Mary Chapin Carpenter - Home Concerts 1, Afton, VA, 3-18-2020 to 4-22-2020

For the near future, I'm going to prioritize posting coronavirus home concerts, since that's what's happening now. Richard Thompson recently did a second home concert. I would have liked to post that, but there was some sort of connection problem, so there were dozens of dropouts per song. It wasn't just with me, but with everyone, because it was something that happened on his end. So that recording exists on YouTube and elsewhere, but I find it unlistenable. I also would like to post recent home concerts by Robyn Hitchcock, Larkin Poe, and Neil Young. But those have been happening behind paywalls. Given how hard it is for musicians to make money from their music these days, I don't want to post those until well after any likely revenue stream from them has dried up - maybe in a year or two, if they don't make them free before that. (And again, if you know of any good ones that I might be missing, please let me know.)

But those are hardly the only home concerts happening. Here's one from Mary Chapin Carpenter. Actually, it's not a concert per se. But for the past month, she's been posting a new song performed in the kitchen of her house every few days. I've gathered them all up and I'm presenting them as if they were one continuous concert. This album is an hour long. Hopefully, she'll keep going. Once I have enough for another concert, I'll post that too.

Carpenter is very talkative in the videos she's been posting lately. In fact, there's often two or three minutes of talking before each song starts. I made the editorial decision to cut most of that out, because I don't think it stands up to repeated listening. One problem is that she repeats herself a lot. For instance, each video usually begins by welcoming back the listener to what she calls the "songs from home" series. Then she almost always describes the current whereabouts of her dog and cat. (Her dog often is with her in the video while her cat is usually taking a nap.) She also usually makes some encouraging comments about the virus, advising people to wash their hands and "stay mighty" and so forth. She frequently comments on the feedback she's received on her past videos and well as requests for new songs.

A lot of that would be interesting to hear once, but not multiple times. So, generally speaking, I've cut it all out except when she directly comments about the song she's about to play. That usually reduces her talking from two to three minutes before each song to an average of about half a minute. If you want to hear the full versions, just check out her videos on YouTube.

One tricky aspect of posting these home concerts is figuring out where they're being recorded. I did some Googling and found out that Carpenter's house is in Afton, Virginia, so I assume that's where this has taken place.

01 talk (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
02 Edinburgh (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
03 talk (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
04 Soul Companion (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
05 talk (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
06 The Hard Way (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
07 talk (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
08 This Is Love (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
09 talk (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
10 Jubilee (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
11 talk (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
12 The Blue Distance (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
13 talk (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
14 Don't Need Much to Be Happy (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
15 talk (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
16 Halley Came to Jackson (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
17 talk (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
18 Far from Me (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
19 talk (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
20 Chasing What's Already Gone (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
21 talk (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
22 The Things that We Are Made Of (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
23 talk (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
24 I Am a Town (Mary Chapin Carpenter)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15284039/MaryChapC_2020_HomeConcrts1AftonVA__3-18-2020_to_4-22-2020_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo is a screenshot taken from one of her videos. She looks like that in pretty much all of them, standing at the same spot in her kitchen and wearing a cap.