Musician follows her heart

By Aitor Zabalegui

The state of the economy has become an unspoken discouragement: the unemployment rates, the health care issues and the case of what should be a meager upcoming holiday season.

It affects all of us -- like being a loyal fan of a losing team. Relatability seems to be all that we have to hold onto.

Folk music has always been a beacon of hope for the troubled, with poets like Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen echoing the tribulations of a wretched generation.

There are some folk artists continuing that mission to speak for the people and send out a message of hope to an economically derailed society.

Michelle Chappel, a former Santa Clara University psychology professor, has been looking to do just that since she swapped her classroom for a studio back in 1995. Since then Chappel has put out five albums, and with her latest release, "Shine," she has finally gained the exposure she set out to achieve over ten years ago.

Last December, Chappel hit a break on YouTube with her controversial music video, "Screw You Yahoo," a fun jab at corporate layoffs. She mentioned that the video pays homage to Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" video directed by Martin Scorsese.

"I studied (Dylan's video) very carefully to see how he did it, because Weird Al Yankovic did a spoof of it but he totally messed up with the cards, so I really did my homework to get it right," said Chappel of the video.

Chappel's success with that video, which landed 17,000 views in one day, propelled her to eventually win a Billboard Award in Americana/Folk for her newest single, "No Place Like Home."

"(The video) features the theme of helping each other and hanging together during these hard times," said Chappel of the new single, which shares a theme with the rest of the songs featured on "Shine." Chappel even plans to send the music video for "No Place Like Home" directly to President Obama in the near future.

Another theme she felt very adamant about was following your heart -- a motto that was the reasoning behind her departure from teaching to music.

"I had an engineering student that took a psychology class from me, and he said that his dad wants him to go into engineering because he won't make any money as a psychologist," said Chappel. "I could tell that he really loved psychology, so I told him to follow his heart, and he ended up doing very well in his life because of it." Chappel eventually decided to follow her own advice, continuing to provide a voice for people looking for some hope and relief through her music.

"People like Dylan and Joni Mitchell were making social statements or political statements about themselves in a very psychological way with acoustic guitar," Chappel said of her musical influences. "They were able to reach a lot of people, and I'm trying to bring that back." On Nov. 14, Chappel will bring back the folk to Santa Clara, performing at Mission City Coffee at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $5.

"A lot of students seem to like this music. I've got a killer band. My stand up bass player is a student at Berkeley and he digs it," assured Chappel.

"It's been a lot of fun being a musician. It's been an interesting way to help people, and it seems like it's been working," said Chappel. "I get e-mails from people saying how my music has changed their lives in some way which is very meaningful."

Contact Aitor Zabalegui at azabalegui@scu.edu or (408) 551-1918.