Harry Chapin

Singer, songwriter, and activist. He originally wanted to become a filmmaker, and his socially-conscious folk-rock ballads showed a decided flair for storytelling. His signature song, the six-minute "Taxi" (1972), reveals the hard-bitten observations of a cab driver, while "W. O. L. D." (1973) describes the life of a disc jockey. "Cat's in the Cradle" (1974), Chapin's only Number One hit, is about a businessman who realizes too late how he sacrificed his relationship with his son for his career. Critics accused Chapin of heavy-handed moralizing and sentimentality and claimed his lush arrangements were too ostentatious for the material. But he had a devoted following in the 1970s, and in the years before "Live Aid" Chapin used his music to promote public awareness of World Hunger. Chapin was born in New York's Greenwich Village, the son of a jazz musician. He directed "Legendary Champions" (1968), a documentary about boxing that was nominated for an Academy Award, but after other movie projects fell through he turned to music. Between 1972 and 1980 he produced 11 albums for Elektra Records, two of them reaching gold status. He also wrote a Broadway musical, "The Night That Made America Famous" (1975), which closed after 75 performances. After that, he became increasingly involved in social activism and was a key figure in the creation of the Presidential Commission on World Hunger in 1977. He gave most of his own money away, performed 100 benefit concerts a year, and personally raised over $3 million for food-related causes. Chapin died at 38 in a fiery car crash on the Long Island Expressway. He was on his way to yet another benefit gig. In 1987 he was posthumously awarded a Congressional Gold Medal for his charitable work. The Harry Chapin Foundation still provides food relief to afflicted areas of the United States.