Tracy Chapman Breaks Her Silence

It's a music industry rarity: Tracy Chapman is giving interviews, in this case to plug the vinyl reissue of her seminal self-titled album from 1988. The 61-year-old has been speaking to a number of outlets, including the New York Times, Billboard, and NPR. Some snippets:

• She tells the Times that she sensed the strong audience reaction when she performed "Fast Car" with Luke Combs at the Grammys. "I mean, in a word, it was great," she says. "It was a very emotional moment for so many reasons. Luke is a lovely person. Before deciding to do it, we had a good talk, and we were both on the same page about how we would approach it. That was where it all had to start." She added: "In the immediate aftermath, you don't know what you've done. But I knew that we pulled it off."

• Nearly four decades after her massive debut, Chapman tells Billboard she still loves the work. "I'm just so proud of it," she says. "I was [proud] the day that we finished it and in the days when we were making it. It holds up for me. I have a lot of positive feelings about the whole process. Then what was created and then now, what [we] managed to achieve by bringing it back."
• Chapman tells NPR it's "humbling" that the songs continue to resonate with new generations. But she also called it "disheartening" that issues she wrote about in the 1980s continue to be problems, including race, the safety of women, and, more generally, the well-being of "people on the margins."
• She says she never imagined "Fast Car" becoming a hit country song, but on the other hand, she said she watched the country music show Hee Haw as a child, which is what first made her want to play the guitar. "But I think the thing that's making this connection is that 'Fast Car' is a story song, and that's the foundation of a lot of country music. I never pay too much attention to genre, personally."
• She's not a streamer: Chapman says she listens to new artists, but can't shake the habit of buying music in "physical form." In particular, she lauded artists such as Charli XCX and Chapelle Roan. "It's not music that I would make, but I appreciate that we're in this moment where there's a path for artists like that, and they can even have success."

(More Tracy Chapman stories.)