Mary Chapin Carpenter has gone back-to-basics. And not just because she s featured in an acoustic setting on the Chieftains album Tears Of Stone. During her last tour Carpenter also reverted to her folk base, presenting songs sans band; purely one woman, her voice and guitar.
Some of these performances turn up on her latest album, Party Doll and Other Favourites, a Greatest Hits with a difference. Apart from two new songs Almost Home and Wherever You Are , the disc does feature hits like Passionate Kisses and I Feel Lucky , but is made up more so of rarities such as the recording of the Mick Jagger song, Party Doll which gave the album its title. Also included is 10,000 Miles from the movie Fly Away Home. It may seem like a strange mix, but Mary Chapin Carpenter explains that there definitely is method behind her apparent madness.
I see Greatest Hits collections that too often simply signify the demise of an artist on one particular label or make me feel an artist is simply fulfilling some contractual obligation. Or just biding time til the next record. Or because a songwriter, has descended into a dry period, whatever, she says, sitting in Dublin s Clarence Hotel.
But none of those scenarios apply in my case. If anything, though I am marking ten years with Columbia, they would have been happy to accept a new studio album from me. But this was something I started thinking about a couple of years ago: how to make a Hits collection different. And actually make it mean something. Because standard Greatest Hits really are so formulaic and, let s face it, so often boring. Even the two extra songs are usually out-takes from other projects! And those albums also often bespeak a total non-involvement on behalf of the artist, who just leaves it to someone else to slap the thing together, put a glamour shot on the CD booklet and get it out there.
Mary Chapin Carpenter laughs and continues. That all usually takes place leading up to Christmas, so I guess I missed the boat on that! But her collection is more a celebration than a cynical marketing scam she insists.
It s like I ve lasted this long so let me celebrate that. And, to tell you the truth, I do feel I have a lot to celebrate because, two years ago, I was in management hell. That meant everything was put on hold, but, happily, I m out of that now. So, picking these songs, getting the sequence right, mixing tracks people might know with some relatively rare things fan might want to hear and the new songs that are not cast-offs from other projects! all took me a long time to put together. It was almost like doing a new album. And I really was pushing things because I wanted to use up all the space the technology would allow. As in fill the 73 minutes with music because, again, don t you just hate those Greatest Hits that are like an old vinyl album? Ten tracks? Twenty minutes of music? Please! When I get a CD and its 33 minutes of music I am pissed!
Speaking as a singer-songwriter with added insight into these matters, Mary Chapin suggests that part of the reason record-buyers are ripped-off at this level is because it s all fucked up because record companies won t pay mechanical royalties. In other words, they prefer to pay artists and publishers the minimum amount of money for the overall package. To offset this problem Carpenter claims she asked many of the artists whose work she uses on this album to take a cut in royalties. Including, believe it or not, the notoriously penny-pinching Mick Jagger!
Even in terms of my own albums I ve had this battle she explains. On Stones In The Road I had fourteen tracks and I had to fight to put those extra songs on. But in terms of Party Doll And Other Favourites I had to ask everybody for a three-quarter rate on stuff so we could afford to put all these songs on the record. And everyone was great about it. Even Mick Jagger!
That said, Mary Chapin Carpenter is fully aware that fans who may be more in tune with the relative consistency of mood on her albums such as Stones In The Road may find this collection, at points, more jarring, because there are so many disparate songs, there is so much music from different periods, different neighbourhoods.
Even so, she claims to be particularly proud of Party Doll And Other Favourites, jokingly referring to it as her kitchen sink record and something, as I say, that is decidedly different. It really is a labour of love.
Does Mary Chapin Carpenter feel there is anything on the collection that may make even long-time fans say Jeez, I didn t know she could do that kind of stuff! ?
Yeah she says. 10,000 Miles with the orchestra, which I loved being a part of. They never released a soundtrack for that movie, Fly Away Home and I ve gotten lots of queries from people about that recording. So this is the first time it s become available. And I m so happy that the first place it has become available is on my album.
But I really love working with an orchestra. A couple of months ago I did this Don Henly thing in San Francisco and he had all these people singing standards with a big orchestra. Joni Mitchell was there, Stevie Nicks, Sheryl Crow, Trisha Yearwood. Lots of people. But I sang But Beautiful and One For My Baby and I was crying my eyes out because the arrangement was so drop-dead gorgeous. And I rang my manager and said I know this sounds hokey but I d really love to do an album of this stuff. And if there is any way I could do that I would love to try. I d do it tomorrow, if that was possible. I just might. n
Party Dolls And Other Favourites is out now on Columbia