Chapel Hart — the country trio comprising Danica and Devynn Hart and Trea Swindle — reflects on the journey to country music glory.
Chapel Hart chats with C&I about busking on Bourbon Street, loving Willie Nelson, and collaborating with Loretta Lynn.
C&I: Is it true you ladies started out by busking on Bourbon Street in New Orleans?
Trea Swindle: You’re right; we literally got our start with what I like to call the most honest crowd you’ll ever play in front of. Because when you’re busking, 100 percent of the people are either headed somewhere or coming from somewhere. So the fact that we were able to set up with an old raggedy keyboard and start singing, and have the streets fill up to the point where the cops have to shoo people out of the way — I think that was our first little notion that we might have something going here.
C&I: Did you find the New Orleans crowds preferred country or pop/rock?
Danica Hart: I imagine if we had better sense, we would’ve gone to Nashville to do country music at the start. But I think we cracked the code a bit in New Orleans. I didn’t find too many [locals] who were interested in country music, but we would always get people from South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee who would come to New Orleans on vacation. We would set up the keyboard outside and sing “Islands In the Stream,” and people would stop and clap and sing along.
C&I: And for the locals?
Danica: [Laughs.] We ended up just doing an iPod shuffle of songs. Just a lot of the songs that we liked.
C&I: Who would you say are your major influences in terms of not only singing individually but harmonizing?
Trea: I’m a little more old-school. Like I say, give me Hank, give me Willie, give me Johnny. But as far as the harmonies go, well, you can also give me the Highwaymen. But there’s absolutely no denying groups like Alabama.
Devynn Hart: With Danica being my sister, I listened to a lot of the same things she listened to, so I learned to love me some Gretchen Wilson. I love everything about her. I love her music. We also got to see her at CMA Fest in June. We got to sit down and talk with her for a while, and just catch up and chat.
Danica: I always liked late-’90s, early-2000s country. I loved Garth, Tricia, Shania. And Rascal Flatts — always intrigued by group harmonies. First of all, I could never have imagined I was going to be a singer. And I definitely couldn’t imagine that I was going to have a career being able to sing those types of harmonies.
C&I: Dolly Parton emphatically approved of “You Can Have Him, Jolene,” the “answer song” to her classic hit. But were you surprised when Loretta Lynn asked you to take her “Fist City” and do something similar?
Devynn: We were so shocked. Because earlier that day we got the tweet from Dolly, and that alone sent us into this screaming fit for about an hour. And not even an hour later, Loretta turned around and she said, “I love what you did with Dolly’s song. I would love if you girls did it to one of my songs.” That was such a moment that we did not expect whatsoever.
C&I: And that’s how “Welcome to Fist City” came about?
Devynn: Well, you couldn’t really tell Loretta no.
From left: Devynn Hart, Danica Hart, and Trea Swindle (ILLUSTRATION: Raul Arias).
Listen to Chapel Hart and find concert schedules at chapelhart.com.
From our October 2024 issue.
