The Harry Chapin Story: Part 1 - Taxi Quiz

Answer: M&M

The family lived at 352 West 11th Street in Greenwich Village. He later said: "In the 1940s, the Lower West Side of Manhattan was a schizophrenic place for growing up." [As told to Peter Morton Coan in "Taxi: The Harry Chapin Story" (Citadel Press, 2001), main source for many of these questions].

Answer: St Vincent's

His parents, Jim and Elspeth, had one son, James, who was 13 months old when Harry was born on December 7th, 1942. Two more brothers, Steve and Tom, completed the family.

Answer: Drums

Jim Chapin was a jazz drummer who had played in many big bands in the 1930s and 1940s, including those of Woody Herman and Tommy Dorsey. He later wrote a book "Advanced Techniques for Modern Drummers", which became something of a standard for the instrument.

Answer: Trumpet

In the song 'Up on the Shelf', Chapin sang:
"I used to play the trumpet once
But now I play guitar..."
Chapin blew his first notes on the trumpet at the age of three, and he later took lessons in classical trumpet at Greenwich House Music School.

Answer: Maria Muldaur

It's doubtful whether Chapin noticed the elementary school crush. For his part Chapin had a crush on Muldaur's friend. Muldaur was born Maria Grazia Rosa Domenica D'Amato in Greenwich village on September 13th 1943.

Answer: Scranton, Pennsylvania

This was the story of a young driver who lost control of a truck carrying bananas on a hill leading into Scranton.
Pete Seeger - no mean master of audience participation himself - said of Chapin: "Not since Al Jolson have I ever seen a performer who established such a natural rapport, empathy and involvement with an audience." [As told to Peter Morton Coan in "Taxi: The Harry Chapin Story".]

Answer: Films and Reviews

As recalled to the biographer Peter Morton Coan by the four Chapin brothers, the next seven years were not happy ones for them. Hart was a descendant of John Hart, a signatory of the American Declaration of Independence. He was determined to bring social graces and manners to the wild Chapin boys. All felt the force of his determination, particularly Harry who would not - or could not - bow to his stepfather's demands.

Answer: Corey's Coming

"Old John Joseph was a man with two first names
"They left him in the railroad yard when they took away the trains..."
"Corey's Coming" was song about an old man who lived in a broken down railroad yard and told tales to a young lad who visited.
"And he says - My Corey's coming. No more sad stories coming
My midnight-moonlight-morning-glory's coming aren't you girl?
And like I told you, when she holds you
She enfolds you in her world"

Answer: World History

Of the four Chapin brothers, Harry had the lowest IQ - albeit one of 139. Yet, at Brooklyn Technical High School he was a good pupil. His best grades came in world history, because that was taught by his favourite teacher

Answer: True

The lyrics say it all:
"The sun of sixteen summers had put halos in your hair
If anything was in my head, twelve winters put it there
A dollar an hour is what Mama paid you to come and mind her kids
But no one could really pay you enough for what you really did

"Many happy things keep happening
On my journey through this world
And in many ways, that I will never understand
I was much too late
To be the first to make you a woman
But you were the one
Who made my mother's son a man"
[As told to Peter Morton Coan in "Taxi: The Harry Chapin Story". Coan spent seven years traveling with Chapin, who had approved most of the biography's text]

Answer: Pete Seeger

"He's the man with the banjo and the 12-string guitar
And he's singing us the songs that tell us who we are
When you look in his eyes you know that somebody's in there..."
Chapin admired Seeger not only for his music but his commitment to social causes. Seeger was a supporter and admirer of Chapin for the same reasons.

Answer: The Weavers

In the mid 1950s, the urban folk revival made a major breakthrough and Chapin fell in love with this music after hearing the record "The Weavers At Carnegie Hall". The new sound also persuaded him to drop the trumpet in favour of guitar. "I switched from trumpet to guitar because the girls liked guitar players better," he later joked.

Answer: San Francisco

"It was raining hard in 'Frisco,
I needed one more fare to make my night.
A lady up ahead waved to flag me down,
She got in at the light...."
This was a song that was a big favourite for Chapin fans. It was the based-on-truth premise of how once love is lost it can never be regained.

Answer: The Bitter End

'The Chapin Brothers' first played at Grove Church concerts in 1958. They branched out to playing Tuesday night open mic hootenannies at the Bitter End. At that stage they played folk standards, such as Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land".

Editor's note: Cafe Wha? sic

Answer: Air Force Academy

Chapin was accepted for both AFA, at Colorado Springs, and Cornell. He later told the biographer Peter Morton Coan: ""I thought that flying would be incredible. I visualised I would be flying in a biplane over the fields of France with a chartreuse scarf, leather helmet and goggles with mademoiselles waiting for me on the ground."
But Chapin had a made a mistake. He was not cut out for the discipline and was never one to meekly take what was dished out to him.
He quit, and later attended Cornell School of Architecture - with little better success.

Answer: False

She was very real. Her name was Clare MacIntyre and her father was president of Eastern Airlines. Socially, she came from the other side of the tracks from Chapin. Harry pursued her relentlessly. He later said of her "...She's everything I could dream of".

Despite this, his friends believed they were mismatched. Clare disappeared to Europe in 1963, sent there, Chapin contended, by her father. The song "The Mayor of Candor Lied" was based on that experience.

Answer: The Sherwoods

Chapin's time at Cornell was no happier than that at Air Force College. He just did not have the feel for architecture and was asked to leave at the end of the third semester. Singing with the 12-man Sherwoods was the highlight of those years.

Answer: False

Chapin's abortive spell at Air Force Academy earned him veteran status and he was exempt from the Draft.

Answer: False

Although he did get a hack licence to drive a cab, on the day he was to start his first job he got two film-making offers. He wrote the song after reading a newspaper article that his one-time girlfriend Clare MacIntyre had married a rich businessman.

Answer: Volkswagen

Chapin was on his way to a concert when his Volkswagen Rabbit was in collision with a truck in July 1981 on the Long Island Freeway. Ironically, he should not have been driving - his licence had been revoked four months earlier. The cause of death was given as a massive heart attack, though it was never established if this happened before or after the impact.