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Beth Nielsen Chapman has got a beautiful voice which she uses
to sing about everyday's life. Although many people think she makes Country music, she wants
people to know she makes Adult Contemporary music. Beth made 4 album's, not many people know of
her first album Hearing It First which was released in 1980. After this album Beth wrote
a lot of songs for other artists before releasing her second self titled album Beth Nielsen
Chapman in 1990. You Hold the Key was released in 1993 followed by Sand And
Water in 1997.
Beth was raised as one of five children in an airforce family and started
playing the piano and guitar at a young age. Being an 'airforce brat', Beth moved around alot
when she was young and she finally ended up in Montgomery, Alabama when her parents retired.
This is the place where she spent the late 70s and early 80s playing in a band called
"Harvest" which they later had to change to "Harmony". They usually played
in a bowling alley and although that's a strange place to play, there was always a tremendous
crowd. The music they played was primarily rock 'n roll, but Beth often got to shine with her
own style when singing Joni Mitchell songs. One of her bandmates was guitarist Tommy Shaw, who
later went on to great fame with the bands "Styx" and "Damn Yankees". Beth
also did local radio jingles for Montgomery businesses during this time.
Beth met her husband Ernest when she playing in a small pub in Mobile,
Alabama in 1979 and got married three months later and their son Ernest III was born in 1981.
She stayed in Mobile for 7 years. From there she expanded as a professional songwriter,
relocating to Nashville and writing for artists as Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Tanya Tucker,
Alabama and Lorrie Morgan. Beth wrote Top 10 hit songs for Trisha Yearwood ("You Say You
Will" and "Down On My Knees"), Highway 101 ("All The Reasons Why") and
Don Williams ("Maybe That's All It Takes"), among others.
It was in 1993 that Beth's husband was diagnosed with a rare from of
Iymphoma and given only a short time to live. During the first year following Ernest's death in
August 1994, Beth only could connect to her grief when writing songs. Her latest album Sand And
Water is Beth's personal story of pain and sorrow. You can read a note from
Beth from the back of the Sand And Water album in the discography part of this page.
You can read a release message from Warner - Reprise Records at
this link. The first single released from this new album was
"Happy Girl".
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