This and That: Sand and Water

Beth Nielsen Chapman: Sand and Water

[purchase]

Beth Nielsen Chapman lost her husband to cancer in 1994. As a musician and songwriter, she had many choices of how to respond to this personal tragedy. She could have gone into a cocoon, shunning all contact with her record company and her fans, and then tried to rebuild her career when she felt ready. I wouldn’t have blamed her.

But Chapman chose to do something very brave. That she turned to music to help her through her grief is hardly surprising. But, for her, this process resulted in an album’s worth of music, which she went on to record and release. The album, and the song which is the centerpiece of the album, is Sand and Water. And this is some of the most quietly impassioned music you will ever hear.

I will let Chapman herself have the last word on this. From her dedication to the album: “I hope this music will touch a chord with others who have lost a loved one. In my experience, there is no way around grief - there is only through to the other side.”

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Announcement: If you have tried to play the songs in my older posts lately, you may have encountered problems. If so, I apologize. There was a problem at my file hosting service, which now seems to be fixed. This also affected all of my posts on Oliver di Place. Everything seems to be working now, so please feel free to go back to anything you wanted to hear and couldn’t. And a special thanks goes to Boyhowdy for his help with my Star Maker posts last week.