I think I’ve told the story several times on this site about how
\nI got into Harry Chapin. My mom woke me up the morning of my dad’s
\nbirthday when I was about four years old, and took me to the stereo
\nin the living room. Quietly, she played the 45 of “Cat’s In The
\nCradle” for me, and told me this would be my birthday gift to my
\ndad. That moment was the start of a love affair with Chapin’s
\nmusic.<\/p>\n
Ah, but it was a fickle affair. How many of us can honestly name
\nmore than five songs of Chapin’s without consulting the album
\njackets? I can – but not by much. Besides my ruining my dad’s copy
\nof
\nDance Band On The Titanic<\/i> and occasionally hearing “Taxi” on
\nthe radio, I really didn’t get that deep into Chapin’s music, save
\nfor “Cat’s In The Cradle”. And, when Chapin died in a car crash in
\n1981, I was sad, but I didn’t quite understand the
\nsignificance.<\/p>\n
For all of us,
\nStory Of A Life<\/i>, a three-CD box set chronicling Chapin’s
\nlife and work, is the musical equivalent of the GED. It’s a lot to
\nstomach in one sitting, but it provides a fair portrait of the man
\nand his music, both good and bad.<\/p>\n
This set does one thing that is excellent right off the bat: the
\nmusic is presented in chronological order, so you can hear the
\ngrowth of Chapin the musician as the set progresses. (Actually,
\nthat’s not entirely true; the second cut of the set is really the
\nearliest number, but after that, it proceeds smoothly.) Smart move
\nnumber two is opening the set with “Taxi,” Chapin’s first brush
\nwith fame, instead of the earlier cut “Someone Keeps Calling My
\nName” – and makes the musical flip-flop forgivable.<\/p>\n
Chapin’s magic is heard early on, not just in songs like “Taxi,”
\nbut in some of the less heralded tracks like “Better Place To Be,”
\n“They Call Her Easy” and “Mr. Tanner,” all of which embody the
\n“story-song” image that Chapin had throughout his career. One
\ntrack, “Sniper,” is a song that will take more than one listen to
\ntruly appreciate (as well as a lot of time, seeing it clocks in at
\nover nine minutes), but will prove to be well worth the effort.<\/p>\n
Even in all this early glory, some cracks in the ceiling can be
\nseen. Cuts like “Sunday Morning Sunshine” and “W*O*L*D*” just
\ndidn’t do anything for me, no matter how many times I listened to
\nthem. While this shows that Chapin could be hit-or-miss in his
\nmusic, the set as a whole suggests that Chapin more often hit the
\nmusical target.<\/p>\n
The second disc contains “Cat’s In The Cradle,” which is still
\nan amazing song 25 years after it came out. But this portion of
\nStory Of A Life<\/i> also contains some of the more tentative
\nmoments of Chapin’s career. For every song like “I Wanna Learn A
\nLove Song,” “30,000 Pounds Of Bananas” and “The Mayor Of Candor
\nLied,” there are less secure musical moments like “What Made
\nAmerica Famous,” “Dreams Go By” and “Vacancy”. The crowning moment
\nfor me, surprisingly, isn’t “Cat’s In The Cradle,” but rather a
\nlive version of “Taxi” that shows Chapin’s oneness with his
\naudience.<\/p>\n
The third and final disc contains some tracks that might be
\namong some of Chapin’s least acclaimed critically, but they’re well
\nworth your time. “Dance Band On The Titanic” painted a picture of
\nthe experience on the infamous boat 20 years before James Cameron
\ncould have envisioned his film, and is a decent track. (Side note:
\nWhy weren’t tracks like “We Grew Up A Little Bit” or “My Old Lady”
\nselected? I happen to like these over “Mismatch,” though this track
\nproves its mettle as well.) Likewise, songs like “Corey’s Coming”
\nand “Dancing Boy” will make one question why Chapin wasn’t a bigger
\nstar in his time.<\/p>\n
Near the end of his life, though, Chapin’s music began to weaken
\na bit. His vocals started to warble more, to the point where he
\nsounded a little like Ethel Merman at times on “November Rains” and
\n“Story Of A Life”. And while people wanted to know whatever
\nhappened to the characters in the song “Taxi,” I don’t think that
\ncontinuing the story on “Sequel” was the right idea; such a story
\nis best completed in one’s own mind. Besides, it’s been my life’s
\nexperiences that the reunions of “what-if”s never happens.<\/p>\n
Compared to some of his stylistic contemporaries like John
\nDenver and, to an extent, Bob Dylan, Chapin got the short end of
\nthe stick in his career. He was as talented a songwriter and
\nmusician, but he rarely scored a hit (and never another one along
\nthe lines of “Cat’s In The Cradle”). This, as we say in the
\nbusiness, is a God-Damn Shame. .. but in a sense, Chapin’s true
\nsuccess lay not in his music, but in his humanitarian efforts,
\nincluding his fight to stop world hunger.<\/p>\n
\nStory Of A Life<\/i> is the kind of collection that will not only
\nremind you how great of an artist Chapin could be, but will
\nprobably get you digging through your record collections and
\ndusting off albums like
\nHeads & Tales<\/i> and
\nVerities And Balderdash<\/i> to re-discover for the first time
\nwhat we’ve been missing all these years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25125,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6164],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-36330","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-harry-chapin","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36330"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36330"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}