Harry Chapin

[Niner]

I've got several of his records ...that I've had for over 40 years. I saw him in concert in Mobile when he came through. He died in a auto accident in 1981. He wasn't a rock and roll guy and his song stories were too long for the radio for the most part. Taxi was a big hit but a lot of equally good songs never made the radio. His songs were about the poetry and depth and color in the lyrics and the way he sang them. You could understand the words and if you didn't the songs probably wouldn't have worked. Most rock songs the words are intelligible to all but teen aged girls and make no difference at all to what makes them work at all. All his songs were stories written in a sadder but wiser reflective voice in a special categorical genera ...kinda blues but not blues, kinda folk but not folk, kinda..etc, but not. Just him. Nobody ever was like him that I ever knew of at all. Taxi, WOLD, Better Place to be, Cats in the Cradle...all the voice of sadder but wiser singer reflecting on his life. He was only 38 when he died. Maybe he sensed that he wouldn't live all that long.

Here's a badly videoed recording of what is said to be his last full concert in 1981. That's 42 years ago. People born in 1981 are now middle aged and probably never heard of him. But... if I wanted to go back to drinking bourbon, I'd dig out his records and do some sipping and getting lost in his song poems.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_62Ikzg ... o=1&t=169s