HARRY CHAPIN
The folk singer’s relatives recall his life as a devoted father and philanthropist.
Folk singer Harry Chapin set the stories of his life to music and the impact still resonates today. For his 1974 No. 1 hit “Cat’s in the Cradle,” about a father who prizes career over family, he channeled one of his greatest fears. The song, based on a poem by his wife, Sandra Gaston, “scares me to death,” he said, adding that it made him think of his relationship with his own son Josh.
But Harry was no distant dad. “He loved having five kids,” his daughter Jen Chapin, 46, tells Closer. “It’s not like he came home from 200-plus days on the road and said, let me just zone out in front of the TV. He and I designed and built a dollhouse that fit my rag doll.”
Though Harry died at 38 in a tragic car wreck in 1981, he’d worked hard to provide a good example for his kids, performing tirelessly and co-founding the nonprofit Why Hunger to combat poverty. “He was a do-it-all kind of guy,” says Jen, who sees his philanthropy as part of his “search for meaning.”
As a teenager, Harry got his musical start when he formed The Chapin Brothers band with his brothers Tom and Steve. “Harry was the lead dog,” says Tom Chapin, 72, whose new album, Threads, is out now. “He was a fountain of energy — it was always ideas and possibilities.”
A LEGACY IN SONG
Harry “did have doubts,” says Jen. “He was perpetually insecure about his impact as an artist.” And he poured his emotions into his music. Big John Wallace, who sang with Harry, recalls that “most of his songs had a little bit of truth” to them. “He visualized himself in situations” — even when they scared him.
But Harry needn’t have worried about his legacy. “We loved our time with him,” says Jen, who still performs his songs with Tom and other family members as The Chapin Family Show. “Every once in a while you get emotional,” Tom tells Closer. “But it’s like visiting old friends.” — Lisa Chambers, with reporting by
Amanda Champagne-Meadows
“I want the fact that I existed to mean something.”
— Harry