Harry Chapin – Heads And Tales

It was 1972; I had recently become a single father, and this gave me the freedom to explore Music.  Noel Edmonds, before he became a TV star was a Radio 1 DJ.  He had a Sunday lunchtime show, where he would play album tracks, many from the new evolving singer-songwriter movement in California.  Along with Joni, James Taylor and Neil Young he featured Harry and this just released album.  Harry was already 29 when he recorded this, where most of his contemporaries were ten years younger. I loved it, bought the album – and eventually all 11 studio albums of his.  Harry was a unique songwriter who wrote mostly story songs with social comment – almost a protest singer.  This debut contains maybe his best song ‘Taxi’, about a cab driver who picks up a rich actress, and then realises she was an old girlfriend of his; they both had dreams, which (maybe) they had realised.  It really is a classic – but every song is a winner, not a dud or a filler on it at all. Great tunes, great singing and brilliant words.  I especially love ‘Greyhound’ and ‘Same Sad Singer’.  He was also a great philanthropist campaigning against World Hunger, but Harry sadly had a heart attack in 1981 while driving his car and died at the wheel, aged just 39.