Born in Princeton, New Jersey, Ivy League-educated, and discovered on the Washington DC coffeehouse scene, Mary Chapin Carpenter brought a decidedly different energy to Nashville when her debut album Hometown Girl was released in 1987. Carpenter's short-story-like songwriting owes as much to Joni Mitchell as it does Dolly Parton, but that didn't stop her from scoring a string of hit singles like the zydeco-flavored "Down at the Twist and Shout" and best-selling albums like Come On Come On, Stones in the Road, and the rootsy, Americana-flavored The Calling.