By Neil Pond, Entertainment Editor Country America- August/September 1996 Phtotgraphs By Tal McBride
Like asking for a cigarette with no plans to smoke it, some things aren't always what they seem with Mary Chapin Carpenter. You can't judge a book by its cover, and you can't peg this entertainer with a first impression. She's a bit more complex than that.
"Here in America, we *do* judge a book by its cover," she says later with a smile, relaxing on the back porch of her two-story, old-charm home on a tree-lined street in Alexandria, Virginia, a "suburb" of Washington, DC. "We're a nation of sound bites and quick hits and little blurbs."
She's a platinum-selling performer whose music has touched - and sold - millions, yet Mary Chapin remains somewhat outside of Nashville's hype-driven, celebrity-polishing circles of sound bites, quick hits, and little blurbs.
"I'm very protective of my personal life, without being defensive about it," she says. "Once you do open up, there's no end. It's not that I don't want to be an open book, but you've got to hold back something that's just yours, that isn't to be examined. But it can backfire on you," she adds with a smile. "People think you've either got something to hide - or you're a real bitch."
In her case, however, it's simply that she doesn't find herself all that interesting - so why, she wonders, would anyone else? "I'm as shy as all get-out, and I tend to keep to myself. I'm a very boring person," she says. "When I've gone to do Letterman or The Tonight Show, it's like, 'Well, Mary Chapin, what have you been doing lately?' And I'll go, 'Um...reading? Walking my dog?' That's how bad it is!"
Rather than spread-eagle herself on the altar of publicity, she prefers to let her music do most of the talking. In song after song on a string of successful albums. she has chronicled the many shadings of the human condition with some of the most insightful, intelligent music that has ever fallen under the umbrella of country.
And while she often lets her music shine a light into her personal thoughts and perspectives, she cautions against trying to read too closely between the lines of her songs. "I write pretty personal songs," she says. "But I reject the idea that anyone would listen to a record and say, 'This is the message' or 'This is what she's just gone through.' Records are just snapshots here and there of things. They're just what you felt like doing at the time."
A lot of folks, she notes, thought her last album, Stones in the Road, was sad and somber. That anyone could get that impression perplexes her. "I thought it was an extradinarily *optimistic* album for me, as a whole," she says. "What I was trying to put out there was a sense of 'Ah. here are the many different things we go through, but in the end, I'm believing it's really better, not worse.' And I really do feel that way."
Her life is certainly getting better, all the time, in the professional sense. Country music has embraced her in a big way. A shelf in her basement is lined with five Grammys, a pair of ACM awards, and two CMA trophies.
But in many ways, Mary Chapin contradicts some of country music's most enduring stereotypes. Raised in the suburban East (New Jersey and Washington, DC) and educated at an Ivy League university (Brown), she cut her musical teeth on the folk circuit. As such, she admits her resume's a bit thin in the horse-and-hay department.
"My stat sheet's somewhat different," she says. "But as far as someone thinking I don't have the right background to sing country music, I think that's very close-minded. To me, it's a case of reverse stereotyping, implying that most artists in country are not educated, haven't traveled beyond their own town. That just buys into a stereotype that I'm not even sure exists anymore.
Another stereotype that doesn't exist, at least not for her, is the one about successful performers having to act like "stars". She detests getting special treatment. When a hotel assigns her its luxury suite, she usually asks one of her band members to swap with her. "I get lost in a big room," she says. "I'd rather have just a little nest. When I feel like people are treating me like I've got more right to something than someone else, I don't like it. Plus, I'm just kind of used to doing things for myself." She's been doing things for herself for most of her adult life, in fact.
At 38, she's never married. But she says she definitely wants to have a family someday. "I sure hope the day doesn't come when I'm too old to start," she says. Her current beau is an Irish musician who captured her heart unexpectedly. "It's a long-distance relationship, and it's hard," she admits. "We met when I was touring in Dublin. I wasn't looking and it just happened." As you might expect, she's a bit reserved when discussing this area of her private life. "One of the reasons I don't like to talk about my relationships is I'm afraid they'll fall apart, and then I'll have to read about it."
For now, though, she's happy living single with her two "boys," golden retrievers Cal and Reilly. "I really feel like they're my kids," she says.
She's particularly buoyant, however, that her boyfriend is coming over for a visit just a couple of days from now. This is a special visit, as it turns out, to watch Mary Chapin get a very special recognition. "I'm getting a doctorate of music from Brown University," she says proudly. "The year I graduated, in 1981, they gave one to Aaron Copeland." Her eyes widen at being in the same degree boat with the legendary composer. "It means more to me, God bless 'em, than any award I've ever received."
But again, there's more to the book than you see on the cover. Specifically, Mary Chapin was a total flop as a music student when she was at Brown. "I almost failed the one music course I look," she adds with a mock-puzzled, this-doesn't-make-sense expression, "and so... I get *this*!"
It also doesn't make sense to her, when she stops to think about it, that she ended up making music for a living. "Obviously, I feel very blessed," she says. "It's not something I thought would happen." Music, she says, was something that kind of crept up on her. She went from being a "lonesome kid" sitting in her bedroom, noodling on a guitar, to playing for thousands in arenas around the world. "It was real gradual," she says. "It was more like it was something I kept doing because it made me happy."
And so, this shy wallflower sometimes marvels that she somehow turned into the belle of the ball. "I've never been shy about saying, 'Hey, I don''t know how I ended up here,' " she says. "But whatever it is, I'm diggin' it!"
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