Harry Chapin

Singer-songwriter Harry Chapin was an Academy Award-nominated documentary filmmaker before turning his focus to music in the late ’60s. ∙ Chapin’s first two Top 40 hits, 1972’s “Taxi”—about a night in the life of a cab driver—and 1973’s DJ tale “W.O.L.D.,” established his reputation as a master of the narrative song. ∙ Verities & Balderdash, released in 1974, was the highest-charting album of his career and featured the hits “Cat’s in the Cradle” and “I Wanna Learn a Love Song.” ∙ “Cat’s in the Cradle,” about a turbulent relationship between a father and son, became his signature song and was his sole No. 1 hit. ∙ He wrote and starred in the 1975 musical The Night That Made America Famous, which was nominated for two Tony Awards. ∙ Six years after his death in a car accident, 3,400 radio stations around the US honored his memory by simultaneously playing his song “Remember When the Music.” ∙ One of the most politically active artists of the ’70s, he helped create the Presidential Commission on World Hunger and received the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor in 1986.