Before Lilith Fair, before A Woman's Heart, before Alanis Morissette, Jewel and Sarah McLachlan, one small woman with an acoustic guitar shifted the balance of musical power and handed the controls over to a new generation of sensitive female singer-songwriters. No, it wasn't Suzanne Vega, stupid; it was Tracy Chapman, and when she zoomed into the Top 10 with her debut single, Fast Car, in July 1988, the male rock fraternity quaked in its leather keks.
Here was a singer with the social conscience of Joan Baez, the melodic touch of Joni Mitchell, and the rich voice of Joan Armatrading; she was a black woman singing in a genre usually reserved for white liberals, a folk chanteuse swimming against the tide and among the rock 'n' roll sharks. Chapman's rise to fame was swift and deadly - her self-titled debut album became a worldwide hit, winning her three Grammy Awards and earning her a backstage pass at every charity event and benefit gig on the rock calendar. Fast Car hit No 6 in the Billboard charts, but when she came to Dublin to play the tiny Baggot Inn in early 1988, that particular issue of Billboard was yet to hit the streets.
Nevertheless, the Baggot was packed with those who had heard of this powerful new voice on the pop scene, and there was much chattering in the venue as the dreadlocked diva took the stage armed with only an acoustic guitar. She didn't start playing right away, however; with a withering glare, Chapman ordered every member of the audience to put out their cigarettes and to refrain from smoking throughout her performance. Since cigarette smoke was like air to the punters in the Baggot Inn, this decree drew a few gasps, but most of the crowd complied, and endured the lady's set without the aid of nicotine. Thus did Tracy Chapman establish her politically correct credentials by striking fearlessly at that most cherished of Irish habits. But at least she didn't tell us to pour our Guinness down the sink.
A few months later, Tracy Chapman was back in Dublin, this time performing to an audience of 30,000 at the RDS, in a double bill with The Hothouse Flowers. At this stage, everybody in the world knew Fast Car off by heart, and most of us were also familiar with songs such as Talkin' Bout A Revolution, For My Lover and Be- hind The Wall. In the audience were five handsome young Dublin lads who heard her sing Baby Can I Hold You, and decided there and then to form a boy band and do a hit version of that song. Actually, that's not true - Boyzone couldn't make the gig because they had to play an important Under-11's final that day.
So where did this socially-conscious young folk star spring from? Tracy Chapman was born on March 30th, 1964 in Cleveland, Ohio, and began writing songs, poetry and prose during those "difficult" adolescent years. Following the example of her gospel-singing mother, Chapman picked up a guitar at the age of 12 and only put it down long enough to win scholarships to Wooster School in Danbury, Connecticut, and Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. While studying anthropology and African studies in college, Chapman performed in clubs and coffee houses around Boston, honing her folk guitar skills and writing her own style of gentle protest songs.
An introduction to David Kershenbaum of Elektra Records led to the recording of her self-titled debut album in 1987, but it was an appearance at the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute concert at Wembley Stadium in 1988 which brought her to the attention of the public at large. Two days after she stood in for Stevie Wonder at the televised bash, her album sold 12,000 copies; two months later, Tracy Chapman had topped both the UK and US charts and went on to become the year's best-selling CD in the US.
Fast-forward to 1998, and Tracy Chapman's debut album is back in the Irish charts - no one knows why. In the past decade, Chapman has released albums such as Crossroads, Matters of the Heart and New Beginnings, but none of them seem to have endured quite as spectacularly as her debut. Tracy Chapman has so far sold more than 145,000 copies in Ireland, making it nine times platinum, while her other records have been all but forgotten. Explain.
Theory one is that Tracy Chap- man was made available on mid-price earlier this year, making it a more attractive buy. But that hardly explains its huge resurgence - loads of old albums are available at mid-price, but you don't see them hanging round the Irish Top 10 for 18 weeks. And besides, why would thousands of Irish punters wait around for 10 years just for the price of a CD to come down? We might be divils for the fags and drink, but we're definitely not mean, are we? Theory two puts the blame squarely on the shoulders of Boyzone, who covered one of the songs on Tracy Chapman. When the Boyz topped the charts with their version of Baby Can I Hold You?, goes the logic, everybody rushed out to buy the original, shooting Chapman's debut album back into the charts. Yeah, right. Next they'll be telling us that Boyzone revived the career of The Bee Gees, or that Radiohead rescued Joe Dolan from certain obscurity.
No, the reason is that Tracy Chapman is a true folk classic, and so everybody wants to have a copy in their collection, alongside Blonde On Blonde, Harvest and Puff the Magic Dragon. All we needed was a little reminder of its greatness. Sadly, Chapman hasn't since equalled the sublime grace of her debut, and although subsequent albums sold well, especially in America, they didn't seem to have that same earthy, romantic defiance which made her first album blaze.
Next Friday, Tracy Chapman plays the first of three nights at the Olympia Theatre. The third night, on Monday December 7th, was added soon after the first two gigs sold out. So somebody still cares. Last summer, Chapman performed at the Guinness Fleadh in the US alongside Sinead O'Connor, The Chieftains, Chumbawamba and The Corrs, and she also took part in Lilith Fair with Sinead O'Connor, Sarah McLachlan, Lisa Loeb and Alison Moyet.
She's still a tireless advocate of human rights and social equality, participating in benefit concerts for organisations such as Amnesty International, and initiating education programmes to help underprivileged teenagers win college scholarships. The artwork for her 1996 album, New Beginning, contained a coupon redeemable at any Tracy Chapman concert for a packet of seeds. "Many of the songs on New Beginning share the themes of change, growth and renewal," said Chapman, "I wanted do the photography for the album at an organic farm because I wanted to extend this metaphor for growth. I thought it would be perfect to be where all these life-affirming things are growing. I wanted to incorporate these images as a way of getting people to think about the potential and possibilities that exist in something as small as a seed."
Tracy Chapman plays Dublin's Olympia Theatre on Friday December 4th, Saturday December 5th and Monday December 7th.