A new doc shines a light on “Cat’s in the Cradle” singer-songwriter Harry Chapin’s drive to feed the needy. BY STEVE GARBARINO
Harry Chapin, whose first gold record was 1972’s “Taxi”
Know it or not, the country needed him. What would so many homeless causes do without his bushy-headed, boyish joie de vivre to keep them active and driven, catapult them further, particularly in this time of need? Yet the beloved but bluntly down-to-earth Grammynominated performer and Congressional Gold Medal honoree (awarded posthumously in 1986), Chapin was best known for a dozen FM-friendly storytelling hits such as “Taxi” and “W.O.L.D.,” in permanent rotation throughout the ’70s. He died at age 38, when a semi struck his VW Rabbit on the Long Island Expressway in the summer of 1981 while he was en route to a business meeting in New York City. Chapin had been scheduled to perform at a benefit concert in East Meadow, New York that evening. Not all of his fans know that Chapin performed half of his
“Are you ready?” That’s what Harry Chapin, the storytelling singer-musician, would invariably shout to his band and audience as he bounded up to a concert stage with the happy-happy-happy enthusiasm of a Labrador retriever. Harry Chapin’s lantern jaw and chin-up grin lit up rooms like man’s best friend, all wet with sweat, running from a bus, a bone to chew. To hear a host of estimable performers tell it (among them Billy Joel, Pat Benatar, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Geldolf and Kenny Rogers)—in the long-overdue new documentary Harry Chapin: When in Doubt, Do Something, premiering at the Hamptons International Film Festival this month—the “Cat’s in the Cradle” singer and Long Islandbased social activist was hands-down the last person “ready” to leave this planet. 88
Courtesy of In Plain View Entertainment
HIFF
A HUNGER TO HELP
