Singer and songwriter Beth Nielsen Chapman (1958- ) began her extensive professional music career in Alabama and has since achieved much success in the country, pop, and soft rock music genres. Chapman plays the guitar and piano, and, occasionally, the mandolin, electric slide dulcimer, and slide whistle. Although her recording career includes 16 studio albums, she is, perhaps, best known for writing hit songs for other artists, including Faith Hill, Bonnie Raitt, Neil Diamond, Tanya Tucker, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, and the band Alabama.

Nielsen was born in Harlingen, Texas, on September 14, 1958, the third of five children of Robert Nielsen, a major in the U.S. Air Force, and Dolores Nielsen, a registered nurse. While living in Munich, Germany, where her father was stationed, Chapman taught herself how to play guitar and piano and was soon able to craft songs. The family moved from Munich to Montgomery, Montgomery County, in 1969.

In 1976, Chapman joined the pop and rock group Harmony. Previously known as “Harvest,” the band had recently renamed itself after Montgomery-born guitarist Tommy Shaw left the group to join the band Styx. Along with James “Jimbo” Jones, Eddie Wohlford, and future Grammy winner Tommy Beavers, as a member of Harmony, Chapman sang while playing the piano and the acoustic guitar. The band, known for their covers and original music, played five nights a week at the Bama Lanes bowling alley lounge Kegler’s Kove. It was, incidentally, the same venue where Styx’s road manager recruited Tommy Shaw. Chapman frequently performed solo in Montgomery in subsequent years and often returned to the city and the state to perform at a variety of events.

Chapman lived in Montgomery until she married her first husband, psychologist Ernest Chapman II, in 1979. (Their only child, Ernest Chapman III, was born in 1981; he would later become a musician.) She and her husband relocated to Mobile, Mobile County, where she often performed locally. While residing there, Chapman recorded her first album, entitled Hearing It First (1980), in Muscle Shoals, Colbert County. In 1985, Chapman signed a songwriting contract, and she moved to Nashville with her family. The press in Mobile and Montgomery would claim her as a native and continue to follow her career after she left the state.   

In the ensuing years, many of the songs she wrote or co-authored became hits for various recording artists. Several of her songs reached number one on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs charts, including “Strong Enough to Bend,” which Chapman cowrote with Don Schlitz, and was a 1988 hit for Tanya Tucker. “Five Minutes” became a 1989 hit for Lorrie Morgan, and Willie Nelson’s version of “Nothing I Can Do about It Now” also was a hit that year. Martina McBride’s rendition of “Happy Girl,” co-authored by Chapman and Annie Roboff, reached number two on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs in 1998. “This Kiss,” co-written with Robin Lerner and Annie Roboff, was recorded by Faith Hill in 1998 and became Chapman’s most successful song. It reached number one on the country charts and was a crossover hit, reaching the top ten on Billboard’s Hot 100 and Adult Contemporary charts. The song received a Grammy nomination for Best Country Song, and was named the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) Song of the Year. Chapman was then named Nashville NAMMY’S 1999 Songwriter of the Year.

Preoccupied with a strong sense of loss over the death of her husband Ernest, who died of cancer in 1994, Chapman wrote the song “Sand and Water” in his honor. It was the title track on her 1997 album Sand and Water and reached number 22 as a single on Billboard’s Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks chart. After the 1997 deaths of designer Gianni Versace and Diana, Princess of Wales, Elton John gained Chapman’s blessing to perform the song in their honor and sang it frequently in subsequent months. (Decades later, Chapman performed “Sand and Water” at the Glastonbury Festival in Somerset, England, in June 2024, just days after her mother’s death. Chapman’s poignant song was also included in episodes of the television shows ER and Charmed.)

In 2004, Chapman released her “Hymns” album, which reached 29 on Billboard's Top Christian Albums chart. Because Chapman grew up in a devoutly religious Catholic household and her parents inspired her faith, she dedicated this album to them. In fact, her father sings on the album. Chapman wrote only one song from her Hymns album, entitled “Hymn to Mary.” She had penned the song in 2000 while she was undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer. Despite the ravages of chemotherapy, Chapman had forced herself to play the piano while recording every day because she feared losing her ability to write songs. After she recovered, she replayed the recordings and added lyrics to one melody, which constituted a prayer to the Virgin Mary. “Hymn to Mary” asked for faith at a time when she felt abandoned because of her cancer. Chapman has strong religious beliefs and claims that she often begins writing her songs from her spiritual roots.

Chapman has been widely recognized for her accomplishments as a songwriter and vocalist and often hosts songwriting workshops. She was the recipient of the Distinguished Artist Award from the Alabama State Council on the Arts in 2009. In 2016, Chapman earned a place in the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. She has been nominated for two Grammy Awards. Chapman has taught music at Glasgow’s Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and Boston’s Berklee College of Music.

In 2011, Chapman married Bob Sherman, a photographer and psychologist. He died of leukemia in 2022. Chapman continues to reside in Nashville. She frequently performs throughout the United States and the British Isles and has periodically returned to Alabama to perform and to support her former Harmony bandmates. In 2013, she performed at a benefit concert for Jimbo Jones in Prattville, Autauga County. After the death of Eddie Wohlford in 2022, she sent a video to his family’s benefit concert while she was on tour in Europe, and, after the death of Tommy Beavers in 2023, she played at the concert in his honor. In 2025, she performed at the Capri Theatre in Montgomery to benefit the venue.