Preamble

All Harry Chapin fans, particularly those who were fortunate enough to attend one of his concerts will have retained outstanding personal memories. Here are a few of my own recollections, some of which may strike a few chords particularly among UK fans.

My first hearing of Harry was Could you put your light on please which appeared on an Elektra sampler and stood out despite there being some other great names on the album such as Carly Simon and Judy Collins. Although never a major seller in the UK charts, Noel Edmonds who played the superb W.O.L.D. on his breakfast show championed his case. When Noel moved to a weekly show on Sundays he played many Harry tracks and he persuaded Harry to do a memorable live half-hour on the show.

I began to collect the LPs and went through the full gamut of emotions – shock of the Mayor of Candor, pathos of Mr Tanner, uncanny perceptiveness of Cats in the Cradle, the poignancy of A better place to be and so on. Each track different and touching the heart or head.

After what seemed an eternity, Harry finally turned up at the New Victoria in London, relatively untrumpeted, but determined to visit the UK each year from then on. I could not believe that he could be even better on stage than on disc, but of course he was. We got quantity as well as quality as Harry was on stage for the best part of three hours. Unlike any other performer I have seen he spent the whole of the interval and a long spell after the show meeting the fans and enthusiastically selling poems, programmes, T-shirts etc. on behalf of his hunger charity. As well as the rewards of hearing those remarkable stories live, I was staggered to think that he did 200 concerts, many of them benefits, a year with such boundless energy and enthusiasm. There was a tremendous review by Derek Jewell of the Sunday Times who said: "There will be no more absorbing concert in London this year".

I got to see two more Harry concerts in London – one at the Rainbow, where he appeared with brother Tom and another one at the Dominion. He never disappointed. Like all his fans I was devastated to wake up one July morning to hear of his tragically early death in a car accident. The consolation is that he made a difference in so many ways and his name, his music and his causes live on.

Harry Chapin ambled into the limelight with the lengthy story song Taxi that was to become his trademark song, always, even now his most popular offering among fans. Considered too long for the charts it nevertheless reached a creditable no 23 in the billboard chart. The yellow cab was to become a leitmotif for Harry appearing on his album Heads and Tales, promotional material for his concerts and now almost 20 years after his untimely death on a host of websites. Like so much of his work there was an element of the autobiographical about it as the story of a couple meeting again after their shared early life had seen them aspiring to careers as a pilot and actress, now he was driving a taxi "taking tips and getting stoned". In fact Harry had never driven a taxi although he had once acquired a licence. Such was the influence of this song, inspired by his first real love Clare Macintyre, that he returned to remake the song as Sequel ten years later revisiting the two characters.

Harry Forster Chapin was born a New Yorker in the bohemian literary environment of Greenwich on December 7 1942. The family was steeped in music and literature. His father James was a notable professional jazz drummer who had performed with such big band greats as Tommy Dorsey and Woody Herman. One of his grandfathers known as Big Jim Chapin was a friend of the great American poet, Robert Frost and was a skilled painter specialising in depicting life’s losers on canvas as Harry was later to do in song. The Chapin boys, Harry and his elder bother, James and the younger Tom and Steve spent summers in the New Jersey countryside with their maternal grandfather Kenneth Burke (widely known as KB) and his family. Like Big Jim, KB was worshipped by Harry and was a writer and philosopher with many literary acquaintances.

With such inspirational antecedents Harry strove to match their achievements and grew up as an energetic force, anxious to do everything quickly, enthusiastically and be the best. Unfortunately this full-blooded approach was not matched by powers of concentration and stickability, as he dabbled in singing, writing, banking, architecture and filmmaking. He also failed to complete two spells at Cornell University and joined the air force. This was how he felt he could live a life of glamour, dazzling admirers by flying high, being worshipped by women below. The reality did not match the dream and he eventually escaped to civilian life, having at least the achievement of veteran status that crucially spared him a Vietnam call up. In films he did seem to allow his talent to emerge, producing a boxing film Legendary Champions: turn of the century fights which he rightly prided himself in, as it received a number of awards and gained an Academy award nomination.

