Mary Chapin Carpenter grew up in a household that made her “a lover of music.”
Her mother enjoys opera, classical music and folk music. Her dad was a “huge jazz buff,” and her older sisters had all of the Beatles’ records, she says. They had ukuleles, a piano and guitars, and she started playing guitar in second grade.
“We just had music in the house everywhere,” she says.
Carpenter says she believes people are the products of what they grew up with and hopefully they can treasure and revere things that have been instructive, both inspirationally and creatively.
“It’s astonishing to me that I got so fortunate enough to make my living in it,” she says about music.
Carpenter, who describes herself as a singer-songwriter, says she feels “very lucky that after almost 25 years that I’m still making records and having a ball doing it.” She has won five Grammy Awards, two Country Music Association awards, two Academy of Country Music awards and was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in October 2012, according to Walton Arts Center’s website.
Carpenter will be on stage with Shawn Colvin sharing her love of music Saturday at the Walton Arts Center. The two have been friends for almost 30 years, have been on each other’s records and videos and thought it would be fun to do a formal tour together. They’re on stage together throughout the evening, she says.
“We like to tell stories, and we like to just fly by the seat of our pants,” she says.
They play on each other’s songs during the show and also cover songs by artists and songwriters they have revered over the years, she says.
Carpenter will perform some of her older songs along with new songs from her most recent album, “Ashes and Roses.”
The newest album, released in 2012, features songs that “speak to some ofthe darker, tougher things that we go through in our lives,” she says. She adds that it is a very personal recordwith a narrative arc, noting that things begin to shift about halfway through it. It’s about the idea that people can’t avoid grief, loss and pain.
“You do have to go through them, and you come out the other side somewhat altered, but you’re in one piece.”
The album also is about resilience and hope. The album name, “Ashes and Roses,” is a lyric in the song called “Chasing What’s Already Gone.” Carpenter thought it spoke to the themes on the record and the symbolism of things burning down or going up in smoke but also the idea of flowers, renewal and beauty. She says wisdom can be found in pain and beauty can be found in recovery.
She says she doesn’t have a favoritesong she’s created for the new album, and every song was necessary.
When writing songs, Carpenter describes her process as “roll up your sleeves and sit down and hope that the muse is with you.” She says she is very ritualistic.
“I like to be kind of at home with a yellow legal pad and a pencil and an eraser,” she says.
Some songs take Carpenter a day to write and others can take months. She says it’s about editing, rewriting and changing, and eventually she gets to a place where a song feels ready, so she leaves it overnight. She calls this “the overnight test.”
“If it feels good the next day, then generally that means it’s a keeper,” she says.
Whats Up, Pages 12 on 03/01/2013