That said, I wasn’t really thinking about looking back.” In fairness to the label, it’s not like I wasn’t ready for it. But I relented, and I decided this year that we could go forward with it. I suppose because I thought it was too soon in my career. “They have been asking for many years possibly five. I’m very grateful for that there’s no reason why I wouldn’t be.”Ĭhapman viewed the selection process for the collection as an exercise to take stock of her work, although she says it took some years for her to relent to the record company’s requests for the compilation. But having that success – even though it was overwhelming at that time, and it would be at any time, I guess – gave me artistic freedom and the chance to keep making music that felt right for me. “Of course, there are moments here and there that I would change. “To know that I’m here right now, putting out a record like this, is amazing,” she says of her Greatest Hits album, in a voice so soft- spoken you have to strain to hear it. The way Chapman tells it now, from a distance of 27 years, the surge in profile is something she wouldn’t change.
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Within a year her debut album sales surged to more than 10 million.
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He eventually agreed to make an appearance later in the concert, but the die was cast: Tracy Chapman’s life had changed. The second time was because Stevie Wonder abruptly refused to perform, due to a missing piece of sound equipment. But she ended up performing not once, but twice. Chapman was scheduled to play a short set at the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute concert, on June 11th, at London’s Wembley Stadium. So far, so good: Chapman’s simplistic folk-pop tunes with a social-activist twist caught the ears of critics and, bolstered by Fast Car’s radio play, by the end of April the album had sold a respectable one million copies worldwide.Ĭome the end of June – and this is where the tantrum comes in – album sales had trebled. He liked what he heard, she was offered a record deal, and in April 1988 her self-titled debut album was released, along with the first single, Fast Car. In 1986, at the age of 22, a friend of Chapman’s father introduced her to an executive at Elektra Records. But for a certain famous musician’s temper tantrum, it’s possible Tracy Chapman might have had a completely different career trajectory.