However as Harry says in one of his most moving songs, Mr Tanner "Music was his life, but was not his livelihood". This was a state of affairs he aimed to rectify. He had become a proficient trumpeter in his schooldays, also joining the local men's choir at Brooklyn's Grace Episcopal Church. The choir also included brothers Tom and Steve, as well as his friend and future colleague John Wallace. The trumpet had given way to the guitar, as he learnt that it was a more effective instrument for attracting the opposite sex. Harry, Tom and Steve began to perform as a group at church and school socials. They were largely influenced by music rooted in folk, particularly contemporary popular groups such as the Kingston Trio, the Weavers and notable friend of the family, Pete Seeger.

By the summer of 1966, Tom, Steve and Harry began to perform regularly as the Chapin brothers in New York locations and began to attract media attention. Their father Jim regularly supplied drum accompaniment and their move towards professional status was signalled by the emergence of school friend Fred Kewley as their manager. Their first album Chapin Music was released in late 1966. It shows influences of the folk groups they had come to love and echoes of the British beat groups of the sixties. All three brothers feature on lead vocals on various tracks, but the sharper edge associated with Harry emerges with How can you breathe, while Stars tangled in her hair is a forerunner of his intensely moving ballads. An early version of Someone keeps calling my name also features well before its better known appearance some years later on Portrait Gallery. The album did not bring them stardom and the brothers began to move in different directions.

Harry began to develop the poetry which had always interested and which he was gradually able to dovetail with his musical talent to produce the rich seam of story songs. He mixed this with some film work making documentaries and commercials – another useful building block in bringing his stories to life.

He had written many songs in his unsettled teens and twenties. He started to weave stories into his songs. Bob Dylan was a particular forerunner and being the whole hearted self aware character that he was, many featured events in his own life, or even more often took an element out of his own life, acquaintances and environment and built a story round it.

Fame found him as he approached 30, having previously eluded him as one of the Chapin brothers. He had begun to believe his future might be as a solo artist. In 1970 Tom Chapin became widely known with his popular children’s TV show Make a Wish, but for Harry too it proved to be just the chance he needed, as he harnessed his songwriting talent with the discipline needed to write for Tom’s show. Among these songs was probably Harry’s greatest singalong number Circle, which nevertheless was typical of his perceptive view on life and was used at the end of most of his concerts, encouraging enthusiastic audience participation. Now provided with an unusually steady income and an increasing time to craft his music and its context, he began to attract bookings including a pivotal seven nights a week run for five weeks at the Village Gate. Here he began to develop his story songs and established a group, which did not include his brothers although they were on the same bill. He rescued an old musical pal John Wallace from truck driving obscurity, providing support not only from a bass guitar, but also a notable voice with a wide range of tones used sparingly but effectively in some songs. An experienced guitarist Ron Palmer was signed up, while another counterpoint to Harry’s self admittedly gravelly voice was added by the cello played by a series of talented performers. These elements emphasised the poignancy of some of Harry’s lyrics. After a sluggish start, audiences grew and gave him the enthusiastic support he craved and needed to attract the record companies. So determined was he to make this show count that he used to stand outside the club, badgering passers-by to come and listen to his act. Each performance here always opened with the accessible Could you put your light on please as Harry emerged from darkness. Elektra records took an interest and were determined to sign him after hearing the tracks which were being prepared for Harry’s debut solo album Heads and Tales, which now included Taxi. Other companies competed for his signature, but Elektra’s line-up of quality contracted artists such as James Taylor, Carly Simon and Judy Collins as well as promises of major promotion of him as a bright new star eventually did the trick. Elektra head Jac Holzman’s reputation was a further incentive and Harry was always grateful to Ann Purtill, who had persuaded Holzman to make Harry an offer and he expressed his gratitude on successive album sleeve notes.

Harry’s signature was eventually on the Elektra contract in November 1971 and the company went to great lengths to promote their acquisition.

