NASHVILLE singer-songwriter Beth Nielsen Chapman will play Leeds City Varieties Music Hall on August 30 on her British summer tour.
Born in Harlingen, Texas, 65-year-old Beth has recorded 15 albums and her compositions have been recorded by Elton John, Bonnie Raitt, Bette Midler, Willie Nelson, Neil Diamond, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Mindy McCready, Trisha Yearwood, Waylon Jennings, the Indigo Girls, Barbara Mandrell, Roberta Flack, Brenda Lee, Anne Murray and Keb’ Mo’, among others.
Amy Grant, Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris and Kimmie Rhodes, John Prine, Michael McDonald, Paul Carrack and Vince Gill have all performed with her on her albums. Her music has been featured in films and in television series too, such as ER and Charmed.
This Kiss, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers’ 1999 Song of the Year, sung by Faith Hill, garnered Beth a Grammy nomination, as did her song The Mighty Sky in 2012.
She was Nashville NAMMY’s 1999 Songwriter of the Year and was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall Of Fame in 2016.
Having lost her first husband, Ernest Chapman, to cancer in 1994, Chapman survived breast cancer herself in 2000 and a brain tumour in 2009. Her concerts, workshops and Keynote presentations draw from direct experience in her “fascinating dance between cognition, healing and the creative flow, her songs taking you on a journey through the depth, humour and the wonder of life”.
She recorded the 2016 album Liv On with Olivia Newton-John and Amy Sky, featuring songs about loss and moving on from grief that they performed on tour in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Ireland in 2017.
Beth, who is an ambassador for the Buddy Holly Foundation, has taught songwriting and creativity masterclasses at universities and colleges internationally, such as the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama, Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts and Berklee College of Music, Boston, Massachusetts.
Beth’s latest album, CrazyTown, was released on Cooking Vinyl, in 2022, the year when her second husband, psychologist and photographer Bob Sherman, died from leukaemia.
Tickets for her 7.30pm Leeds concert are on sale at bethnielsenchapman.com.
Songs written by Bethy Nielsen Chapman for other acts
Here We Are, Alabama; The Colour Of Roses, Bette Midler; What’s The Matter With You Baby, Claudia Church; When Love Is New, Crystal Gayle; All The Reasons Why, Long Way Down, for Highway 101; You Say You Will, Holly Dunn; World Of Hurt, Ilse DeLange; Simple Things, Jim Brickman and Rebecca Lynn Howard; The Moment You Were Mine, Juice Newton; Five Minutes, Lorrie Morgan; Happy Girl, Martina McBride; Almost Home, Mary Chapin Carpenter; Far Cry From Love, Megan McKenna; She Walks With Me (co-written), Michael W Smith; One In A Million, Mindy McCready; Deep Inside Of You, Neil Diamond; Save Yourself, Suzy Bogguss; Strong Enough To Bend, Tanya Tucker; Sometimes Goodbye, Terri Clark; Down On My Knees, You Say You Will, Trying To Love You, Trisha Yearwood; Shine On Me, Old Church Hymns And Nursery Rhymes, Waylon Jennings; Nothing I Can Do About It Now, Ain’t Necessarily So, If My World Didn’t Have You, Willie Nelson.