MARY CHAPIN CARPENTER Biography - Musicians

 
 

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MARY CHAPIN CARPENTER

Name: Mary Chapin Carpenter                                                                 
Born: 21 February 1958 Princeton, New Jersey, USA                                           
                                                                                           
Mary Chapin Carpenter (born February 21, 1958) is a American country/folk singer-songwriter 
and guitarist. She spent several years singing in Washington, D.C. clubs before             
signing in the late 1980s with Columbia Records, who marketed her as a country             
singer. Carpenter's first album, 1987's Hometown Girl, did not produce any                 
singles, although 1989's State of the Heart and 1990's Shooting Straight in the             
Dark each produced four Top 20 hits on the Billboard country singles charts.               
                                                                                           
In 1992, Carpenter released her most successful album to date, Come On Come On,             
which yielded seven charting country singles and was certified quadruple                   
platinum in the U.S. for sales exceeding four million copies. She followed it               
with Stones in the Road (1994) and A Place in the World (1996), which both                 
featured hit singles. In the 2000s, Carpenter's albums departed both                       
thematically and musically from her early work, becoming less radio-friendly and           
more focused on societal and political issues. Her most recent                             
album, The Calling, was released in March 2007.                                             
                                                                                           
Carpenter has won five Grammy Awards, and is the only artist to have won four               
consecutive Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance, which she               
received from 1992 to 1995. As of 2005, she had sold more than 12 million                   
records.                                                                                   
                                                                                           
Carpenter has performed on television shows such as Late Night with David                   
Letterman and Austin City Limits and tours frequently, returning to Washington             
almost every summer to perform at the popular outdoor venue Wolf Trap.