Heads and Tales released early in March 1972 proved to be a successful start to his Elektra career applauded by most critics and was bought in reasonable numbers by the public. Given its length of 6 minutes 33 seconds, Taxi’s success as a single must have been a bonus, although the high chart positions of Don Maclean’s American Pie and the Richard Harris version of Jim Webb’s Macarthur Park meant that length and complexity and chart success were not necessarily mutually exclusive. It rose no higher than 23 in the Billboard chart, but its proud claim to have been the most requested record on radio stations for 10 weeks was testament to its remaining in the memory longer than bigger sellers. It attracted some moral criticism with its pivotal phrase "… flying so high when I’m stoned." Harry argued that it was a story of a loser and was not intended to glamourise drugtaking. Other songs on the album included his show opener Could you put your light on please, shorter numbers such as Any old kind of day and two other lengthy story songs Greyhound and Dogtown, both of which had roused a frenzy among his audiences.

Harry and the band now launched on a breakneck series of concerts which meant him spending less time with his family, which was a large one, as when marrying Sandy in 1968, he gained three children by her first marriage, eventually joined by two young Chapins. This separation was to be the inspiration for many of his family value songs, which dominated much of his later work.

His second album was a critical success but did not sell as well as his debut work. Perhaps the title Sniper and other love songs with its emphasis on the nearly ten minute insight into the life of a deranged gunman was less palatable, although for many it remains his greatest achievement. Sunday morning sunshine was the single promoted alongside the album and opening with the lines "I came into town with a knapsack on my shoulder and a pocketful of stories …" Moderately cheerful and autobiographical it did not strike a chord with the record buying public. Also featured was one of Harry’s unfailing showstoppers and possibly the archetypal story song A better place to be. Telling the tale of the midnight watchman driven to compromise his romantic dreams with a dowdy fat barmaid, it conjured up images of small town America similar to those painted by with equal vividness by Edward Hopper. The closing track was the aforementioned concert favourite Circle, arguably more suitable single material, since in the UK the New Seekers achieved top ten success with a cover version.

Harry, though disgruntled by the relative lack of success plunged into ever more demanding schedules, preparing for his third solo album Short Stories. Fortunately this had as near as any Chapin song to a sure-fire hit single in the story of the ageing morning DJ at W.O.L.D. Despite its length and elements of satire, it of course was guaranteed airplay by balding broadcasters, who were convinced that Harry had modelled the song on them. It also had a great chorus and was an ingenious way for Harry to endear himself to local radio stations in towns where he was performing, as he rasped out the final chorus using the station name, W.A.N.Y. or whatever. It peaked at 24, but like Taxi, it remained long in the public memory, and is still heavily played today. It also brought him his first European success, reaching 34 in the UK. Equally memorable in its own way was Mr Tanner. Never were the use of the John Wallace vocals and the cello put to better use than in this tale of a cleaner in a town in the mid west, blessed with a glorious voice. Encouraged by admiring friends to put him on stage, his hopes of appreciation were dashed as the music critics summed up – "full time consideration of another endeavour might be in order". Based on a true story, Harry obviously had some of his own critics in mind. A number of them had started to mock Harry’s work, particularly the influential magazine Rolling Stone. Another classic study in loneliness, despair and ultimately compromise was the story of Mail order Annie, a bride supplied by mail order to a lonely farm worker. The use of a haunting harmonica lent even greater poignancy to the simply told tale of simple people setting out to make the best of the lonely offer life had made to them.

His heavy schedule of concerts and other personal appearances took him away from home more than was good for his family. He realised that he needed to spend more time with them. Otherwise he risked losing the family that he in theory greatly valued, but had seemed in practice to neglect. With guidance from Father Bill Ayres, he threw himself into ventures other than his own music for the first time in years. He joined Sandy in her enthusiasm for promoting the arts on Long Island and was the leading light in the Performing Arts Foundation of Long Island enabling young hopefuls to enter the acting profession. As if this was not enough, he also began to work for the cause that perhaps means he will be as fondly remembered as any of his contemporary songwriters.

