Search - Mary-Chapin Carpenter :: The Age of Miracles

Celia Y. (cay) from NASHVILLE, TN
Reviewed on 11/13/2013...

Always thoughtful, soulful and quietly comforting, Mary-Chapin Carpenter doesn't disappoint with this CD.

Three years after a life-threatening embolism, MCC returns i

Jesse Kornbluth | New York | 04/27/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

""We've got two lives, one we're given, the other one we make," Mary Chapin Carpenter sang on Come On Come On, her 1992 breakthrough album. For her, that estimate was too conservative --- three years ago, a pulmonary embolism nearly killed her. Seasons of doctors followed, and medicine and rest. Now she's released The Age of Miracles, and it's not overstatement to suggest that it's a rebirth --- a third life for her.



Small complication: In each of her lives, there have been two Mary Chapin Carpenters, one a significant writer, one a singer who can deliver hits. Sometimes the brainiac Brown grad and the Nashville hit maker don't seem to meet. She writes from the intersection of emotion and reason; she can sing like she's fronting a bar band. It's those raucous, bawdy songs that get the most air play --- and will, forever. Mary Chapin Carpenter feels lucky. She'll take her chances. And you should see her at the Twist & Shout. Etc....



I'm fond of that Mary Chapin Carpenter, but I value the writer more. And as a writer, she's anything but Nashville. Carpenter is a master of the line that slips under the radar and pierces your heart, the thought you believed only you had, the painful truth that loses some of its pain for being shared. We have a mutual friend in Don Schlitz, who wrote "The Gambler" and a sheaf of other songs that will be played as long as there is music. Though they collaborated fifteen years ago, the memory is still sweet. "To think, I had the opportunity to sit across the table and make up a few songs with her," he says. "You can only imagine what a lifetime experience that was."



It may take a professional to appreciate just how special Mary Chapin Carpenter is: The singer-songwriters who can combine actual poetry in a framework that's not entirely foreign to Nashville make for a very short list. No wonder that town's most accomplished musicians line up to record with her --- especially now, when her always personal writing and singing have new dimensions. And then there's her fresh resolve. As she sings in "The Way I Feel," the last song on the CD, "When I'm out alone on the midnight highway/ There's nothing like both hands on the wheel/ Radio playing `I Won't Back Down'/ Baby, that's about the way I feel."



Those lines, twangy guitars and that unmistakable voice were echoing in my ears when the phone rang. And off we went....



Jesse Kornbluth: Three years as a patient --- that isn't an experience you slough off. How bad was it? And how are you now?



Mary Chapin Carpenter: Much better, thanks. It was a stunning turn of events, a hard time in every way. When everything you've ever thought about yourself is torpedoed...it's rough. A lot of the new music springs from that. To record those songs and now to tour, that feels celebratory.



JK: Let's clarify. By calling your CD "The Age of Miracles", is that a statement of faith: Mary Chapin Carpenter believes in miracles?



MCC: I didn't mean it in the religious sense, I'm allergic to that language. I could be predictable and say I thought it was a miracle that America elected Barack Obama; there were times during the inauguration that my heart was pounding. In the context of the song lyric, I'm saying that if you're lucky enough to believe that miracles exist, then they come --- because you make your own luck, your own beauty, your own joy. You can try to pull it from other sources, see it in the world, but really, it starts with you.



JK: I can see another reason for thinking that making your own joy is necessary. As I scan the songs on this CD, they're hardly the sound track for "Pollyanna." There are references to Buddhist monks in Burma, racial tension in Louisiana, Ernest Hemingway's wife, the Apollo moon landing --- this is smart music for smart, informed people, made by, forgive me, a serious person. Are you hooked by what's going on?



MCC: If you pay too much attention to the news, your heart would be broken in a thousand pieces every day. You couldn't function. So you have to balance....



JK: Let's talk about the transformation of news into art. The monks in Burma....



MCC: Watching their non-violent protest, barefoot in the rain, simply so the world could bear witness --- every day it went on, I was holding my breath. I couldn't believe so much courage. And I thought: if you connect to it, you can draw something of that courage into your own life.



JK: Mrs. Hemingway --- which one?



MCC: The first one, Hadley Richardson. I was reading a new edition of "A Movable Feast," and I thought about Hadley --- of Hemingway's wives, we know so little about her. Many people only recall that she lost the manuscript of his novel, but I knew there must be much more. So I found two out-of-print biographies and started writing the song....



JK: To someone who's listened to you consistently through the years, two things about "The Age of Miracles" come through strongly. One, that this is right up there with your best work. And two, which, given the music business, is somewhat in opposition to the first: I see no songs here --- except the last --- that shout: I am an obvious candidate for a hit. This is adult music, melodic and tasty, but also thoughtful and sometimes challenging.



