Tracy Chapman:

A musical adventure

by Anuradha Kodagoda

“I’ve been singing ever since I was a child. My mother has a beautiful voice, so does my sister. At that point I wasn’t really listening to that much of music, except to what my parents were listening to, or my sister.

I think I just picked up a guitar because my mother had played it at some point and started teaching myself things and writing my own songs.”

So says everyone's favorite revolutionary artiste, Tracy Chapman, singer, lyricist, guitarist and feminist.

Since bursting onto the world stage in 1988, Tracy Chapman's journey was not favoured by fortune.

Her parents divorced when she was four- years-old and it is reported that she had a problem childhood where she grew up with her mother and older sister in a largely black middle-class neighbourhood in Cleveland, Ohio.

Chapman always wanted to make a better life for herself than those she witnessed about her. She could earn a chance to attend Wooster School, a small, progressive, private high school in Danbury, Connecticut.

At Wooster, she was thoroughly immersed in an atmosphere of social and political discussion.

At times she had difficulties with her own classmates; she once told the foreign media that “Students there just said stupid things. They had never met a poor person before. In some ways they were curious, but in ways that were just insulting.”

However, the music school was a haven for Chapman. She met other guitar players who introduced her to a variety of popular music, including the early protest works of Bob Dylan. Chapman’s teachers recognized her talent and gave her ample opportunities to perform.

Brian's father owned one of the world's largest music publishing companies and later talking about Tracy Chapman, the revolutionary icon in the music field, he told foreign media, “Her songs were wonderful melodies with important lyrics. That was enough. But when I saw her in front of an audience! When she smiled, everyone smiled. When she was serious, you could hear a pin drop.”

Most of Tracy Chapman's musical adventures are based on political, social causes. All her albums critically acclaimed from music critics, praising her vocal ability, powerful lyrics and most importantly her simplicity.

Most of her albums were commercially successful and most popular in Austria, New Zealand, Switzerland, Denmark and the United Kingdom.

Reference: Internet