Last year, Beth Nielsen Chapman‘s CrazyTown album charted at Number One on the Official UK Country Chart and won praise from the music press, including Folk Radio who premiered her video for ‘Walk You to Heaven’ and declared the album ‘another solid offering’.
There’s no dwindling of that solid offering in her first new single of 2023 – ‘Back To This Moment,’. The song was co-written with Michigan singer-songwriter May Erlewine towards the end of the pandemic. Despite the way this sprightly number chugs along so beautifully, it’s underpinned by a deep resilience to keep on going, whatever life may throw in your way. Beth lost her husband, Bob Sherman, to Leukemia last year, and in a Facebook message, she told fans –
“To me the best thing I can do is sing my songs and keep moving forward, hopefully providing something I’m not even aware of to someone in the audience who needs to hear it. Whether they’re joyful or melancholy, songs always carry the truth.
“So, I wanted you to know that,,in spite of my grief, I am going to keep deep diving into music and let the songs take us both where they will. Being on stage and singing is where I belong and what feels right at this very moment in time. And I consider it a deep privilege to be able to do that.”
She has kept that promise and shared the following on Back to This Moment:
“Back to This Moment is a song about resilience in the face of the world coming through chaos and pain,” says Beth. “The rhythm helps to offset some of the pain in the song; we wanted it to be entertaining and uplifting musically but also talk about that stuff life puts us through. It’s got to have that depth of field which I think we all need to acknowledge.
“Boy, I can relate to that now in a totally different way than I was relating to it when we were actually writing the song. I went through a big loss this past December when my husband Bob died of cancer. This song came back into my mind, and I thought – I really want to put this song out.
“It tells the truth, but it also carries the feeling that we’re gonna keep going because that’s what we do, and I really love that it has that energy of hope in it. We’re all in this together, and it’s music that is keeping me going moment to moment.”
Back To This Moment’ will be followed by another new track, ‘Love’ out July 14th (pre-save). Alongside the new music, Beth has also announced a brand-new UK tour, taking in England, Scotland and Wales this August. Tickets are available here. And full dates are as follows:
2nd August – Marine Theatre, Lyme Regis
3rd August – Acapela Studio, Cardiff
4th August – Nell’s, London
6th August – Underneath the Stars Festival, Cawthorne, Yorkshire
8th August – The Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh