In August of 2000, during the final day of mixing her new album Deeper Still, Beth Nielsen Chapman received news that made finishing the record the least of her concerns. "I was diagnosed with breast cancer," she says of the news that derailed release plans for the album. "Even as I was sitting on the couch watching the leaves come down and watching my hair fall out, I was sitting there going, 'I can't believe I'm doing this. I can't believe I'm having to do chemotherapy instead of putting this record out.'"

Due out March 26th -- after more than a year's delay to allow Chapman to receive treatment -- Deeper Still features guest spots from Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris, John Prine and Vince Gill. As a songwriter in Nashville, Chapman has wracked up a string of Number One country hits for the likes of Willie Nelson, Faith Hill and Trisha Yearwood, along the way making friends such as Harris, who sings on the track "There's a Light."

"She brings to tears to my eyes," Chapman says of working with Harris. "She's wonderful, she's a lot of fun and very low key and down to earth and a total professional. She sings on a level of excellence to where she goes in there and can be clearing her throat and you're like, 'That's great.' We were so knocked out by her."

Although written before her illness, in a cruel twist of fate, much of the record references themes of death, loss and the testing of patience, all of which Chapman thought plenty about as she worked to get well. "I used a lot of these songs to kind of get myself get through the next six months after the fact," she says. "It's not like they're message songs either, but if you read between the lines, there's a thread that runs between them, and it's just ironic I ended up sick."

Chapman's eerie feeling of prescience extended to the music on the album as well with songs like "Sleep" augmented by some nearly forgotten recordings done during a trip to India. "I recorded a couple notes I sang at 4:30 in the morning at the Taj Mahal, and I had no idea I was going to end up using it on the record," she says. "I was just making recordings for fun, and a year later when I was mixing the record I found the MiniDisc of the notes that I'd sang at the Taj Mahal and they ended up being in the right key for the song. It was so weird. Things like that fell together and made me feel like I was being guided in some way."

Recovered and eager to return from what she calls her "hibernation," Chapman will tour in support of Deeper Still this spring.

COLIN DEVENISH
(February 13, 2002)