CHAPIN ON LIVE AID: ‘GUARDED OPTIMISM’

Singer-composer Tom Chapin was recently asked what he thought about the Live Aid spectacular being broadcast around the world today. “Guarded optimism,” he said.

Chapin is no stranger to famine-fighting concerts. He’s a director of the still-active World Hunger Year group founded 10 years ago by his late brother, pop star Harry Chapin, a pioneer in efforts by entertainers to help the world’s hungry.

Tom Chapin, whose brother died in a car crash in 1981, said major events like the Live Aid concerts are wonderful, “but they’re only a start. Harry used to say, over and over again, that life is a process, not an event, and that fighting hunger is a lifetime proposition.”

Superstar rock benefits like Live Aid do indeed help, he said by phone from his Brooklyn home. “But it’s important to make sure that it’s part of a long-term fight. Because the answer to hunger is political change on a long-term basis.”