Bio
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She steps onstage
and you think it's just another pretty face. Or at least the same
ol' story
singer, Nashville, wannabe a star, blah, blah, blah
then
she sings. That's when the room quiets, the forks hit the table
and everyone turns
when she sings.
From grade school
choirs to the stages of Nashville, Amy Chappell has been entertaining
audiences for as long as she can remember. "Music has always
been a huge part of my life. I can recall winning my first tape
recorder in the 2nd grade for selling the most magazines in one
of our school fundraisers. You cannot imagine how excited I was
to discover the record button. I sang every song I knew into that
tape recorder, and then I sang them again."
At the age of
18, Amy, like every confused, scared, independence-starved teen,
was faced with the ever-looming decision
"What do I want
to be when I grow up?" It was at this point that the voice
of reason stepped in and the voice of "Amy, the singer"
stepped out for a few years. She attended the University of Kansas
in Lawrence deciding to major in "undeclared," a common
field of interest for many entering freshman. Two years passed and
it was time to start soul-searching. "When it came down to
it, I knew I needed to be involved in music somehow, someway. So,
I tried to be reasonable and to fulfill a dream at the same time.
Not always an easy task."
As it turned
out, Amy received her degree in Music Therapy from the University
of Kansas. She has used her degree to work with various populations
of people including children and adults being treated for cancer,
older adults suffering from Alzheimer's disease, patients with mental
illness, and children with disabilities. "I finally ended up
in Cleveland, OH, after finishing school and an internship, and
was again at a crossroads. I needed to find a job and a residence
the
question was where?"
The "where?"
would become more and more evident to Amy through the urging of
her own heart and the support of family and friends who knew just
what music meant to her. While Amy was traveling her rather crooked
path to Nashville and the inevitable decision of pursuing a music
career, she was busy writing. That little songwriter within was
becoming more and more present and persistent and down-right pushy.
She had received her first guitar from her father in the summer
of 1994 after graduating high school. "The first song I learned
on my guitar was a 3-chord waltz from a Patty Loveless album. After
learning a few chords, the notion of trying to write a song sort
of came naturally to me. Let me clarify that
the notion to
write came naturally, the art of songwriting is still and I assume
will always be a work in progress."
At any rate,
Amy's intense desire to create and perform finally won out and her
fans are reaping the benefits. Honest songs that speak to the realm
of human emotion with intelligent hooks that audiences hum for days
and don't know why. Love, love lost, good times, bad times
.the
themes are universal, the delivery is pure Amy Chappell.
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