Tracy Chapman - Acoustic Demos (1986-1988)

I try not to let mention my political opinions on this music blog, but sometimes I can't help myself. Today, with the disappointment of the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation vote in Washington, I find myself drawn to listening to Tracy Chapman and her strident calls for truth and justice.

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 did know 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.

Note that I have some still officially unreleased songs from this time period, but I didn't put them on this album. That's because my next Chapman post will be an album just of early unreleased songs.

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 For My Lover (Tracy Chapman)
07 Material World (Tracy Chapman)
08 Across the Lines (Tracy Chapman)
09 Fast Car (Tracy Chapman)
10 She's Got Her Ticket (Tracy Chapman)
11 Born to Fight (Tracy Chapman)
12 Why (Tracy Chapman)
13 If Not Now... (Tracy Chapman)
14 All That You Have Is Your Soul (Tracy Chapman)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16700884/TRACYCHPMN1986-1988_AcusticDmos_atse.zip.html

I'm still not back in album cover making mode yet. However, I knew of a photo of Chapman busking in Harvard Square, Boston, in 1985, and I couldn't resist using it here.