Hunger.

Working closely with Bill Ayres he gave the issue a major role in his life and it was to dominate the rest of it. He had paid a visit to Sudan in his role as a filmmaker and had witnessed images of tragic starvation. He was equally horrified to discover statistics of hunger sufferers in his own country. For the rest of his career of concert appearances - and these averaged a staggering 200 per year - half raised funds solely for hunger charities. Within eighteen months the structure he wanted was in place - World Hunger Year with its particularly apposite abbreviation.. As Bruce Springsteen quoted Harry at the 1987 Memorial concert at Carnegie Hall - "I do one concert for me and one for the other guy". The revised focus of his life was of course also intended to include seeing more of Sandy and the children. This he started to achieve somehow despite a breakneck schedule of commitments, by flying, driving or getting back to them some other way for breakfast at the very least.

The importance of family relationships ironically and appropriately was the subject of the song that made his name a household one as Cats in the Cradle shot to No 1 in the Billboard chart in December 1974. The lyrics were provided by Sandy and Harry recognising their perspicacity as well as commercial potential added the music. The now familiar tale tells of a father neglecting to give his son the attention he craves. As the verses progress through the years, the situation is turned on its head, as the ageing parent is similarly neglected by his son. Blessed with a catchy tune with echoes of a nursery rhyme its impact was memorable and universally applicable. Taken from his fourth album Verities & Balderdash , it caught Harry by surprise as it launched him to the peak of his fame. His follow up single I wanna learn a love song was a strong one. However it flopped possibly because guilt ridden parents who had empathised with Cats could not identify with the episode in Harry’s life where he fell for a married woman – none other than Sandy - to whom he was teaching the guitar. Still the album sold a million and gave Harry the freedom to pursue his rapidly increasing portfolio of interests. The album also featured two memorable ballads Shooting star and She sings a song without words, dedicated to his two grandfathers and Sandy respectively. Adding a touch of bad taste was his concert showstopper 30,000 tons of bananas. Also included on the album full of strong material was another song of immense importance What made America famous.

This song was a particular favourite of Harry’s, a powerful number pillorying the uncaring attitude of traditional American society towards the hippie community. This was done through the tale of a fire breaking out in a hippie stronghold. The call is not answered by the local brigade, only by the plumber who heroically comes to the rescue. Such a story so powerful in content and presentation seemed to be ideal material for the long awaited stage show that Harry had been planning for some years. A Broadway debut for the show coincided almost exactly with the Cats in the cradle success. This meant that Harry felt duty bound to fulfil his commitment to the show. The content was hardly the stuff of which stage hits are made. Arguably he might have been better served cashing in on his new found fame as a no. 1 recording artist. The show gained mixed reviews, some describing it as merely a vehicle for a Harry Chapin concert in a different context. Brothers Tom and Steve joined him for this venture and Steve regularly and Tom occasionally played in his support group for the rest of his career. After a run of 10 weeks the show closed, garnering a handful of Tony nominations, but making a loss. Although disappointed, Harry regarded the work as adding even greater prestige to his burgeoning career in a way that some of his more feted contemporaries had feared to venture.

Meanwhile World Hunger Year was now a reality with Harry gaining increased recognition for this major cause that he had espoused so enthusiastically.

After the success of Verities and Balderdash Harry’s fifth album was eagerly awaited. Portrait Gallery regularly featured a piano and a greater sense of personal introspection, but was less successful selling 250,000 copies, but possibly lacking both a guaranteed successful chart single and an outstanding story song. Dreams go by with its infectious honky tonk introduction, singalong chorus and whimsical lyric surprisingly flopped as a single, but became a staple ingredient of concerts as Harry drew the audience into his act. Tangled up puppet was always described by Harry as "Cats in the cradle in reverse" dealing with a caring father’s anxiety to understand the growing up problems of his teenage daughter. Sandy was a mellow ballad for his wife, while Star Tripper told of the successful singer initially besotted by his success now resuming the role of a caring family man. The longest track was Bummer, the powerful story of a misfit outlawed by society. This might have been regarded particularly highly had it not paled in comparison to the similarly structured story of Sniper.

