Marshall Chapman: “Songs I Can’t Live Without” (2020) CD Review

Marshall Chapman, who is an incredibly talented and accomplished songwriter (her songs have been covered by Jimmy Buffett, Emmylou Harris and Tanya Tucker), turns to the work of other excellent songwriters on her new album, Songs I Can’t Live Without. That title nearly compels us to begin mentally compiling our own lists of essential and critical songs in our lives, to join Marshall Chapman in this endeavor. I think I would have trouble limiting that list to just nine songs, as Marshall Chapman does on this album. This release is her first in quite a while, following Blaze Of Glory, which was on my list of the ten best albums of 2013. Joining her on this new album are Will Kimbrough (an excellent songwriter himself) on lead guitar and bass, Neilson Hubbard on drums and bass, and Dan Mitchell on keys and bass.

Marshall Chapman opens this special album with “Tower Of Song,” a song by Leonard Cohen, who I believe is the best songwriter of all time. I personally couldn’t live without almost all of his songs. I can barely live without him in this world; things have sucked since he died in November of 2016. “Tower Of Song” is from his 1988 album I’m Your Man, and was the song he chose to open his second set on his final tours. Marshall Chapman gives us a seriously good rendition. The song’s opening line “Well, my friends are gone and my hair is grey,” here sung has “Well, my friends have gone,” nearly broke me this time through, as so many of us have recently lost important people in our lives. She changes the line “Ah, they don’t let a woman kill you, not in the tower of the song” to “Ah, they don’t let your lover kill you, not in the tower of song.” This song has always struck me as kind of funny. Leonard Cohen is both humble (saying that Hank Williams is a hundred floors above him) and playfully bragging (saying he had no choice because he was “born with the gift of a golden voice”), and Marshall certainly sees humor in it as well, which you can hear in her delivery of lines like “I’m very sorry, baby, doesn’t look like me at all.” Marshall adds a pretty vocal bit between verses. This is a wonderful start to the album.

“Turn The Page” is a song I listened to a whole lot when I was growing up, and I saw Bob Seger And The Silver Bullet Band perform it in 1986, a highlight of the show, as I recall. Of course this is a song that must mean even more to a touring musician, describing as it does life on the road. And Marshall’s rendition is powerful, having such a gloriously lonesome vibe that is so effective and heartbreaking. She changes the line “You can think about the woman or the girl you knew the night before” to “You can think about the one you love or the one you knew the night before.” As much as I generally dislike it when people change lyrics to a song, this line is actually much better. Marshall Chapman follows that with a gorgeous and moving rendition of the classic “I Fall In Love Too Easily,” written by Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn. There is something sexy about this track, about her delivery. Dan Mitchell plays flugelhorn on this one.

There have been a lot of noteworthy songwriting teams over the years, and certainly Gerry Goffin and Carole King are fairly high on that list. On this album, Marshall Chapman covers their “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow,” which was a hit for The Shirelles in 1960. There is both a beauty and a strength to Marshall’s rendition. She then turns to country with a sweet and sad rendition of Johnny Cash’s “I Still Miss Someone.” This is so pretty and touching, and features one of the album’s best vocal performances, making it one of my favorite tracks. That’s followed by a very cool version of “Don’t Be Cruel,” with more than a touch of blues, particularly right at the start. The band provides some wonderful and surprising backing vocals on this one. This track is seriously raising my spirits. I especially dig that stuff on keys.

Another of this disc’s highlights is Marshall Chapman’s absolutely wonderful version of Bobby Charles’ “Tennessee Blues,” a song that I love. It is clear from performances such as this one that these songs mean a lot to Marshall Chapman. She delivers them as if she herself had penned their lyrics. This track also features some cool work on guitar. That’s followed by “After Midnight,” another great choice of songs. It was written by J.J. Cale, and released as a promotional single in 1966, though the first version I heard as a child was that by Eric Clapton. Is it just me, or is there something seductive about the way she delivers the line, “After midnight, it’s going to be peaches and cream”? The band provides some more good backing vocals on this track. The album ends with a nice country rendition of “He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands.” What makes this rendition special is the glorious spoken word section, with the rest of the band backing her with a bit of gospel humming: “And today, I still worry/I worry about what’s going to happen to the people I love/Hell, I worry about what’s going to happen to me/And I worry about people I don’t even know/Talking about people who’ve lost hope.” Yes, this is a rendition that should speak to just about everyone at the moment. “And, lord, I worry about my country.” That great humming is how this wonderful rendition concludes.

CD Track List

1. Tower Of Song
2. Turn The Page
3. I Fall in Love Too Easily
4. Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow
5. I Still Miss Someone
6. Don’t Be Cruel
7. Tennessee Blues
8. After Midnight
9. He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands 

Songs I Can’t Live Without is scheduled to be released on May 15, 2020 on TallGirl Records.