- Born
- Died
- Birth nameHarry Forster Chapin
- Nickname
- Gapin' Chapin
- A singer/songwriter and activist for many charitable causes, especially in the realm of ending world hunger, Harry Chapin never let the often lukewarm reviews of his music-making abilities faze him and as a result of his strong folksy persona, the fans he made stuck by him throughout his career and continue to this day. Born December 7, 1942, in New York's Greenwich Village the son of a big-band drummer, Harry's musical influence took hold at an early age. He took up trumpet playing originally but switched to strumming a guitar later and joined his younger brothers, Tom Chapin and Steve Chapin, in a homegrown musical act that was well received in the folk era of the 1960s. After a short stint in the Air Force Academy and studying architecture and later philosophy, at Cornell University, Harry tried his hand at film-making and found himself to be quite good at it, directing an academy award-nominated film about boxing heavyweights, Legendary Champions (1968). In the '70's, Harry joined Electra Records and produced a number of albums capitalizing on his story-telling abilities, resulting in his first major hit, "Taxi", which was one of the longest songs played on radio up until that time. He also found the time to produce a number of Broadway shows and write songs for his brother Tom's children's TV series, '"Make a Wish' (1970)'". Other recordings followed, such as the hits "Cat's in the Cradle" and "W.O.L.D". As Harry decided to put his fame to work, establishing himself as an activist for charitable causes as well as supporting self-sufficiency, he convinced President Jimmy Carter to create a Hunger Commission exploring ways to eliminate world hunger. His own organization, "World Hunger Year," formed with Bill Ayres, strenuously fought the good fight with Harry and his band performing virtually every other concert solely for the causes he espoused. In 1981, while on the way to another benefit, Harry's life was tragically ended in an automobile accident on the Long Island expressway.
- IMDb mini biography by: keathgraham@yahoo.com
- SpouseSandy Chapin(November 26, 1968 - July 16, 1981) (his death, 2 children)
- Parents
- Gave over 300 concerts a year with half being benefits for various causes, most prominently, The World Hunger Year, dedicated to ending world hunger.
- Brother of James Chapin, Butch Chapin, Tom Chapin and Steve Chapin, who served on the board of World Hunger Year from its founding.
- Posthumously awarded a Congressional Gold Medal in 1987.
- Was the childhood sweetheart of actress Mary Woronov
- I've got nothing against selling out, but just let me do it for something that matters. Not so I can be Number One With a Bullet, as it were, but so I can leave this world feeling like I made a difference.
- Most celebrity stuff is gestureville. I call it event psychosis. The bottom line is that the serious changes that happen are part of a long-range process. You have to commit to that, even though it's nice to have those moments of punctuation that are events.
- Given this short opportunity we call life, it seems to me that the only sensible way--even if you have pessimistic thoughts about the 99 percent possibility that things are going wrong--is to operate on the one percent chance that our lives mean something.
- The very reason we ask, why world hunger? tells you why we have a hunger problem. There are three necessities of life: water, air and food. It's not a luxury. It's not a cause like cystic fibrosis, cancer, heart disease. You haven't got the option to get those things if you don't have the three necessities.
- Feeding hungry people is important in the short run, but in the long run you've got to realize that powerful forces are creating those hungry people. Those people don't just choose to starve. Our job is to look at those forces and deal with them.
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