Tracy Chapman released her “Greatest Hits” album on November 20, 2015

Tracy Chapman released her long awaited “Greatest Hits” album on November 20, 2015!

18 songs, all remastered, chosen by Tracy Chapman herself, compiling 25 years of music: the tracks range from her 8 studio albums (from 1988 to 2008) to her live interpretation of “Stand By Me” on the David Letterman show in April 2015.

It’s been 27 years since Tracy Chapman released her Debut Album and it seems it was just yesterday. She’ll be celebrating a nearly three-decade career with a greatest-hits compilation through Elektra / Rhino Records.

The album charts the history of Tracy Chapman’s most popular songs, all of which were released as singles (except “Save Us All”), as well as the vibrant rendition of “Stand By Me” she gave on the David Letterman show in April 2015. She received tremendous reviews from the press and her fans.

The album will be available on Elektra / Rhino Records in both CD and digital formats. The photo chosen for the Greatest Hits cover is by Herb Ritts: it was taken in 1989 for the “Crossroads” album and used on the cover of the “Crossroads” single.

Order the Greatest Hits on  Amazon

Here is the complete tracklisting of Tracy Chapman’s Greatest Hits

Read the TRACY CHAPMAN GREATEST HITS official PRESS RELEASE

ELEKTRA/RHINO RECORDS TO RELEASE TRACY CHAPMAN’S GREATEST HITS ON NOVEMBER 20, 2015

ALBUM COMPILES OVER 25 YEARS OF MUSIC FOR THE FIRST TIME

Tracy Chapman releases her long-awaited Greatest Hits album on November 20 through Elektra/Rhino Records. This new collection brings together, for the first time, classic tracks from Chapman’s celebrated career that now spans four decades and includes eight best-selling studio albums. Compiled by Chapman herself, the featured songs have also been newly remastered. Since her eponymous debut in 1988, Chapman has captivated audiences around the globe with her pure voice, evocative songs and intense spirit, and her ear for authenticity infuses these 18 tracks with a visceral and emotional resonance.

Tracy Chapman has created a body of work that has been as consistently compelling as it is honest and uncompromising, eloquently telling stories with perennial appeal that are at once personal and universal. Impervious to trends, she has commendably stayed her musical course, earning the approbation of fans, critics and peers, beginning in 1988 with the release of Tracy Chapman. The multi-platinum debut album earned three Grammy Awards and featured the classic singles ‘Fast Car’, ‘Talkin’ Bout A Revolution’, and ‘Baby Can I Hold You’. It went on to become one of the most successful debuts of all time, selling more than 20 million copies worldwide. To this day, it still makes regular appearances on album charts around the world, and is one of the most successful albums by a female artist in chart history. Chapman’s musical journey has continued with 1989’s Crossroads (RIAA platinum, internationally multi-platinum), 1992’s Matters Of The Heart (RIAA gold), 1995’s multi-platinum New Beginning (which featured the Grammy-winning single “Give Me One Reason”), 2000’s Telling Stories (RIAA gold, internationally platinum), 2002’s Let It Rain (internationally platinum), 2005’s Where You Live, and her eighth studio album, 2008’s Our Bright Future. Along the way, in addition to her four Grammys, Chapman has earned an American Music Award, two Brits, and a Billboard Music Award.

Raised in Cleveland, Ohio, Chapman was awarded an academic scholarship to the prestigious Wooster School in Danbury, Connecticut, and later attended Tufts University, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology (in 2004 she received an honorary doctorate of fine arts from her alma mater). It was while she was there that she began singing in coffee houses, night clubs and street performing around Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Since her breakthrough performance at Nelson Mandela’s 70th birthday concert in London in 1988, Tracy Chapman has appeared frequently in support of social and humanitarian causes, including Amnesty International’s Human Rights Now! Tour, the annual Bridge School benefit concerts, the Nelson Mandela Free South Africa Concert, Farm Aid, Tibetan Freedom Festival, Vote for Change, the Driving Votes tour, San Francisco AIDS Foundation, and many others. Chapman made her theatre debut composing the music for a new production of Athol Fugard’s classic 1961 play Blood Knot, which opened at San Francisco’s A.C.T. in 2008, and was directed by Charles Randolph-Wright. In 2012, Chapman performed at the 35th annual Kennedy Center Honors, honouring Buddy Guy. In 2014, she sat on the domestic documentary jury at the Sundance Film Festival. In 2015, she was invited by David Letterman to sing ‘Stand By Me’ during his final season hosting The Late Show, commanding a stage entirely on her own for a performance – now included on this album – that demonstrated her enduring appeal and relevance.

