Prejudice.” Which movie? TheKeira Knightley version, withMatthew Macfadyen as Mr. Darcy.When I’m home on a Friday night, I’ll still watch it. I don’t care if I’ve watched it 200 times, it makes me happy.”
Q.Your song, “He Thinks He’ll Keep Her,” which came out in 1992, could be an anthem for today’s #MeToo movement. Are you involved in the movement?
A:I feel like my entire life has spanned what I think of as the women’s movement. I grew up with a mother who worked, and parents who raised their four kids as hard-core liberal Democrats. I don’t know a time when I haven’t been a feminist. But I do think that song still resonates.
Q:Your live shows, obviously, remain important to you. After all of these years, why is that?
A: A concert is an opportunity to go on a journey together. It’s all about us being together and sharing the various themes and tempos. It’s really important that at the end of the show, you walk out feeling like we have all sort of shared something.That’s the most important thing.
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