Harry’s many projects continued apace covering more activities in a few months than most of us do in a lifetime. His arts promotion work on Long Island developed into a personal crusade, as he took over as chairman of PAF raising funds for development of youth theatre. His World Hunger Year enthusiasm led him into his much loved practice of sitting through intervals in his concert signing souvenirs, T shirts, programmes in fact anything on which could be sold and wrote upon. He invariably had as he put it "no special plans" after the show and stayed on to repeat the interval procedure all of course in support of WHY. It was this combination of his outstanding concerts, often three hours long with the extra-curricular fund raising that gives Harry Chapin a unique place in the minds of those who attended. Whatever tensions he must have been feeling, and there must have been many, were cast aside as he went on stage. A natural communicator he had an immediate rapport whether singing along with just his guitar, cajoling his audience into joining in the choruses of his showstopper songs and exchanging banter with both audience and band members. He had a knack of making his venue seem the one that really mattered to him even though it was probably only one of a couple of hundred in the year. He partly achieved this by localising references to a radio station in the last chorus of W.O.L.D. and referring to his extended backing group as the, say, Sheffield Memorial Choir.

It was the infectious flavour of these concerts that persuaded his record company to agree to Harry’s suggestion that the planned greatest hits album should be made up of live versions of his songs. Given the length of this selection, the album was made into a double to allow full versions of his major story songs. Based on recordings made at three of his concerts, the album came close to capturing the unique atmosphere of a Chapin concert. All the titles that usually had the greatest impact were included their special status resulting from the poignancy of the telling of stories such as the nine minute version of A better place to be or the audience participation specials like Dreams go by. Littered with asides to the band and audience, this showed Harry in the context he loved – just a storyteller communicating wonderful tales to an enraptured audience. Another welcome feature was the inclusion of songs by his brothers, both outstanding songs by gifted artists – Saturday morning by Tom and Let time go lightly by Steve. Greatest Stories Live was his biggest album and still sells well today. Its live context makes it so much more than the conventional greatest hits package. Mail order Annie and other crowd pleasers never sounded better and the album has proved his most durable seller.

His next album was On the road to kingdom come which was not one of his better received albums. Many felt rightly or wrongly that Harry’s many distractions albeit totally admirable were detracting from his music, but how could any album including such gems as Mayor of Candor lied and Corey’s coming be so readily dismissed. Admittedly the title track was a somewhat cumbersome political satire with Harry’s voice sounding for once almost intrusively gruff, but the winsome ballad Caroline was as gentle an offering as he ever recorded. The surreal story in Corey’s Coming of a railman who tells tales of his lovely lady lingers long after hearing. The young man to whom he tells his tales is told at the old man’s funeral that the stories were merely fantasies, but the story ends with the young man also singing of his Corey. The Mayor of Candor lied is probably as powerful a song as Harry ever wrote. Inspired by an episode in Harry’s twenties, when he believed his relationship with Clare Macintyre was being sabotaged by her father, it is a tale rich in blackmail, true love and bigotry.

After what he perceived as the disappointment of his previous album, Harry saw his next venture as an attempt to tackle new ideas. He rapidly composed a batch of new songs, thirteen of which were destined for his eighth album, another double, Dance Band on the Titanic featuring the title track that was intended to be an attack on the music industry. The image was the now familiar one of that infamous ocean liner smashing into the iceberg and descending rapidly and inevitably to the bottom of the sea as the band played on. He reckoned that the business was becoming increasingly formulaic and introverted, going for easy pickings by such crazes as the disco boom. This was unhealthy, lacking the social awareness of the commentary offered by much of the sixties music. The track intended to complement the first track title song was an immense work There was only one choice. Lasting over 14 minutes, it was in many ways his autobiographical masterpiece, bringing together musical themes and random ideas that he had collected over the years. There was much for the dedicated Chapin fan to cherish, but perhaps not material that would attract a greater audience. Country dreams is a particularly underrated and melodic track and One light in a dark valley was a rarity as it was not one of Harry’s own, being written by none other than Harry’s much loved grandfather Kenneth Burke.

