Mary Chapin Carpenter

This past Sunday evening, Marilyn and I toddled on down to the Byham Theater to see one of our favorites, Mary Chapin Carpenter, in concert.  Carpenter is touring to promote her latest album, "Sometimes Just The Sky".

The album includes "reworkings" of some of her past songs, plus the original title track.

This marks the third time that we have seen Mary Chapin Carpenter perform (1995 at the Palumbo Center and 2012 at the Homestead Carnegie Library).  Miss Carpenter turned sixty earlier this year, and she has aged gracefully and well.  She looked great and sounded as good as ever.  In addition to songs from the new album she included many, many of her past hits in Her one hour and forty-five minute set.  Songs like The Hard Way, Why Walk When You Can Fly, Stones in the Road, Shut Up and Kiss Me, I Feel Lucky, and this one, which is one of my personal favorites....

Well, she didn't do Saturday Night At The Twist and Shout, but you can't have everything!

She also was very personable between songs and interacted wonderfully with the audience.

The opening act featured Emily Barker, a young singer/songwriter from Australia who was very, very good.

It was wonderful evening, and if and when Miss Carpenter comes back to Pittsburgh in the next couple of years, we'll be there again.  You should be, too.

Mary Chapin Carpenter

It was a spur of the moment thing.  We see a story yesterday morning in the Post-Gazette about Mary Chapin Carpenter's appearance at the Homestead Carnegie Library Music Hall last night.  I go on-line to see if tickets are still available.  They are, and I buy two, and we have a nice date last night to see one of our favorite singers!


Carpenter is currently on the road promoting her new CD, "Ashes and Roses" (which I also purchased via iTunes yesterday) and the stop in Homestead was the first stop on this tour that will run through October.  She performed for an hour and forty-five minutes, and while she did most of the songs from the new CD, there was still lots of the old stuff - Shut Up and Kiss Me, Saturday Night at the Twist and Shout, Stones in the Road, Passionate Kisses, and many, many others.  It was a terrific show from a wonderful and talented performer.  A really fun night for us.  By the way, this was not the first time we had seen Carpenter in concert.  We saw her a few years back at the Palumbo Center when "Stones in the Road"  was released.  It wasn't until we got home and checked the release date for "Stones..." and saw that it was 1995 that we realized that "a few years back" was actually SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO!!!  Wow.


A word about the venue.  My grandparents lived on Ninth Avenue in Munhall, and the Homestead Library was almost - but not quite - literally in their back yard.  I had ridden past that Library building countless times as I grew up, and was well schooled in the family lore of how my mother, Ruthie Madden, learned to swim in the pool in the Library building alongside with two future US Olympians, Lenore Kite and Eleanor Holm.  For all of that, I had never been inside that building myself until last night, so I somehow felt that I was closing a circle in my life.  Kind of a neat feeling.


The building was dedicated in 1895 by Andrew Carnegie himself.  The music hall is on the smaller side, it does have a balcony, but it gives a very intimate feel to the performance and the acoustics are excellent.  They have an interesting line up of acts scheduled to appear in the months ahead, including a Beatles tribute band in December.  Parking is on the street surrounding the library and is free.  Kind of an under publicized gem in terms of a performing arts venue in the city.