HEADS & TALES - Harry Chapin

YEAR: 1972

LABEL: Elektra

TRACK LISTING: Could You Put Your Light On Please, Greyhound, Everybody's Lonely, Sometime Somewhere Wife, Empty, Taxi, Any Old Kind of Day, Dogtown, Same Sad Singer

IMPRESSIONS: You're telling me this is yet ANOTHER of those records from my childhood on Linwood Avenue. Yup. My parents' record collection strikes again. Harry's first album is really strong and seesaws between confessional songs with simple arrangements and operatic epics thundering forth from your speakers. Particular favourites are "Any Old Kind of Day" (one of those quiet simple arrangements), "Dogtown" (the creepy Wagnerian operatic barnstormer) and "Same Sad Singer" (which combines quiet loneliness with bombastic Phil Spectorish orchestral swells).

MY FAVOURITE TRACKS: Could You Put Your Light On Please, Greyhound, Sometime Somewhere Wife, Empty, Any Old Kind of Day, Dogtown, Same Sad Singer

FACT SHEET: HEADS & TALES is Harry Chapin's first album. The album contains Chapin's first big hit "Taxi" which I do not like. The original vinyl record I grew up with had a diecut cover; the middle square containing Harry's photo is actually a square hole cut out of the album cover with the photo from the interior liner notes booklet showing through giving the illusion of Harry as a cabbie sitting inside his taxi. The song "Taxi" was incredibly released as a single totally uncut at 6:44! Unheard of in 1972.