Beth Neilson-Chapman has written hits for others, but her most powerful songs are the ones that she has written for herself, writes Tony Clayton-Lea
You might recognise the name, but it's a safe bet it's from the songwriting credits on albums by the likes of Waylon Jennings, Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris, Trisha Yearwood, Willie Nelson and Neil Diamond.
Yet Beth Nielsen-Chapman is more than just a songwriter for hire - she's as much therapy practitioner as recording artist. If she promulgates each with a lightness of touch that's as sensitive as her songs, then it's probably because she realises how fragile life can be. She's lucky, however, in that she can translate the tragedy of death into an expression of faith.
Up until the early 1990s, Harligton, Texas-born Nielsen-Chapman was a jobbing singer and songwriter. Her duties prior to the 1990 release of her self-titled début album included singing harmony on (and co-writing) Tanya Tucker's 1988 US country No.1 hit, Strong Enough To Bend. The following year she succeeded in topping the charts again - this time with Nothing I Can Do About It Now, a song she had written for Willie Nelson. Subsequent album releases proved that she could write a decent song and hold a note, but the public didn't seem to want her as a solo artist - just her songs for other people.
The public attitude changed with the release of Sand & Water, an album written and recorded following the death of her husband from cancer in 1994. She toured the album - it's no grandiose thing to claim that it is the AOR/US folk musical equivalent of C.S. Lewis's The Problem of Pain - and subsequently gave workshops on how to work and cope with grief.
While she was recording her follow-up album Deeper Still, Neilsen-Chapman was diagnosed with stage-two breast cancer. Successfully treated, she went on to release that record and made it a point to speak about her experience and encourage women to be vigilant in caring for their health.
The public interest in the way she was able to express grief and the dawning apprehension that death is but a breath away has grown to such an extent that she receives emails daily from people thanking her for the record. Many other artists would deny a record released 10 years ago in favour of a new release (Look, and very good it is, too), but not Nielsen-Chapman. Control? Don't talk to Beth Nielsen-Chapman about control.
"I have found through life's ups and down that I don't have much control over anything, so any new album is just a sense of excitement and hopefulness that people will like it. It's an intense experience, and there's usually a period of time after the release where I'm taking a deep breath, having a cup of tea and getting back to the basics of life."
Her approach to songwriting is based on the belief that every song we hear is completely written, finished and in quite perfect form. According to Nielsen-Chapman's persuasive theory, all songs exist in the ether (or somewhere north of it, at very least) and what she and other songwriters do is to download them according to a schedule - whatever that schedule is.
"I have no idea," is her answer to the questions how and why. "It's happened to me several times in my life where something has taken place, but I've written the song before it has happened. That has happened to me so many times that I feel like there's something on a subliminal level happening.
"My relationship to writing is really mysterious and I really respect the unknown; I sort of hang out with not knowing what I'm doing some of the time. I teach songwriting, and I teach people to allow themselves to get into a space where something can come through that's much deeper than what your brain can figure out how to say."
Nielsen-Chapman feels - not unreasonably, it should be stressed, although in some cases you'd be hard pressed to believe it - this channelling or siphoning is some form of divine intervention.
"We're given these little brains that think they know everything, yet most of the best work I've done has come from something other than my brain. My brain is usually just following along, saying something like, 'that's cool - where did that come from?'
"What's ironic is that I've had some of my songs dissected in books on lyric writing. If you were to read these exposés on how I wrote a particular lyric it's all very intellectually sound, but when I explain to someone how I do it I don't approach it that way at all. In fact, I try not to analyse it at all. When I'm writing I'm very quiet; it's creativity very much without words."
The major influences in her life, she says, were the standard 1970s female singer-songwriters: Carly Simon, Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins, Carole King et al. Despite the fact that most of her better-known songs have been covered by country singers, she doesn't think of herself as a country artist.
"I'm a songwriter and singer who is grateful to be part of country music but who doesn't live it."
Nielsen-Chapman realises in certain circles she is still better known for songs she has written for other people rather than songs she has recorded and released herself, but swipes aside such considerations with a breezy sense of realism. What of her signature album (and song) Sand & Water?
"I'm very happy for that to be synonymous with me," she remarks. "I could never think of that album or song as an albatross. Rather, I regard it as one of the greatest gifts - to have written a song that helps other people. Although I didn't write it for other people, but for myself to get through a loss that was bigger than I could put into my psyche at the time.
"That song helped me to heal and it was an added gift to discover that it could help other people. It continues to be a great gift to me to be able to sing it and to feel the connection with other people. Ultimately, we all suffer some amount of loss in our lives. Every human being on a deep level wishes we all didn't have to do that, and to be able to be a part of something that helps people is a wonderful thing."
Beth Nielsen-Chapman plays as part of the Smithwicks Source event in Kilkenny on July 18 (headlined by James Taylor), and has a solo show in the Galway Arts Festival (RóisíDubh, July 19) and in Dublin (Whelan's, July 20). Her album,
Look, is currently on release