Born in Princeton, New Jersey, Carpenter began playing guitar and writing songs early in life, and was playing her songs in D.C. clubs before she was out of her teens. Word of Carpenter’s talents eventually reached Nashville, winning her a deal with Columbia Records, which released her 1987 debut album, Hometown Girl.
Her debut disc set the stage for the success of 1989’s State of the Heart and 1990’s Shooting Straight in the Dark, each of which produced four Top 20 hits, including the Grammy- winning smash “Down at the Twist and Shout.” Those releases were followed by the massive commercial breakthrough of 1992’s Come On Come On, which was certified quadruple platinum and yielded no less than seven charting singles.
More success followed with such albums as the platinum Stones in the Road, A Place in the World, Time* Sex* Love* and Between Here and Gone. Carpenter moved to Rounder/Zoë in time for 2007’s Grammy-nominated The Calling, which was followed by the seasonally themed Come Darkness Come Light: 12 Songs of Christmas, the Grammy-nominated The Age of Miracles and Ashes and Roses.
Carpenter has spent the past year performing alongside world-renowned orchestras since the release of her debut orchestral album, Songs From the Movie (Zoë/Rounder), which was conducted and arranged by six-time Grammy Award winner Vince Mendoza. Since the release of Songs From The Movie, Carpenter has performed with esteemed orchestras worldwide, including the BBC Scottish Symphony at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, the London Concert Orchestra at Royal Albert Hall, the L.A. Philharmonic at Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Colorado Symphony at Red Rocks and the National Symphony Orchestra at Wolf Trap among many others. Additionally, last spring, she performed two landmark concerts at Lincoln Center in New York City with the New York Philharmonic and special guests Joan Baez, Shawn Colvin, Jerry Douglas, Tift Merritt and Aoife O’Donovan. Of the performances, The New York Times praised, “…the orchestral version were open-ended and rhapsodic yet reticent, conjuring emotional subtleties like film scores,” while The Hollywood Reporter asserted, “…a stirring evening of music that provided a rich re- imagining of her lyrically emotive songs.”
Over the course of her career, Carpenter has won five Grammy Awards, was named the Country Music Association’s Female Vocalist of the Year in 1992 and 1993 and in 2012 was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. Her compositions have also been covered by a diverse assortment of artists including Joan Baez, Wynonna Judd, Cyndi Lauper, Trisha Yearwood, Maura O’Connell, Mary Black and Dianne Reeves and have also collaborated, on record and/or on stage, with the likes of Joan Baez, Shawn Colvin, Dolly Parton, the Indigo Girls and Tony Bennett.