Searching for Harry Chapin's America: Remember When the Music

by Pat Fenton

In Searching for Harry Chapin’s America, journalist Pat Fenton describes his road trips to the towns and people that inspired Harry Chapin’s most renowned songs. Fenton’s account includes exclusive interviews with Chapin’s family and associates, and an excerpt from Chapin’s unpublished writings.Harry Chapin (1942-1981) was a legendary top-charting American songwriter in the 1970s and ’80s. During his lifetime, Chapin was nominated twice for a Grammy in 1972 for Best New Artist, and in 1974 for Best Pop Male Vocal Performance. In 2011, thirty years after his untimely death, Chapin’s Number One-charting song, “Cat’s In the Cradle,” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Searching for Harry Chapin’s America is afortieth-year commemoration of this musical icon’s tragic death in a car crash in 1981, a tribute to his legacy of songs and philanthropy.“Searching for Harry Chapin’s America is an invaluable book to celebrate Harry Chapin’s music and his legacy. Like Don Quixote, or On the Road, Pat Fenton’s classic book takes you on an unforgettable series of journeys and makes you feel that you are now welcome to be with the people and places that Harry Chapin memorialized in his timeless songs. It was worth waiting 30 years to have this story told so compellingly.” —David Amram, composer/multi-instrumentalist/author“A portrait of an age as well as an artist. Chapin was an American original who combined Walt Whitman’s lyric realism with Woody Guthrie’s passionate truth-telling. Fenton’s blend of sympathy, honesty and insight gives us the man in full. Fenton’s talents as a master storyteller have never been on better display.” —Peter Quinn, novelist/political historian“The perfect marriage of author and subject. Fenton doesn’t just trace the roots of Harry Chapin’s music; he dares to explore the American soul, extracting from it much of the pulmonary essence that made Chapin such a classic American troubadour. By illuminating the physical and spiritual landscape of Chapin’s artistry as a songwriter and voice of the common American, Fenton delivers a gem. Get this book, read it, and pass it on to someone you care about.” —T. J. English, New York Times bestselling author“Patrick Fenton has written a unique appreciation of a musical artist’s work by going on tour in the footsteps of Harry Chapin and listening to the American Everyman tell the other half of this timeless troubadour’s wonderful story-songs. In the clear, beautiful prose of a blue-collar scribe, Fenton records the thumping heartbeat of the American heartland that keeps the music and stories of Harry Chapin alive, decades after his death.” —Denis Hamill, author of Fork in the Road “Harry and Pat were made for one another. This is no vapid tell-all; no, it’s a painstaking account of Harry’s most important gift to us—his songs. Pat has a rare gift for getting to the roots and ruminations of musicians and their music. And as I read, I’m transported back to a lovely July evening in Central Park, the sweet and sour smell of pot rising above a huge crowd, as each of us awaits the defining line of ‘Taxi’: ‘We’d both gotten what we asked for such a long, long time ago.’ We did indeed. We got Harry. And he’s back in all his urgency and piquant curiosity in the pages of this wonderful book.

Kindle Edition

Published July 16, 2021

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to this book via Audible.

I'm not sure what I was expecting when I started this book, but I think it was something more biographical than I got. I really enjoyed the insight into the songs of Harry Chapin and a look at some of the real-life stories and places mentioned in them. There was a lot of additional commentary that I'm not sure I agreed with, looking at the decline of manufacturing in America and the collapse of the 'Main Street America' as popularized in the 1950s. It was a time and place that has passed, and rather than trying to recapture that moment, I think we're better served to learn from it and try to build a better future.

Also, the narration was a bit hit-or-miss. All of the voices made it sound like 70 year old chain smokers were talking, even when some of the speakers were described as young.

All that said, I love Harry Chapin's music, and getting to connect with it in a different way was amazing. This book would have been five stars if not for the unappealing commentary and the narration.

[Mamadukes · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOW! I LOVED THIS! As a huge Harry Chapin fan my whole life, this was the most wonderful journey visiting the peoples and places of a lost America. It is great to know some of the backstories of some of my favorites. Very well researched. Can’t say enough about it. I saw most of the original band just 2 months ago (Nov 22) in Pa. and was talking to a man who had come from Utah just for the show! We are all still out here. Enjoy!

[Joe T · Rating 2 out of 5]

It seems that this book was written 20 years too late. The idea of relating Harry Chapin's music with various venues that he wrote about and visited, is a good idea but, too much time seems to have passed. Interviewee's memories for the most part were vague at best.

[Jeannette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excerpts from Chapin's songs in this audiobook add to the stories of the places and people that inspired his classic songs. The author's casual storytelling style interviews and observations illuminate how the songs reflected the changes in small town America in the mid twentieth century.

[Robert Morgan Fisher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Useful guide for the true Chapin fan. Full of interesting goodies.