Tracy Chapman - Acoustic Demos (1986-1988)

Tracy Chapman burst onto the musical world in 1988, with her debut album eventually selling nearly 20 million copies. For a long time, pristine acoustic demos of five Chapman songs have been floating around the Internet. The demos are of unknown origin, but they appear to date from 1986. I also found one more acoustic demo from 1986, apparently from a very obscure compilation album.

Those six songs make up a nice listen, but one that's only about 20 minutes long. I couldn't find any other early demos. However, I found two more acoustic songs from 1986, both of them still officially unreleased in any form until today. "My Sweet One" and "Troubles, Troubles, Troubles (Leaving Blues)" come from an appearance on a local TV show called "Dead Air Live." There was a little audience noise, but I removed it with the help of the MVSEP audio editing program.

So, that makes up half an hour of music from 1986. I thought that was still a little short for an album. I did knew of two 1988 solo acoustic concert bootlegs that have such great sound that you could practically hear a pin drop. So I edited some songs from those shows by removing the audience noise, to make it seem they were more demos. And when I mean edit, I really mean edit. I aggressively removed every shriek and clap I could find, even in the middle of songs, by patching in bits from other parts of the songs.

I'm very happy with the results. I think a listener wouldn't be able to tell that some of these are studio demos and others are from a concert bootleg, because they all have the same excellent crowd-free sound quality. But give it a listen and decide for yourself.

This album contains every song from her 1988 debut album, "Tracy Chapman," except for one (the vocals-only "Behind the Wall") as well as four songs from her second album, "Crossroads." Both albums have fairly minimalistic arrangements on them, for the most part, but still, it's interesting to hear these songs done with just Chapman's unique voice and her acoustic guitar.

Additionally, there's two bonus tracks. One of them is an interview she did for the "Dead Air Live" TV show, apparently at the same time she performed the two songs here for that show. However, it seems the questions have been taken out, so it's just her talking the entire time. There was a lot of hiss on the recording, but I removed that with the MVSEP program.

The second one is a version of "Troubles, Troubles, Troubles (Leaving Blues)." (If indeed that is the title. Does anybody know for sure?) I found two interesting versions from 1986, and since there's so little music from her prior to her first album, I figured I should include both versions. So the slightly lower quality one got bonus track status. This bonus version is from a YouTube video I found of an performance she did for the National Women's Music Festival in Bloomington, Indiana. Unfortunately, if she did any other songs then, I couldn't find them.

This album is 55 minutes long, not including the bonus tracks.

UPDATE: On October 29, 2025, I updated the mp3 download file. I added "My Sweet One" and two versions of "Troubles, Troubles, Troubles (Leaving Blues)," plus the bonus interview track. I only discovered them later.

01 Baby Can I Hold You (Tracy Chapman)
02 Talkin' 'bout a Revolution (Tracy Chapman)
03 This Time (Tracy Chapman)
04 Mountains O' Things (Tracy Chapman)
05 For You (Tracy Chapman)
06 My Sweet One (Tracy Chapman)
07 Troubles, Troubles, Troubles [Leaving Blues] (Tracy Chapman)
08 For My Lover (Tracy Chapman)
09 Material World (Tracy Chapman)
10 Across the Lines (Tracy Chapman)
11 Fast Car (Tracy Chapman)
12 She's Got Her Ticket (Tracy Chapman)
13 Born to Fight (Tracy Chapman)
14 Why (Tracy Chapman)
15 If Not Now... (Tracy Chapman)
16 All That You Have Is Your Soul (Tracy Chapman)

interview (Tracy Chapman)
Troubles, Troubles, Troubles [Leaving Blues] (Tracy Chapman)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/XV8NFUGd

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/MF3RDFMPpRIIME3/file

I found a photo of Chapman busking in Harvard Square, Boston, in 1985, and I couldn't resist using it here.