PRESS INTERVIEWS TO PROMOTE THE RELEASE OF THE GREATEST HITS

• Zwanzig Minuten mit einem schüchternen Musik-Genie (Bild, November 11, 2015)
• Tracy Chapman Radio interview on Front Row (BBC Radio 4, November 13, 2015)
• Tracy Chapman’s renewed beginnings, (The New Zealand Herald, November 15, 2015)
• The tenacity of hope (The Sunday Times, November 15, 2015)
• Talking with Tracy Chapman (by Hermione Hoby, November 2017, 2015)
• Tracy Chapman: ‘Being in the public eye is uncomfortable for me’ (The Irish Times, November 18, 2015)
• Tracy Chapman guests on “q” with Shadrach Kabango (CBC radio, November 18, 2015)
• Tracy Chapman TV interview on Tavis Smiley (PBS, November 18, 2015)
• Tracy Chapman guests on “Sunrise” (November 19, 2015)
• Tracy Chapman guests on “The Morning Show” (November 19, 2015)
• Tracy Chapman’s “Greatest Hits” Official Press Release
• Tracy Chapman’s new greatest hits album celebrates a quietly powerful legacy (PRI, November 20, 2015)
• Why singer Tracy Chapman had a feeling she could be someone, The Daily Telegraph (November 21, 2015)
• Tracy Chapman: “No estoy retirada”, El Diaro (November 21, 2015)
• Tracy Chapman guests on “Sunday Morning” with Wallace Chapman (Radio NZ) on November 22, 2015
• Tracy Chapman répond aux questions de #LeDriveRTL2 sur RTL2
• Tracy Chapman guests on “Outlook”, BBC World Service (December 2, 2015)
• Tracy Chapman: L’incontro. Rivoluzionarie, La Reppublica (December 06, 2015)
• “Ik zie noh te veel leed om mij heen” (Algemeen Dagblad December 7, 2015)
• Tracy Chapman’s official promo EPK interview by Rhino for the “Greatest Hits”
• Tracy Chapman: This Important Time, Buscadero (December 2015)
• Tracy Chapman: Soziale Bewegungen brauchen Identifikationsfiguren, Galore (December 2015)
• The Inventory: Tracy Chapman, The Financial Times (January 2nd, 2016)

GREATEST HITS PRESS REVIEWS

• “Greatest Hits is a worthy endeavor. It’s nice to revisit these songs in a bit of a different context, and if it brings more people to explore Tracy Chapman’s excellent body of work, then it’s a success”- Pop Matters
• “What’s here is a generous, 18 song, 78 minute collection of Chapman’s breezy, bluesy folk pop culled from her eight albums spanning 1988 through 2008. With its non-chronological sequencing, the law of diminishing returns that her albums exhibited isn’t a factor. That provides some enjoyable discoveries in the newly re-mastered deeper tracks that accompany the no-brainer choices of “Fast Car,” “Talkin’ Bout a Revolution” and “Give Me One Reason.” Songs such as the bluesy “You’re the One” from 2002’s Let it Rain, “Change” tucked away on 2005’s Where You Live, the socio-political “Bang Bang Bang” from Matters of the Heart, and the religiously based “Save Us All,” a gem grabbed off 2008’s Our Bright Future, deserve a second pass at the commercial and popular gold ring they didn’t snag the first time.”  – American Songwriter
• Tracy Chapman, Greatest Hits (Elektra/Rhino). There was nothing remotely racist about David Letterman’s “Late Show.” But if you watched it nightly for a number of years you noticed a definite paucity of faces of color in the audience and even, sometimes, among its guests and musical performers. For every Letterman African-American favorite – the Will Smith family for instance – you’d be able to count 30 miscellaneous white performers. Aside from Ronnie Spector, one conspicuous exception right from the very beginning of Letterman was great folk rocker Tracy Chapman. The show loved her, it seems, right from the beginning. And when it was time to say goodbye forever, it was Tracy Chapman who showed up on his final show to sing what he declared his favorite song, Ben E. King and Leiber/Stoller’s “Stand By Me.” Her performance was the highlight of the whole farewell show for many. It was an unaccountably moving moment. It ends this fine recording of her Greatest Hits whose title is something of an anomaly because other than “Fast Car,” she wasn’t exactly thought of as a hitmaker. Nevertheless, as you can hear from this disc she has always been a distinctive, sensitive and moving performer who resembles no ones else. (If you stretch it quite a bit she might fit into a loose category with Nina Simone but the category would have to be very loose indeed because Simone was an interpreter, not a singer/songwriter.) – Jeff Simon, The Buffalo News
• “D’abord une voix. Grave, inspiré, inouïe, avec ce vibrato si particulier. Puis des chansons aux mélodies prenantes, des paroles humanistes et « bluesy » qui vrillent le cœur. Tracy Chapman est depuis 1988 un ange folk, dont chaque chant est un miracle. De “Telling Stories”, à la sublime reprise de “Stand By Me”, en passant par les chefs-d’œuvre “Crossroads” et “Talkin’Bout a Révolution”, dix-huit de ses pépites sont réunies dans cette indispensable compilation.” – Les Echos

TV ads and Interviews

Order the “Greatest Hits” on Amazon ; Amazon.fr…