|
|
RALPH, ALBERT & SYDNEY Harry
Chapin: an
eye for losers It
is scarcely possible to rank Harry Chapin among contemporary singer-
songwriters, for he stands virtually alone. It is also hard to believe it
has taken so long for so sparklingly original a talent to play a solo
concert in London. He
managed it triumphantly after thirty-four years and six superb albums at
the New Victoria last Thursday.
The hall was not quite full, which will not happen again. No one who was
there can fail to persuade six other people along next time. Chapin's
gifts are liberally in evidence on his albums, of which the last three
(all Elektra) reveal the most: Verities and Balderdash, Portrait
Gallery and On The Road To Kingdom Come. They show how his
inspiration springs from the daily encounters of American living, yet also
how the situations he depicts are often allegories for the universal
modern condition. 'Cat's In The Cradle', about a father-son relationship,
is typical Chapin. The son worships the father, wants to grow up like him.
The father is too engrossed in business. 'There were planes to catch and
bills to pay, he learned to walk while I was away.' Suddenly the boy is
grown, married; the father is alone. Now the son is too busy to
visit. 'He'd grown up just like me, as the painful punchline observes. As
dramatic narrative alone, that song is compelling. Similarly, Chapin
observes a meeting between an old man and a waitress in a cafe, a chance
encounter of old flames in a taxi; a crucifixion by metropolitan critics
of a singer from the sticks who never opens his mouth in public again.
'Music was his life,' sings Chapin. 'It was not his livelihood.' Chapin
has an unerring and pitying eye for life's losers; not heavily tragic
losers, but those for whom the pieces never quite fall together.
Simultaneously, he celebrates the strength of the human spirit which
survives loneliness, discovers the comic moments of episodes with which
his listeners can continually identify. In that coincidence lies the
secret of the best popular songs. Chapin
sings in a clear, pleasant voice, using unfussy melodies and arrangements
played by a small backing group within which a cello provides haunting
counterpoints. His stage personality is captivating. He did as he wished
with Thursday's audience. As he hunched dumpily in his chair, tousling his
hair, talking wittily and relevantly about the circumstances of his songs,
himself, and his musicians, not a soul stirred, except to laugh or
applaud. The final standing ovation was spring-heeled and genuine. London
will see no more absorbing concert this year. Earlier
last week, at the Albert Hall, Glen Campbell and Jimmy Webb had a larger
audience, without stirring them so deeply. Campbell is excellent at what
he does, in intonation and style as true to his Western roots (born in
Delight, Arkansas, once a cotton-picker) as Chapin is to his Greenwich
Village background. Yet where Chapin gets inside every song he sings,
Campbell seems too often a spectator, smoothing out tunes and meanings
alike. Few shocks, few insights - just a pleasant flowing countryish
sound. He
can, it seems, do anyone's music. Still slim and lithe, he was once a
Beach Boy (I965), and revived their hits fluently. He imitated
Elvis. He rocketed through the William Tell Overture on
guitar with the finesse of a computer print-out. He has the great good fortune often to sing Webb's fine songs - 'Wichita Lineman', 'Galveston', Macarthur Park' - and here performed several. Webb himself sang 'Didn't We' which, like the others, is already a modern classic. But the gloss of Campbell's breezy performance will not endure like the grittier I50 minutes of Harry Chapin's.
|
