By DAN ARMONAITIS
When Marshall Chapman returns to Spartanburg this weekend, she’ll be performing as part of what she said will be her “favorite show of the year, for sure.”
While some of that feeling can be attributed to the fact that it’s been nearly two-and-a-half years since she last played a hometown concert in the Hub City, Chapman is most excited about the company she’ll have on stage with her for “An Evening of Stories and Songs,” which will be presented at 7 p.m. on Saturday, April 16 at Twichell Auditorium in the Zimmerli Performance Center on the campus of Converse University.
The intimate in-the-round performance will feature Chapman, a Nashville mainstay for more than 50 years, alongside heralded Music City singer-songwriters Will Kimbrough and Tommy Womack. (Tickets can be purchased here.)
“Chemistry is everything, and that’s what Will and Tommy and I have whenever we get together,” Chapman said. “I have so much love and respect for these guys. Every time I take the stage with them, I feel like a kid at Christmas.
“Tommy is a PK (preacher’s kid), so that explains a lot. Most of the PKs I know are either incarcerated or brilliant artists. Fortunately, Tommy is the latter. And Will is from Mobile (Alabama), which also explains a lot. His song ‘Soulfully’ was recorded by Jimmy Buffett, a fellow Mobile native, but I could hear Sam Cooke singing it just as well. That is, if Cooke was still alive. ‘Soulfully’ has ‘standard’ written all over it.”
Chapman said audience members can expect “the unexpected” when she, Womack and Kimbrough get together.
“Tommy, Will and I will be singing mostly songs we’ve written, but you never know with those two,” she explained. “Tommy has been known to break into Helen Reddy’s ‘I Am Woman,’ if you can imagine.”
Chapman, whose most recent solo album, 2020’s “Songs I Can’t Live Without,” is an all-covers collection of nine favorites from the great North American songbook that ABC News hailed as “perhaps her best,” has been on an impressive studio run during the past decade.
“With my last three albums (‘Big Lonesome,’ ‘Blaze of Glory’ and ‘Songs I Can’t Live Without’), I just seem to have developed a confidence that I didn’t have before,” she said.
“Waylon Jennings once said, ‘Don’t let what you can’t do get in the way of what you can do.’ And sometimes confidence means surrounding yourself with people who can do what you can’t and giving them the space to do it. And, also, recognizing magic when it’s happening.”
It’s worth noting that Kimbrough has played on each of those three artistic triumphs for Chapman.
“Being in the studio with Will is a transcendental experience,” Chapman said. “He just brings it. Every time. Whatever project he’s involved with. I often refer to Will as the ‘James Brown of Americana’ as in … the hardest working man in show business.”
Kimbrough, whose own songs have also been recorded by everyone from Little Feat and Todd Snider to Jack Ingram and Gretchen Peters, said he’s been a fan of Chapman’s music since the late 1970s when the Spartanburg native released a series of critically acclaimed rock ‘n’ roll albums for Epic Records: “Me, I’m Feelin’ Free,” “Jaded Virgin” and “Marshall.”
“It was just everything,” Kimbrough said of what originally drew him to Chapman. “You see an ad for her album in Creem magazine or whatever, and you’re just like, ‘who is this six-foot tall blond woman with a devilish look in her eye holding a Stratocaster (guitar)?’
“And then you move to Nashville and you meet Marshall, and you find out that there’s a whole lot going on there. There’s literature and rock ‘n’ roll in their most refined and raw form, and they’re rolled into one.”
Chapman’s literary efforts include her 2003 memoir, “Goodbye, Little Rock and Roller,” and 2010’s “They Came to Nashville.”
Womack, a onetime member of the post-punk outfit Government Cheese who recently released his ninth solo album, “I Thought I Was Fine,” is the author of the autobiographical “Cheese Chronicles: The True Story of a Rock ‘N’ Roll Band You Never Heard Of” and a Civil War novella, “Lavender Boys and Elsie.”
The origin of Womack and Chapman’s musical collaborations can be traced to 2006 when the two first shared a stage together at a book festival in Decatur, Ga.
