A country way of life, Episode 34 (Fred Eltringham, Jim McBride & Beth Nielsen Chapman)
Author: Jonny Brick.
Player: Fred Eltringham
Throughout this series there have been several drummers who have kept the beat on thousands of country songs. Fred Eltringham is one such percussionist, who was spotted behind Sheryl Crow at the 2024 edition of Black Deer festival, on whose album Evolution he also played.
Other credits in 2024 alone include songs by Willie Nelson, Sara Evans, Carly Pearce, Brittney Spencer, Sarah Jarosz, Gabby Barrett, Lainey Wilson and Sturgill Simpson in his Johnny Blue Skies guise. You can also hear his drumming on recent albums by Lucinda Williams, Elle King, Darius Rucker, Amanda Shires, Miranda Lambert, Tenille Townes, Carrie Underwood and Morgan Wade.
‘Music is my religion’ is the mantra on Eltringham’s website, where he mentions moving to Nashville in 2007 having toured in the past with the band then known as the Dixie Chicks and the one still known as The Wallflowers. His own 2018 project The Get You comprises nine classic songs recorded in his garage written by his musical heroes including Harry Nilsson and Lucinda Williams.
Songwriter: Jim McBride & Beth Nielsen Chapman
Jim McBride is another country songwriter who made the journey to Nashville from Alabama, where he was mentored by Curly Putman. After initially heading home to work for the Post Office, he had success when Conway Twitty recorded A Bridge That Just Won’t Burn and he had a pair of number ones as a writer: Rose In Paradise (Waylon Jennings) and Bet Your Heart On Me (Johnny Lee).
It is McBride’s work with Alan Jackson that took him to new heights. Jackson-McBride copyrights include Chasin’ That Neon Rainbow, (Who Says) You Can’t Have It All, Someday and the evergreen Chattahoochee. ‘I was just doodling round,’ he told one interview, mentioning his special notebook where he entered songs for Jackson. They finished it on the road in Jackson’s tourbus.
As this piece went up online, Beth Nielsen Chapman was preparing to play the British Country Music Festival in Blackpool. Although Beth has released over a dozen albums of her own, one of which was in collaboration with Olivia Newton-John, she is better known as a songwriter, which she says ‘will feed my soul’ more than performing.
Arguably she has a claim to be one of the godmothers of the UK country movement, given that she was the sherpa who introduced Bob Harris to Nashville in the year 2000. Bob is an admirer of her song How We Love. A good song, she told one interviewer, ‘is one when people hear it they stop and get involved.’
Born in Texas as the daughter of a US Air Force major, Beth’s most famous copyright is This Kiss, a UK top 20 and US top 10 for Faith Hill which was pitched to pop artists for a year without success. She also co-wrote Strong Enough to Bend for Tanya Tucker, Five Minutes for Lorrie Morgan and Almost Home for Mary Chapin Carpenter, and she has sole credit on Nothing I Can Do About It Now, a country number one for Willie Nelson on which she also played acoustic guitar.
Beth spoke about the success of that last song, which came five years after moving to Nashville, on storytelling show The Moth Radio Hour. When Nelson’s producer Fred Foster called her on the strength of Strong Enough to Bend, she was ‘absolutely thrilled’, although it took her two hours to fit in the ‘bough/now’ rhyme. Beth adds that she was stopped by a police officer after going through a stop sign while hearing the song on the radio for the first time; she paid the ticket with royalties from her number one.
Twice widowed, Beth has also dealt with breast cancer.
All Episodes can be found here
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