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| | From Buffalo News, 26 November 1999
Harry Chapin
Story of a Life;
Elektra Entertainment Group
During the 1970s, Harry Chapin -filmmaker, writer, activist and most notably,
troubadour-mined middle-class angst, the till of social unrest that came to rest
on that once-Silent Majority. He embraced cool as easily as populism, thumbed his
nose at critics who found his story-songs pompous and ponderous and twitted the
industry mind-set by carving out a solid fan base with 200 gigs a year. A car
crash cut his life short in 1981, at the age of 38.
"Story of a Life" is a coffee-table retrospective of Chapin's life
and decade of glory. Three discs and almost 80 pages of glowing tribute on fine,
glossy stock, this package is elegant and stark- almost like a monument.
Included are his best-known music: "Taxi," "Cat's in the
Cradle," "W*O*L*D*," "I Wanna Learn a Love Song" and
"Sniper." But the package also captures the essence of the artist, in
concert, locked in enviable rapport with his fans. They still hanker for Harry
nearly two decades after his death.
- Randy Rodda
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