How Tracy Chapman was discovered
Tracy Chapman made everything look effortless. Rising to fame in the wake of her 1988 debut album, the singer-songwriter offered stark simplicity in an era of studio indulgence, crafting a brand of tender acoustic majesty suffused with the American realism of John Steinbeck. Her most famous offering, ‘Fast Car’, is one of the great American standards to emerge in the 1980s, prompting countless imitations, none of which quite captured the simple magic of the original.
Chapman began playing the guitar when she was seven or eight years old. She continued writing songs into her adolescence, some of which were later featured in her 1988 debut, produced by David Kershenbaum. “This album was made for the right reasons,” he told Rolling Stone. “There was a set of ideas that we wanted to communicate, and we felt if we were truthful and loyal to those ideas, then people would pick up on the emotion and the lyrical content that was there.”
Chapman’s warmth and sincerity had previously drawn the attention of Tufts University student Brian Koppelman, who discovered the singer in 1987. “I was helping organise a boycott protest against apartheid at school, and someone told me there was this great protest singer I should get to play at the rally,” he recalled, remembering how he went to see Chapman perform at a local coffeehouse called Cappuccino. “Tracy walked onstage, and it was like an epiphany,” he said. “Her presence, her voice, her songs, her sincerity — it all came across.”
Blown away by the performance, Koppelman decided to approach Chapman once she had come off stage. “‘I don’t normally do this,'” he began, “‘but I think my father could help you a lot.'” Brian Koppelman’s father was Charles Koppelman, the then co-owner of one of the largest independent song publishers in the world, SBK Publishing. Apparently, Chapman wasn’t all that impressed, nodding along politely before excusing herself and going home.
But Koppelman had enough confidence for both of them. After he showed up at her subsequent shows, Chapman agreed to sit down and talk, though she refused to cut him any demos. Koppelman was forced to play dirty. After learning that Chapman had already recorded some demos for Tufts student radio, he went to the station with a friend. While the friend distracted the DJ, he pinched one of the tapes, the one with ‘Talking ‘Bout a Revolution’ on it. He then made a copy and took it to his father, who immediately decided to fly out to hear Chapman in the flesh.
Once signed to Elecktra, Tracy Chapman began work on her debut album. With that, the ’80s most reluctant star was born.
