15 July 2023, McCabes Guitar Shop, Santa Monica, CA
I returned to LA a couple months ago with the intention of writing for the rest of this year. It’s been hard to do that so far. So I’m glad to have a story to tell that gets the fingers moving on the keyboard, a story of writers inspiring other writers, a story of music and magic. An LA story.
On Saturday night I went to McCabes in Santa Monica to see Beth Nielsen Chapman. I adore Beth and have written about her in the past, was fortunate to interview her many years ago, stayed in touch for some time, and now years later we have reconnected again, a very special thing. Her songwriting and singing are always stellar, and this rare LA performance on the weekend was overflowing with joy. “Who knew you were a comic, too?” I asked her later on. She can be really funny, even when the songs can be aching, soul searching, sad, wistful. She knows how to rock, too. Whatever the tempo, she and her songs are always inspirational.
Back in 1997 on a holiday here, the same summer when I first met Henry Diltz, I made my first pilgrimage to the Troubadour, exploring such iconic locales for a music story I was going to write for The Australian newspaper. I did a bit of an interview with the Troub’s manager then, Lance. I asked him who I should see perform there, said I particularly liked female artists, and he gave me a ticket to see Julia Fordham. I hadn’t actually known of the English singer-songwriter before then. So along I went. The opening act was Kyle Vincent, a cutie straight out of the dreamboat pop vibe of the seventies, with whom I chatted and flirted after his set and whom I am friendly with to this day.
Julia Fordham gave a stunning performance and I was won over.
So a day or two later I went out to Rockaway Records, picked out every Julia Fordham CD I could find in the used music section, and took my little pile to the counter. The checkout dude looked impressed by my selection. “If you like her,” he said, “then you should listen to this, also. I highly recommend it.” He held up the CD of Sand and Water by Beth Nielsen Chapman. I hadn’t heard of her. I said, “Hmmm, thanks, but I think I am spending enough today, I’ll leave it.”
“Then I am going to throw it in as a gift. You need to hear this album.” The bonus CD was added to my haul, and off I went.
I listened to Sand and Water and it stunned me. It was an epiphany. I had experienced some grief by then but never to the depths that Beth was describing in that title song with such raw honesty, clarity and steadfast faith. The whole album was seminal. I hunted down more of her music, played her (and Julia Fordham) on my radio show in Byron Bay, and during my year-long stint in LA during 1998-99, I met Beth at a benefit concert she participated in at the Troubadour, and then interviewed her for Performing Songwriter magazine. Although she tours often, she rarely plays in LA. After I moved to LA more permanently, I saw her more than six years ago, as part of the Liv On trio project with Olivia Newton-John and Amy Sky, all of them singing about grief, endurance, resilience. Beth has had her share of grief and is always very open about her life; losing two husbands to cancer and going through her own experience of cancer, none of that is much fun. But the songwriting rises from these trials, the voice soars, the stories are inspiring and enlightening and on Saturday night delightfully funny as well. She still sings “Sand and Water” like it happened yesterday, the death of her first husband. She sings “This Kiss” (made famous by Faith Hill) with the excitement of a young girl discovering the pleasures of, well, kissing, as well as with the love of friendship exemplified by the presence on stage of co-writer Annie Roboff, herself a survivor of countless health issues, jauntily and radiantly playing piano with Beth and her accompanists. Beth sings like she might never sing again, even when she forgets her own lyrics, she just makes some up to keep going. She’s a force and she’s magnificent, and the sold-out audience of fans and fellow songwriters at McCabes were in raptures.
And the whole point of this story is that sitting next to me at McCabes was Julia Fordham.
I introduced myself and told her all of this, my long connection to Beth and her music, all because I went to the Troubadour that night in 1997.
“Amazing,” Julia said. “Synchronicity.”
And magic. LA can be the hardest place to be and it can be the most beautiful place to be. On Saturday night it was beautiful to be with Beth, and Julia, and their gorgeous friend Judith, and my bestie Henry. In that place, in that moment, I really could not feel more certain that in spite of every difficulty, every gruesome challenge, every disappointment, every let down, there is a reason I am back here that is based in magic.
And always music.
DEBBIE DOES MUSIC 