Kudos to Tracy (Music Notes)

Tracy Chapman. Photo by Hans Hillewaert.

Tracy Chapman, who is known to be of the LBGT community, has become the first Black woman ever to have sole writing credit for a No. 1 country music hit.

If you follow country music, you know the name Luke Combs, and if you don't, you might not. Luke's cover of Tracy's "Fast Car," which is dominating the country charts right now, exists in several forms. I can't disambiguate the variants.

A lot of people, understandably, don't quite know how to feel about the apparent "whitewashing" of Tracy's song, but Tracy Chapman herself is gracious: "I never expected to find myself on the country charts, but I’m honored to be there. I’m happy for Luke and his success and grateful that new fans have found and embraced 'Fast Car.'" She's quoted in a nice Washington Post article that doesn't make the issue too heavy. Luke Combs does sing the song with the original words, from a female narrator's perspective.

There's one common misconception in the WaPo article—when it's quoting how "Big Mama Thornton’s 'Hound Dog' was consumed by Elvis Presley" as an example of white artists appropriating Black songs. Not really. Big Mama was the first to have a smash hit with 'Hound Dog,' but she didn't write it. It was written by two Jewish guys. They weren't from the Delta, either—Jerry Leiber hailed from Baltimore and Mike Stoller from Queens. Leiber and Stoller, who wrote or co-wrote more than 70 chart hits and are in the Songwriter's Hall of Fame, also wrote "Jailhouse Rock" and "Yakety Yak" among many other things. They co-wrote "On Broadway" with Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, and "Stand By Me" with Ben E. King, as well as "Young Blood" with Doc Pomus, whom I've written about before. "Young Blood" was memorably covered by Leon Russell at George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh.

Anyway, it's not Luke Combs' fault that he's white, or that his version of "Fast Car" blew up the charts. It's a great song and it deserves to cross over to a new audience. I'll always prefer the original myself, but then, I've always had a thing for covers too.

I have a wonderful photograph, by Charles Peterson, of Louis Armstrong and a bunch of big-name Black and white musicians playing together in the kitchen of a segregated Harlem club. They had to play white with white and Black with Black onstage, but, after the club closed, they all got together and jammed with each other backstage into the wee hours. In one shot taken with a Speed Graphic press camera, that's the spirit right there.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2023 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

J. D. Ramsey: "'Fast Car' is one of those songs that—at least for me—gets under your skin, and you can listen to it over and over and not tire. The acoustic guitar riff just pulls you in and the words tell a real story of striving for a better life. Luke Combs may have a big hit, but Chapman's version will never be superseded for me. A moment of special musical genius where writer and performer come together perfectly. Thanks for the reminder of this wonderful song and how much pleasure it's brought for 35 years, still sounding fresh today."

Comments

[Tex Andrews]

I also love a good cover. Glad you linked back to your original article, got some listening to do.

Check out Larkin Poe for some current terrific ones (do YouTube in this case, even though their albums have them as well. But I think the informal YouTube ones are terrific. Found out about them through one of my fave columnists, Paul Krugman). Also, Sierra Hull's cover of Mad World. Then also check out Lucius---again on Youtube but also Tiny Desk Concerts. Lovely cover of Right Down The Line. Got them from Krugman as well.

So many more! Time for a new OT posting with contributions from the peanut gallery, I think.

[Benjamin Marks]

I think of music as pre-verbal -- if a song hits you, it just hits you emotionally. One of the great things about it: it can bring folks together, because when they hear it they are experiencing the same things. Race, class, politics . . . all of the things that habitually divide us can fall to the wayside. And we need to be reminded of that from time to time: that there is a universal human experience and that fundamentally we share more than we don't. So Beethoven's Eroica is what it is. And "Fast Car" is going to do what it does. Makes me happy to be human.

[Gary Merken]

The WaPo article also mentioned that because Tracy--a fellow Jumbo, she was a year behind me at Tufts, and frequently performed around campus and busked in Harvard Square--wrote "Fast Car" and owns the publishing rights, she's due substantial royalties from sales of Combs's cover.

[Albert Smith]

I picked up a guitar for the first time at 40, while serving my third one-year remote tour in the Air Force. I did enough drinking on the first two tours, so I though I'd learn something. I learned the simple chords for Tracy's "Give Me One Reason" and then learned the lead solo. Her song was the first complete song that I ever mastered because I loved it.

