Greatest Stories Live by Harry Chapin Review

When asked who my favorite artists are, not many of the people who know me would mention Harry Chapin.  But, this late, great musician is one whom I've loved dearly since I first heard him and have ever since.  He's not one I talk about a whole lot because, well, his songs are so personal and when he was killed it hit me hard.  But, make no mistake, I think Harry Chapin was one of the greatest singer/songwriters to ever grace our planet. a lot of the "critics" didn't think so, but what do they know?

If I had to pick the one definitive Chapin album (he recorded 12), it would be this one.  Greatest Stories Live is adeptly named because most of his songs were stories put to music.   He always said he had a hard time getting his songs on the radio because they were so long.  But, you can't spin the yarns he does in a three minute tune.

Harry had an unbelievable zest for life and no where did that zest shine more than when he was on stage.  Greatest Stories Live showcases that mirth in a way his studio albums couldn't.  Many of his songs were very serious little deals and belied the good nature and humor in his personality. I had the good fortune of seeing his show in 1979 in an auditorium in Flint, MI.  It was, unlike this album, just the man and his guitar.  In person he was affable, funny, and, when he sang, you knew he meant it.  Chapin was, if one were to pigeon-hole  his music, a folk-rock kinda guy, but, the great thing about his songs is, they will touch you in some way, no matter what musical genre you align yourself with.

Recorded over three nights in Los Angeles, Greatest Stories Live features some of his best music and showcases Harry's ability to engage his audience, winning them over with his affability and humor, then enchant them with his stories.  And man, what stories they are.  Harry had himself a way with words.

On the very first cut Dreams Go By, we hear the audience counting down to the opening lick, during which Harry stops and comments to the effect he can't believe he wrote that crap saying, "it sounds like the theme from Godfather II".   He asks the crowd to count loud enough compensate for the "lame piece of music that starts the song".  Chapin proceeds to tell the story of two people who continually put their dreams on hold to take care of the "necessities" of life.  Before they know it, they are old and realize their dreams are still on terminal hold. "listen to the children laughing.  Where do broken dreams go?"  As the semi-bitter lyrics go by, it's easy to be seduced into thinking this is a fun song by the playful, upbeat melody.  Only after the song is done do you realize you might have missed the point.  Kind of like life, huh?

Up next is a tune Chapin claims "snuck onto the charts for about 15 minutes" (It reached #36).  W*O*L*D* was a disc jockey favorite at the time because it tells the woeful tale of a radio personalty who destroyed his personal life for the sake of the business. It chronicles the nomadic life of the DJ and the ensuing family problems it can cause.  Well-written, with lines like, "but you can travel on 10,000 miles and still stay where you are.".

I Wanna Learn a Love Song is perhaps the prettiest of Chapin's songs and is the story of how Harry met his second wife put to music.  A woman's desire for music lessons turn into lessons of another sort.

Another crowd favorite, Mr. Tanner, features the vocal prowess of long-time band mate "Big" John Wallace, who voices the title character, in the story of a dry cleaner in Dayton, Ohio who had some singing talent.  He sang as he worked and his friends continually pushed him to try and make a living at it.  He finally relents and goes on stage.  It doesn't go well, but he cares not because, "music was his life. It was not his livelihood and it made him feel so happy and it made him feel so good.  And he sang from his heart and he sang from his soul.  He did not know how well he sang, it just made him whole."  The way Harry sings it, you can hear the smile in Mr. Tanner's voice as he sings softly to himself while he sorts the clothes, perfectly content with his little shop and his life.

Chapin claimed A Better Place to Be was his favorite thing he ever wrote.  As he introduces it, you can tell it's the audience's favorite, too. Released as the only single from this album, it probably reached only #84 because it comes in at 10 minutes.  This tale of a little midnight watchman and a "rotund" waitress in a little diner in Watertown, NY is as well-crafted as anything you will hear.  The loneliness and despair are palpable as the man tells of the night he worked up the courage to hit on a woman "so damn beautiful she could warm a winter frost" and "she was worth a try".  But, like many encounters that appear to be the start of paradise, this one ends in a tiny little hell.  If you've ever been more lonely than you can bear, you'll feel this one.

Cat's In the Cradle, the song that became Chapin's first and only #1 single, is played straight here.  Originally a poem written by Harry's wife, Sandy, inspired by the bad relationship between her ex-husband and his father, Chapin put music and the chorus to at when his own son was born.  He hoped it would serve to remind him never to be that sort of negligent father to his boy.   For, as the song suggests, what goes around comes around.

Taxi was Chapin's first single and remains one of his defining works.  "It was raining hard in 'Frisco, I needed one more fare to make my night. A lady up ahead waved to flag me down,She got in at the light." So, begins the universal story of Harry the cab driver and Sue, the socialite.  They slowly recognize their pasts in each other's eyes and proceed to reminisce. "You see she was gonna be an actress. I was gonna learn to fly."  As they meet again, the dreams are broken and the spark seems to be gone. As the fare ends and he lets her out they realize "It's strange, how you never know,But we'd both gotten what we'd asked for,Such a long, long time ago."   She "acting happy" and he was flying so high when he was stoned.

On a more positive note, Circle, turns into a big sing-a-long, to include just about every member of the band and the road crew, demonstrating the lyrics, "all my life's a circle, sunrise and sundown.  The moon rolls through the night time til the daybreak comes around."  Harry cracks jokes through out, some dated, "they sing like Haldemann and Erlichman", all smile-inducing and his winning personality shines, all the way through the "big ending"

30,000 Pounds of Bananas is a classic hokey-jokey storytelling and Chapin is at his crowd-pleasing best on it.  This comedic-tragic tale of a doomed truck driver screaming down a hill into Scranton, Pa carrying a huge load of bananas, features the "L.A. Memorial Choir"  Harry and band increasingly pick up the pace as the song barrels toward its climax, dragging the crowd and us along for the ride.  It also features some alternate endings, which bring howls from the audience, especially as he presents each to his brothers, who tell him, "Harry.....it sucks."  This is about as much fun as you can have in a song.

The album also has a couple of studio tracks and a song each from his brothers, Tom and Steve.  Always, though, the highlights are Harry and his stories.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Harry Chapin was a musician/family man/activist with an unbridled passion for life and this album showcases it just fine.  He never had great success on the music charts or with the music critics, but that never seemed to matter to him. He was a huge success with legions of fans and at raising awareness for world hunger.  He did that so well, in 1987 he was posthumously awarded a Congressional Gold Medal for his work.

Chapin was only a middling singer.  What raised Harry Chapin to near-legend status with scores of fan was the stories he told with his songs, the emotional weight he lent them as he performed them, and how relatable his lyrics are.  If  you aren't familiar with him, Greatest Stories Live is the perfect way to get to know him.  I must warn you, to know Harry Chapin is to love him and to love him is to miss him.  His life was tragically cut short in 1981 as he drove on the Long Island Expressway.  But, while Harry left us, his songs never did and in those, he gets to fulfill a prophecy from Circle, "But I have this funny feeling;That we'll all be together again".  GRADE: A