“We had met casually before, but since we were both (music) performers, we played the Friday night of the (book) festival at Eddie’s Attic,” Womack recalled. “And it was sold out, largely because of Marshall and (New England-based singer-songwriter) Ellis Paul, who was also on the bill. It was Ellis, Marshall and I trading songs at Eddie’s Attic. Marshall was her usual great self, and I was on fire that night.
“Poor Ellis Paul; he’s a real soft-spoken, mature, serious artist, and he was caught between these two comedians and just didn’t really know how to contribute. He’s a great artist — I’ve got nothing against him — but he was a little out of place.”
Womack said Chapman told him that she “developed an artistic crush” on him that night and added, “That gig was the kindling for the great relationship with Marshall and (is what) started us to playing together all the time.”
Over the years, Womack has played alongside Chapman on bills that have included not only Kimbrough but also such luminary music figures as Matraca Berg and the late Tim Krekel.
“Any of those combinations is always a good show, largely because Marshall has such authority,” Womack said. “She’s been a star since the ’70s, so she’s got a wide fan base.”
Kimbrough, who recently released a single, “When This Is All Over,” in anticipation of his forthcoming 11th solo album, “I Don’t Want to Start a War,” said his shared musical experiences with Womack stretch nearly three decades.
“There’s nobody like Tommy Womack,” Kimbrough said. “There’s nobody to compare him to except, maybe, if you rolled up Keith Richards and John Prine and then had them grow up during the combination punk rock era and the Americana era, you’d get Tommy Womack.
“Like Marshall, he’s a rock ‘n’ roll human being … I think the term rock ‘n’ roll partly means somebody who’s embraced this sort of troubadour life — not lifestyle, but life. It’s not a style, it’s a life, and it’s 24/7.”
Kimbrough said the audience on Saturday can expect a “rock ‘n’ roll show” even though there won’t be any drums, bass or a horn section.
“While I can’t compete with Marshall and Tommy in terms of just pure personality, I think I can paint in the background with music, and that’s what makes the three of us a good trio,” he said.
Womack added that it’s a thrill anytime he has the opportunity to perform with Chapman and Kimbrough.
“They’re so talented, have such great powerful personalities, and they’re bona fide entertainers,” Womack said. “I just hope that I can measure up next to them. I get a kick out of the fact that they’re playing with me.”
As for the chemistry they share on stage, Womack explained, “we fit together like pieces of a puzzle, for sure. We’re kind of a triple ying-yang, if you can imagine such a thing. We make the circle with three different shapes in it.”
Chapman said the venue makes Saturday’s concert extra special.
“The acoustics in Twichell are as good as it goes — Carnegie Hall caliber stuff,” she said.
Growing up in Spartanburg, Chapman remembers her parents taking her to Twichell Auditorium to hear singers such as Blanche Thebom (whose last name she loved) and Jan Peerce from the Metropolitan Opera in New York. She also saw Jimmy Buffett perform there with his first band around 1973 or 1974.
As for her own performances, “this will be my third time playing the Twichell,” Chapman said. “The first was for a piano recital in 1956. My parents had me taking piano lessons from a woman named Mrs. Scoggins; I believe that was her name. I remember she lived on Rutledge Street in Converse Heights. I took piano lessons for about four years, then I stopped because I didn’t want to play classical. I was more interested in boogie-woogie.
“In 1978, I played Twichell with my Jaded Virgin band — this during the height of my rock ‘n’ roll years. As I recall, my mother came to that show with Clancy Ballenger, and I was so wild, she cried on Mr. Ballenger’s shoulder the whole time.”
Saturday’s concert is being promoted by a group of Converse University students as part of the school’s Music Business & Technology program taught by John Jeter, former co-owner of The Handlebar, which brought countless high-quality national music artists to Greenville for nearly two decades before its closing in 2014.
“The contact I’ve had with (Jeter’s) students gives me hope for a better future,” Chapman said. “I mean, they are bright and talented and just … so open to the world.”
Chapman then added with a laugh, “Back when I was growing up in Spartanburg, most of the Converse students I knew were only interested in two things … parties and boys.”