Elektra 60774
Producer: David Kershenbaum
Track listing: Talkin’ Bout a Revolution / Fast Car / Across the Lines / Behind the Wall / Baby Can I Hold You / Mountains o’ Things / She’s Got Her Ticket / Why? / For My Lover / If Not Now… / For You
August 27, 1988
1 week
When Tracy Chapman’s self-titled debut album hit the summit in its 18th week on the chart, it became the first album by a folk act to reach Number One since Peter, Paul & Mary’s In the Wind had turned the trick in 1963, a year before Chapman was born. Yet the album, which earned Chapman a Grammy for best new artist of 1988, might have been markedly different had the 24-year-old singer-songwriter not called a halt to the initial sessions.
“I started out with a different producer at Bearsville Studios in New York,” Chapman says. “Steve Jordan was playing drums, and we had a couple of other guys on keyboard and guitar. I knew immediately that it wasn’t working, even though everyone else felt pretty good about it.” The initial sessions lasted about two weeks before Chapman pulled the plug. “I just said that it wasn’t the way I heard things and the way I wanted to make a record.”
In her search to find a producer more in sync with her vision, Chapman came across David Kershenbaum, whose credits included work with Joan Baez, Joe Jackson, and Graham Parker. “When I met David, I felt a rapport immediately,” says Chapman. To record the album at Powertrax Studio in Hollywood, the singer-songwriter left her home in Boston for Los Angeles. Just a year earlier, Chapman had graduated from Tufts University with a degree in anthropology. “There were so many unknowns for me,” she says. “I had never been in a professional recording studio before. I had never worked with other musicians, I had just played casually with friends.”
The sessions began with Chapman and the rhythm section of bassist Larry Klein, known for his work with his wife Joni Mitchell, and drummer Denny Fongheiser. Chapman had been performing most of the material to be featured on the album in her performances in coffeehouses and the streets of Boston.
It was during those performances that Chapman had first gained attention. Brian Koppelman, the son of music executive Charles Koppelman, was also attending Tufts and frequented Chapman’s shows. He told his father about the young talent and Charles Koppelman was impressed enough to sign Chapman to a production deal. It was SBK that landed Chapman on Elektra, a suitable home for her, given its history with acoustic music and folk artists.
One song that was new to Chapman’s repertoire was “Fast Car.” Says Chapman, “I actually had to play that song live for David Kershenbaum when I first met him, because it wasn’t on my demo tape.” While the album contained several striking cuts, from the folk anthem “Talkin’ Bout a Revolution” to the harrowing tales of spousal abuse in “Behind the Wall” and racial violence in “Across the Line,” it was “Fast Car” that drove Tracy Chapman to the summit.
Although Chapman’s sound was distinctively different from anything else at the top of the charts, she credits another female folksinger with paving the way for her own breakthrough. “Right before my record came out, Suzanne Vega had already had some success with her records, which were very acoustic-based. I think that was very significant in terms of how my album was accepted.”
THE TOP FIVE
Week of August 22, 1988
1. Tracy Chapman, Tracy Chapman
2. Hysteria, Def Leppard
3. Roll With It, Steve Winwood
4. Appetite For Destruction, Guns N’ Roses
5. He’s The D.J., I’m The Rapper, D.J. Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince