Songoftheday 4/5/20 - Baby I got your number and I know that you got mine, but you know that I called you I called too many times...
from the album New Beginning (1996)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #3 (five weeks)H
Weeks in the Top-40: 34
Today's song of the day comes from folk/rock singer-songwriter Tracy Chapman, whose self-titled debut album captured the hearts of critics and spun off a top ten pop hit with the Grammy-winning "Fast Car" in the summer of 1988. A year later, Tracy returned with her sophomore effort Crossroads, but despite reaching the top ten on the sales chart in the US (and hitting #1 in the UK and Germany) and selling over a million copies stateside, pop radio basically left it alone, with the lead single "Crossroads" only nicking the Hot 100 at #90 (it did go to #7 on the Alternative Rock radio chart). Her third release, Matters of The Heart, came out in 1992, when the music spectrum was shifting wildly with hard rock and hip-hop music dominating, and while her true fans remained pop and rock radio was pretty silent. Both singles from the project stiffed while the album (even though selling a half-million copies), stalled out at a paltry #53 on the Top 200 Albums chart. But proving everything is a circle, it only took one song to bring Chapman back to the limelight, and without compromising her vision. "Give Me One Reason" was released as the first single from Tracy's fourth album New Beginning at the close of 1995. The classic blues-rock semi-break-up song didn't have any bells and whistles besides its guitar-driven groove and Tracy's growling voice asking for a reason why she shouldn't just take off. Written by Chapman and produced by Don Gehman (John Mellencamp), it rose quickly to become her most successful pop hit in America...
"Give Me One Reason" became Chapman's second top ten pop hit and biggest success in June of 1996. The song topped Billboard magazine's Adult Top-40 format chart for five weeks, while taking ten weeks at #3 on their Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio list. Despite it missing out at rock radio this time, the song crossed over to urban stations, making it to #35 on the R&B chart and taking 20 weeks on the list. Internationally the single topped the charts in Canada and Iceland, peaked at #3 in Australia and #16 in New Zealand. Surprisingly, the song only spent one lousy week on the chart in the UK way down at #95. At the 1997 Grammy Awards, "Give Me One Reason" won for Best Rock Song, and was nominated for three more, losing both Record of The Year and Song of The Year to Eric Clapton's "Change The World", while getting a nod for Best Female Rock Vocal, which went to Sheryl Crow for "If It Makes You Happy". Her New Beginning album also was up for Best Pop Album, which Celine Dion won for Falling Into You.
Despite the success of "Give Me One Reason", mainstream radio pretty much settled it as a one-off thing, with both the second single "New Beginning" (#106) and "Smoke and Ashes" (#119) only managing to "bubble under" the pop Hot 100 chart. Nevertheless, the New Beginning album peaked at #4 on the sales chart, eventually selling over five million copies.
Chapman took a five-year break before coming back in 2000 with her next album Telling Stories. The record made the top-40 at #33, but the title track and lead single "Telling Stories (There Is Fiction In The Space Between)" again only "bubbled under" the pop Hot 100 at #108, though it was a big hit at Adult Top-40, peaking at #8 and spending a half year on the chart (26 weeks), and topping Billboard's Adult Album Alternative (Triple A) rock radio list for a week. Since then Tracy has released three more studio albums. In 2005 she returned to the top ten at Triple-A with the song "Change" (#5). Her most recent record is 2008's One Bright Future, which was nominated for a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album in 2010 (which her debut won in 1988), this time bowing out to country-rocker Steve Earle's Van Zandt tribute Townes. From the set is her most recent Triple-A hit, "Sing For You", which went to #13.
(Click below to see the rest of the post)
Here's Tracy on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in 1996...
Next up, at the Grammys in 1997, where she won one out of five she was nominated for...
Tracy performed "Give Me One Reason" with blues-rock king Eric Clapton at 1999's Very Special Christmas show...
Lastly, here's Tracy live in 2013...
Up tomorrow: South Carolina bar-band befriends the aged.
Comments