MCC: Looking back twenty years, perhaps the greatest struggle throughout is the struggle to be authentic. In the '90s, when I was having great success and things were crazy as could be, there was pressure --- sometimes spoken, sometimes not --- not to do this or that. And I thought: who am I? The hardest time during those years was when I said "yes" to something that didn't feel authentic to me. But that is how you learn too. I had a wonderful career with Sony, but they needed to get records on the charts. Since I started recording for Rounder, that kind of pressure has disappeared.



JK: "Come On Come On" --- 7 hit singles, 4 million CDs sold. And that was just the start. When you think about how sizzling your career was in the early to mid-`90s, what comes up for you?



MCC: It's hard to describe. On the one hand, there was the fatigue, the people tugging at you, so many obligations --- and that doesn't even include getting up on stage. But then there was the travel around the world, the amazing people, audiences, extraordinary opportunities, your music being heard and connecting to people. It was an extraordinary experience. I feel blessed to have had two lives.



JK: You're getting the "Spirit of Americana" Free Speech in Music Award from the Newseum's First Amendment Center and the Americana Music Association. What for, exactly?



MCC: I've always thought of myself as someone who didn't edit herself, I've just tried to write about my heart and the world, I never saw myself as a formal advocate of free speech. So this award came out of the blue. I still wonder: Are they sure?



JK: This tour --- will you play the greater hits?



MCC: On acoustic dates, you can sometimes get some distance from them. but this summer, in the bigger places, with the full band, it's going to be great fun to crank it up at the end and fling them out there"

Carpenter Miraculously Transforms Life into Music on New Dis

T. Yap | Sydney, NSW, Australia | 04/28/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Prime Cuts: Mrs Hemingway, I Put My Ring Back On, The Way I Feel



Be warned: if you are looking for the impellent Carpenter who has carved her name on the country charts with hits such as "Down on the Twist and Shout," "I Feel Lucky" or "Passionate Kisses," you will be gravely disappointed. After her 1996 "Come On, Come On," Carpenter has hung up her boots to the peak of the country charts. And ever since she was signed to Rounder/Zoe Records she has never come close to hiking anyway near to the precipice of marketability. "Age of Miracles," like her predecessors "The Calling" and "Between Here and Gone," finds a cosseted Carpenter indulging into an introspective ballad-heavy folk style narrating stories and message songs that are often heartbreaking, daring and salient. While country artists are often flagged with distaste for dealing with politics, Carpenter speaks her mind not with fire and brimstone but often even more pointedly through her stories. This is perhaps what makes Carpenter head and shoes above those pedestrian coffeehouse-strumming singer-songwriters out there. Again as with most of her outputs, Carpenter single-handedly wrote all 12 tunes with Nashville ace keyboardist Matt Rollings taking on the producer's seat.



Among the ballads (which are in galore here), the one that is most arresting is "Mrs Hemingway." Backed with just the naked tickling of the piano before she's joined by a bevy of gorgeous strings, Carpenter dons the voice of Ernest Hemingway's first wife as she tells of their ill-fated relationship. History has never sounded more gorgeously haunting than on this track. "Mrs. Hemingway" indeed is a gem in Carpenter's portfolio of works. Though not as stellar, "4 June 1989" is another conscience-slicing piece as Carpenter tells the story of Chinese activist Chen Guang's massacre at Tianamem Square. The line "Before I held a rifle, I held an artist's brush/Before Tianamen, I even dreamed of love" is simply heartbreaking. Moving into more introspective issues, a few of the ballads deal with domestic problems such as "We Have Travelled So Far," "I Have a Need for Solitude," and "I Was a Bird." Just as with most Carpenter ballads, they tend to merge together as if you are listening to one never ending song. Nevertheless, what makes "I Was a Bird" most interesting is Carpenter's deep-sounding alto is contrasted elegantly with Alison Kruass' angelic voice.



Of the tracks that bear the slightest resemblance to Carpenter in the peak of her commercial form are the rockers. "I Put My Ring Back," is the no brainer radio darling here. Breathing life into what Carpenter thought was a marriage that has done its course, "I Put My Ring Back" is optimistically catchy. "The Way I Feel," calls to mind "He Thinks He'll Keep Her," with its rollicking drive that has a sense of reckless abandon as Carpenter flees from an aching relationship. Less successful are a duo of New Age-ish cuts, namely "Zephyr" and the title cut "Age of Miracles." Though on an album encumbered by too many ballads the title cut is a welcome entry.



Considering that Carpenter is an Ivy-League graduate and reflective poet of the highest order, it's natural to expect "Age of Miracles" to be a thoughtful and introspective collection of paeans. And again Carpenter does not disappointed: her well-crafted stories with no throwaway characters, her excellent use of words and her reflective delivery are well worthy of praise. Nevertheless, for those who like Carpenter to lighten up more would wish Carpenter would grace us again with another "Down at the Twist and Shout" or "Shut Up and Kiss Me" would be disappointed. Despite this quibble, "Age of Miracles" shows once again that Carpenter can take the mundane and the overlooked and transform them into heart-striking sonic tomes.

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