​Mary Chapin Carpenter (from the album Personal History

​Mary Chapin Carpenter (from the album Personal History

​Mary Chapin Carpenter (from the album Personal History available on Lambient Light Records/Thirty Tigers) (by Danny McCloskey)
The album title of Personal History sums up the song topics on the recent release from Mary Chapin Carpenter. She opens the album on soft strums, looking at the life of a traveling musician and asking “What Did You Miss”. The queries blend with the wishes as the two paths merge and separate throughout the course of a lifetime. Using the story as a backdrop, Mary Chapin Carpenter brings the both aspects together singing ‘I’ve been writing it down, song by song, as a personal history’. The album slowly spins the revolving rhythms of “Hello My Name Is”, quieting the chords and adding a sparkle of acoustic notes for the truths of “Home Is a Song” as past scenes are brought back to stage “Paint & Turpentine” and a sturdy backbeat supports the proud defiance of “Bitter Ender”.
Writing songs that are more autobiographical than previous releases, Mary Chapin Carpenter shared a story about her journey of Personal History, stating ‘a novel that I’ve loved for years is My Name is Lucy Barton, written by Elizabeth Strout. There’s this moment where the main character is taking a creative writing course, and her teacher says to her, ‘You will only have one story. You will write your one story in many ways’. I remember reading that line and taking an audible breath. In that moment, I said out loud to no one, ‘Oh, that’s what the songs are’’. 
Produced by Bonny Light Horseman’s Josh Kaufman, and recorded live at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios in Bath, England, Personal History is the seventeenth album release from the award-winning songwriter. Acoustic finger-picking begins the tale of “Girl and Her Dog” as memories recall the thoughts of a younger mind. Echoey piano notes fall like flakes of snow over the time-worn sway of the band as Mary Chapin Carpenter recalls “The Night We Never Met” while Personal Historyencourages “Say It Anyway” and drifts on a dreamscape melody that remembers the fire of younger days with “New Religion”. A DIY life guide is scripted in the lines of “Coda” as Mary Chapin Carpenter exits Personal History with a story that shows her path against a gentle musical backing that slowly rises underneath the audio journal. (by Danny McCloskey)
Listen and buy the music of Mary Chapin Carpenter from AMAZON
For more information, please visit the Mary Chapin Carpenter website