My tastes in music have always been varied— “eclectic” is a good word— I took up guitar at the time of the folk music popularity of the early 60’s, and transferred with the trend into the Beatles and the pop music of the rest of the 60’s and into the 70’s. At the same time, through the years I didn’t mind a bit of country, blues, and even jazz. The line was drawn, however, at heavy metal in its day, and now rap, and, although I don’t mind a number or two, I never was fascinated by classical music… no doubt evidence to some of my poor taste. In recent years, I found I was not in tune with the pop music of today, so I leaned more toward contemporary country and even classics of years gone by like those of Sinatra. Was it a maturing, or a degenerating?

When I look back over the last fifty or so, I’m mindful of a few we have dropped along the way. No doubt there are older fans who feel that the deaths of Janis Joplin, Jimmy Hendrix, or Jim Morrison were early losses that changed the direction of popular music, but I never particularly mourned those losses, probably because they had a lot of responsibility for their own demises due to drugs.

However, two other names stand out with me as losses that make you wonder the “what if?” question. In the complementary fields of “singer – songwriter”, here is one of each.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I’m a Harry Chapin fan. This past August, as in a number of past summers, my wife and I went to the Chapin Family Concert at the Ovens Park near Lunenburg, NS. Years ago we discovered the strange situation that Harry’s brother Steve Chapin and his wife Angela own the Oven’s Park, and each summer these New York natives travel to Nova Scotia for months of a very different lifestyle they have come to love. Steve provides music often at the Ovens, but in August their annual family concert welcomes members of Harry’s original band, plays Harry’s music, and now, since the years have passed, even features the sons and daughters of Steve, Tom, and Harry Chapin in performance.

Harry was a man who espoused a cause, that of fighting poverty and hunger in North America and in the Third World. He walked the walk as well as made the talk, with the band donating hundreds of thousands of dollars each year in the ‘70’s, when they were popular, and doing many free concerts for fundraisers.

This all came to a tragic end in the summer of 1981 when Harry’s car was struck by a truck on a New York freeway. Harry’s fans know of a large volume of music that is left from those days, but the world of radio has seldom offered people more than the playing of “Cat’s in the Cradle” or occasionally his trademark “Taxi”. Famous as a storyteller, Harry’s music engages you and takes you on musical visits to people and places that leave you never quite the same. A good singer, but not great, what is important with Harry are the words.

We brought our kids up on Harry’s music, not an intention, but certainly a side-effect of hearing it in the house and attending the Ovens concerts. In junior high my youngest son was asked by another student to name his favorite singer. The expectation was someone like John Bon Jovi, or Ozzy Osborne, but the inquiring student was rather taken back by the response of “Harry Chapin”, an unknown name in his world.

So Harry’s fans, still numbering in the thousands, can’t help but wonder what else this gifted person would have produced were he still with us for another 25 years.

The other artist who has come to my mind lately is more remembered for her singing ability, an ability that was certainly appreciated, but I don’t think ever to the extent it deserved. Perhaps she could be “blamed” for contributing to her own early death, but my years as a counselor have led me away from making that error. This would be Karen Carpenter, main singer of the brother-sister duo of The Carpenters that had a successful career also through the ‘70’s, and who died from complications of her Anorexia in 1983.

The thing that still impresses me with Karen is the unique beauty of her voice. A number of popular stars have listed her as significant influences on their singing. Although not an aspect of her career remembered by most people, she was also a very capable drummer.

I sometimes listen to music with headphones, particularly if I’m up early on a weekend morning and don’t want to wake my wife. I’ve noticed that earphones give you the strange ability to listen to the singer very separate from the musical background, since there is more of a spatial quality. This is to the detriment of a number of singers, since it puts them in a position similar to singing unaccompanied, and for many of them, being unwrapped from the instrumental background exposes a voice not always steady, not always right on musically, and not always attractive. They need the music.

Not so with Karen Carpenter. You could listen to Karen quite well without the music. Her voice was right on, the sound and color perfect, the music only an addition to something quite beautiful that was already happening without it. She had a unique gift with the musical instrument that was her voice.

Two very different artists taken away early at about the same time. One of them four years older than I, one four years younger. In a future with Harry we would have been looking for the writing… what more would Harry have had to say musically, particularly in this strange world we now find ourselves in, post 9-11? From Karen we would have had the beautiful voice in many more songs through the years as she developed as an artist, perhaps only starting to slow as we entered the new millennium and she reached her 50’s.

Life is full of “what if’s”, both in our own travels and in the lives around us. No doubt many more important life paths were ended prematurely without our even knowing. We should be thankful for what they did give us in the brief years they were in the focus of our world of music.

Carpenters Site

Chapin family site