Linked is a great rendition of this song where Tracy and Eric Clapton do it as a duet, with Eric doing the solo. Worth a look if you like either artist.

https://youtu.be/YIXh0JNvuHs

[Robert Roaldi]

Off-topic, today is Bastille Day.

[David Maxwell]

The royalties are probably a bit of a mood booster.

https://www.billboard.com/pro/luke-combs-fast-car-cover-tracy-chapman-royalties/

[Mike Ferron]

Now as long as Mr. Combs doesn’t go messin with “Give me one Reason” we’re good.😬 Country needs a new sound though. You can’t keep writing new lyrics to the same 10 basic song styles forever. Something has to give!

[Dale P Damron]

The supposed "issue" is a non-issue.

Dale

[Bob Zimmerman]

April 25, 1988 my girlfriend of a year (now my wife) and I got to Lisner Auditorium to see 10,000 Maniacs. We get into the theatre as the opening act, a then unknown folk singer named Tracy Chapman is finishing up her first song. My wife and I sit down and are mesmerized by what we are hearing. Fourth song is “Fast Car”. It took me forever to recover. So simple, yet so raw. 10,000 Maniacs were great, but that joy of hearing and discovering Tracy Chapman for the first time…


The next day my wife goes to Kemp Mill Records next door to her workplace to pick up Tracy's debut. The following week I begin working at Tower Records at 2000 Pennsylvania Ave and stick with the company until its demise in 2006.

Fast forward to two weeks ago, we went to the Kennedy Center in Washington DC 35 years after seeing 10,000 Maniacs to see Natalie Merchant’s solo show with the National Symphony Orchestra. All those 25 year olds at the show are now 60 years old.

When did we all get so grey?

[Hugh]

Tracy Chapman played Baby Can You Hold Me Tight with Pavarotti. It was an amazing performance. So now she has entered the realm of Opera. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQdnl0_IuRg

[Thor D.]

Thanks for sharing, I was a bit surprised but not at all displeased that the Combs version stays so true to the original. The video of Tracy at Wembley in 1988 still gives me goosebumps, especially if you read up on the backstory. It was a massive crowd and she stepped in for Stevie Wonder who couldn't go on due to a technical issue. Instead of one of the all time greatest songwriters, performers, and backup accompaniment, the crowd got Tracy and her guitar. I'll refrain from posting a link but I am sure you can find one, it is worth a few minutes.

[Stephen Jenner]

Sensationalism sells papers, so it is in their blood.

Even 'free' newspapers owe their existence to the adverts that adorn every page.

Indeed Mike, you advertise a camera and photography shop on this page.

Without such adverts, there would be very little in the way of interesting or useful information available, either by journalists or by way of attempts to sell.

There would however, be plenty of government propaganda, since they get their income at the point of a gun, so to my mind, advertising is "a good thing", as Sellars and Yeatman might have written in their wonderful little book "1066 And All That".

One just has to sort the wheat from the chaff. Indeed one of my favoured old movies is "Hobson's Choice" starring the wonderfully over the top actor Charles Laughton.

Finally, following our recent little spat, it seems to me that everyone's wheat is the next man's chaff, and long may it continue.

[Chris Bertram]

I'm reminded of Gram Parsons's references to "cosmic American music". Parson's Flying Burrito Brothers recorded two songs on their debut album Gilded Palace of Sin back in 1969: Do Right Woman (originally recorded by Aretha Franklin) and Dark End of the Street (first recorded by James Carr), though both songs were co-written by Dan Penn. A reminder that this kind of crossover isn't a new thing and that genre boundaries are always pretty loose and fluid. So -called Country music from the past often sounds much more like the black music of the time than anything that gets marketed as "Country" today: check out Jimmie Rodgers's Blue Yodel #9 for example

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BFbY9Vw8DM

[John Abee]

Loved the article. Read it to my wife and she loved it too, but we are old enough to have enjoyed the original and have always had plenty of room for Ms. Chapman on our playlists. But ... what the hell is up with "I can't disambiguate the variants." I understand what the terms mean, but is that really what you want to say? I could interpret that several ways, and all could be wrong. Regardless that turn of a phrase was like slamming on the brakes in the middle of a comfortable cruise.
But almost without exception I enjoy your prose, so I'm thinking ... did Mike really write this? I'll stop there.

[ChrisC]

The original is on my playlist list even though it is very different to so much of the other stuff I listen too. There are a few other tracks from that album that also make my list.