Jen Chapin is a New York-based singer-songwriter on the rise. Her 2004 release, Linger, has earned the highest praise from sources as diverse as National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered,” People, The Today Show, and Entertainment Weekly. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel lauded Linger as being “smart, observant, lyrically deft, politically aware and emotionally intuitive” while The Boston Globe called it simply: “addictive.” Through this subtle yet powerful album, Chapin reaches out to her listeners with an honesty and directness seldom heard in even the best pop songwriting, while from the stage she captivates her audiences with her “sweetly supple singing” (Entertainment Weekly) and the sophisticated support of her dynamic, intelligent band. A Jen Chapin performance is “an intensely emotional, sensual experience, almost embarrassing in its naked intimacy and vulnerability, in its invitation to listeners to think and to love along with her… She is a remarkable presence on stage...” (Berkshire Eagle)
With Linger, Jen continues to prove that musical depth and accessibility are never mutually exclusive. Still, she challenges her audiences with new sounds: witness 2002’s Open Wide (Purple Chair Music), an entire album of duets with Stephan Crump (also Linger’s co-producer, along with Jen and Rod Sherwood) on acoustic bass, which was praised by the Memphis Commercial Appeal as being “exquisite” and which prompted JazzTimes to dub Jen a “first-rate storyteller.” Jen began her extensive touring of the US as a duo with Stephan, and has continued to make a powerful impact on audiences across the country with both her 5-piece band and her trio featuring Stephan and Jamie Fox on guitar. In 2004 Jen has played listening rooms, theaters and outdoor stages across the Northeast, Midwest, Southern and Western states, while also sharing the stage with (and wowing the audiences of) music greats like Smokey Robinson, Bruce Hornsby and the Neville Brothers.
Jen Chapin was born to an extended family of artists and academics, and raised along with her four siblings in Long Island, New York. She entered Brown University, studied abroad in Mexico and Zimbabwe and earned a degree in International Relations. But then, as Jen recounts, “I had the belated realization that I would go crazy if I weren’t seriously involved with music somehow. So I turned down a spot in a graduate teaching program to become a freshman again at Berklee College of Music. I thought I would end up singing in a bar band as a sideline to teaching high school or working for a non-profit organization, but I just kept getting sucked in deeper to the music…”
Since relocating to New York in 1995, Jen has delved headlong into the city’s vibrant and varied music scene, performing at venues such as Joe’s Pub, The Bottom Line, Town Hall, Fez Under Time Café, Mercury Lounge, and the nerve center of the new singer-songwriter scene, The Living Room. Her songs have been honored with numerous songwriting prizes, as well as being featured in the feature film “Fresh Cut Grass,” which recently won honors at the Hamptons and Texas Film Festivals and is now broadcasting on Showtime Networks. Jen has also been sought after as a featured vocalist for groups like the vibrant Kurt-Weill-meets-Hank-Williams outfit “The Weimarband,” and Joel Harrison’s innovative “Free Country,” which features traditional spiritual, country, and Appalachian tunes in a creative jazz setting.
All the while, Jen has worked hard to interweave her musical and political passions. She chairs the Board of Directors of WHY (World Hunger Year) -- an activist organization co-founded by her father, the late singer-songwriter Harry Chapin -- and helps to support WHY’s innovative grassroots efforts to fight hunger and poverty by building self-reliance. She is especially committed to WHY’s “Artists Against Hunger and Poverty” program which works to network performing artists with community-based anti-poverty groups. Drawing on her experiences as a middle and high school teacher, Jen has also developed a number of workshops/lectures, including “Music and Social Action,” “the Hows and WHYs of Hunger” and “Black Music in America.” She has presented these workshops to high school and college students and other audiences.
Linger, Jen’s urban-folk manifesto, is an eloquent summation of these efforts. We hear her tangle with romantic struggle (“I Could Fall”) and sexual passion (“Me Be Me”); political frustration (“Passive People”) and career-related heartbreak (“Regular Life”); the ever-present rays of hope (“Till I Get There,” “Gold”) amid the hectic, self-absorbed rat race (“Little Hours,” “City,” “Numbers”). “Jen has such integrity, such a strong identity, and such a strong idea of what she wants to convey,” marvels co-producer Rod Sherwood. In “Gold,” Jen puts it another way: “[I] wanna stir up trouble everywhere I go.” With Linger as her calling card, she’s poised to do just that.
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