Harry’s battle to raise funds for the many causes he supported continued. He was dogged in his perseverance to get big name support and led by example with his shattering schedule of concerts and public appearances. It was often frustrating that he was thwarted in many of his efforts by bureaucracy and indifference. However he reached the peak of his influence when he was granted a meeting with President Carter at which his heartfelt pleas for the creation of a hunger commission were accepted

In 1978 Harry was able to spend a little more time with Sandy and his children and his ninth album Living Room Suite reflected this with songs such as Dancing Boy, Jenny and other family related and somewhat soft-centred material. The most striking song was Flowers are Red, describing the lack of creativity and imagination in teaching, as the little boy attempted to paint pictures his way, only to be ground into more conventional routine efforts. With an exceptionally strong chorus, it became a favourite with live audiences and the concert version is much the better format to appreciate it. In many ways it was an easy listening album that did not extend his popularity.

Frustrated by the seeming lack of enthusiasm Elektra now seemed to be showing in promoting his work, Harry decided to leave Elektra. As his swan song for the label which had dominated his recording career, he parted after recording his tenth album Legends of the Lost and Found. He succeeded in making this another double album made up of live recordings including some new versions of his established crowd pleasers such as Mail Order Annie and Tangled up Puppet and previously unreleased songs such as Stranger with the Melodies , Copper and a tribute to a lifelong inspirational friend and hero Pete Seeger – Old folkie. With his change of label imminent, the album was not heavily promoted.

Despite the frustrations of his fund raising efforts. Harry Chapin had become a well recognised figure with his political activity giving him a high profile outside his recording career. He had also the distinction of having a musical built around his songs entitled Chapin that ran for seven months. He had made countless national TV appearances, notably on the Tonight show. Add to this a cameo appearance as an actor in Mother and Daughter and a series of spots on public radio extolling the benefits of social security and he had already established a major presence since his first solo album.

He moved to a new record company, Casablanca and a new label Boardwalk. was set up for his first release. Sadly it was his platform for only one album before his untimely death, but it was in many ways a fitting finale to his career. Sequel was not only the album that restored his reputation beyond his devoted followers, but also the one in which he revisited his trademark song Taxi in the form of the title track of Sequel. These two tracks act as book-ends to his public life and recording career. In the song, which shares the basic melody of the original, Harry now successful turns up in San Francisco and goes in search of Sue and eventually finds her down on her luck. The details of their liaison are enigmatic and there was clearly scope for a further episode. Reaching no 23 on the Billboard chart, it gave him his first single hit for several years. The album cover was a striking image showing the name of the album and artists shining brightly over a busy theatre and the album had some of the strongest songs in Harry’s repertoire. Northwest 22 told the story of an airline route which Harry had used many times. Miss America and Up on the shelf were both uptempo sidelong glances at his country. Two more songs stand out on the album. Story of a life finds Harry in contemplative mood looking back on his life – grimly ironic in view of the events that were to follow only months later. The idea had come to him during a precarious flight some time before, when he saw his life flashing by. It is one of his most enduring songs and was used as the title track to the major three disc compilation released in 1999. Sequel also included two versions of Remember when the music which built on the Danceband on the Titanic theme that contemporary music was no longer the force it used to be as the primary popular source of social and political commentary.

Harry Chapin’s life came to a tragic and sudden end on Thursday July 16^th 1981. The exact cause of the accident that took his life will never be known. Thousands of fans awaited his appearance in Eisenhower Park on Long Island for a benefit concert, but he never made it. Travelling home in his Volkswagen he lost control and collided with a giant lorry. The outcome was inevitable. His audience waited in vain and was devastated as word of the accident came through. Millions grieved and the final Harry Chapin story seemed to have been told. but ...