Mary Chapin Carpenter / Brandy Clark

About Mary Chapin Carpenter:

One of life’s most satisfying sensations is the click of a realization. Something blurry coming into sharp focus.

Mary Chapin Carpenter can vividly recall just such an epiphany.

“A novel that I’ve loved for years is My Name is Lucy Barton, written by Elizabeth Strout,” says the singer-songwriter. “There’s this moment where the main character is taking a creative writing course, and her teacher says to her, ‘You will only have one story. You will write your one story in many ways.’ I remember reading that line and taking an audible breath. In that moment, I said out loud to no one, ‘Oh, that’s what the songs are.’”

Carpenter has been writing that story for nearly 40 years, enjoying commercial success through numerous hit singles and 17 million albums sold, universal critical acclaim, a bounty of awards — including five Grammy wins from 18 nominations — and the respect of multiple generations of her songwriting peers, earning herself a place as one of 22 women in the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. Her most recent album, “One Night Lonely” from 2021, received a Grammy nod exactly 30 years after her very first nomination. In “Personal History”, her 17th album, she presents a set of songs more autobiographical than any collection that has come before, offering songs as memoir, when the wisdom that comes from growing older becomes a north star, whether one is celebrating life’s joys or navigating life’s inevitable losses. The title is taken from the album’s opener, “What Did You Miss.” The music is both buoyant and wistful, as she sings in her rich alto, “I’ve been walking in circles for so long/Unwinding the mystery/I’ve been writing it down song by song/As a personal history.”

About Brandy Clark:

A GRAMMY, CMA and Americana Award-winner, Brandy Clark is one of her generation’s most esteemed songwriters and musicians. In the midst of a landmark year, Clark won Best Americana Performance at the 66th GRAMMY Awards and Song of the Year at the 2024 Americana Honors & Awards with her acclaimed song, “Dear Insecurity,” featuring 11x Grammy-winner Brandi Carlile. The track is from Clark’s self-titled album, which was produced by Carlile and features her most personal songwriting to date. Released to overwhelming praise, Forbes calls the record “an Americana Masterpiece,” while Variety proclaims it “further clarifies that she’s one of America’s treasures” and Billboard declares, “Clark continues to convey her inexorable talents as both a song-crafter and vocal interpreter.” In addition to her work as a solo artist, Clark has written songs such as “A Beautiful Noise,” the GRAMMY-nominated duet performed by Brandi Carlile and Alicia Keys, and Kacey Musgraves’ “Follow Your Arrow.” She also composed the music for the hit musical comedy, Shucked, alongside her longtime collaborator, Shane McAnally. With the show, Clark won Outstanding Music at the 67th Drama Desk Awards and was nominated for Best Original Score at the 76th Tony Awards, with Shucked receiving nine Tony nominations overall last year.