Source  – elpasotimes.com

–  “…There I was in you Air Force
Uncle Sam, you owned my brain.
I tried to see myself as a sex mad savior
Sailing on a silver plane.
I started out to do my duty
Ended up just doing time.
What is it about you
My mother of a country
That makes so many change our minds.
You had me on your honor roll
For your dream I would die
Now I would not even cross the street
To help you live a lie”- Changes by Harry Chapin

Before there was Band Aid or Live Aid, a We Are the World or Hands Across America, there was singer-songwriter Harry Chapin — lobbying for change in Congress, pestering an already convinced President Carter to establish a commission on world hunger, and passing the hat for donations at concerts large and small.

Chapin has been gone now nearly as long as he lived. He achieved artistic and commercial success with a string of hits in the 1970s, songs like “Cat’s in the Cradle,” “Taxi” and “Circle” that aging baby boomers — and their babies’ babies — still cherish.

His work as an advocate for the hungry is a legacy that resonates 30 years after his death at age 38 when a tractor-trailer demolished his car on the Long Island Expressway. Chapin died only hours before he was to perform a free concert before an expected crowd of 25,000 at the island’s Eisenhower Park.

Now another benefit concert is planned by members of the Chapin family, including daughter Jen and his brothers Tom and Steve — also recording artists — at a town park in Chapin’s hometown of Huntington, on Long Island. Admission to Saturday’s event is free, but fans are asked to bring donations of food and money to benefit the Long Island Cares food bank, another charity founded by Chapin.

“It’s hard to overestimate the amount of good he did,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy, a close friend of Chapin’s who recalled that he broke down in tears after he was summoned from the Senate floor on July 16, 1981, and told of the fatal crash.

Speaking at Chapin’s memorial service, Leahy said, was one of the hardest things he’s ever done.

Information: whyhunger.org

The Last Protest Singer (1988)

http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_18479392