Storyteller still has listeners

Pop musicians who used their celebrity to raise money or supplies for victims of December’s devastating tsunami in Indonesia often cited the precedents of Bob Geldof’s Live Aid concert in 1985 or George Harrison’s 1971 Concert for Bangla Desh.

But those who try to make a difference on a more grass-roots level have another musician as a role model: the late New York singer-songwriter Harry Chapin.

A concert Friday at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts will salute Chapin’s music, including such ‘70s hits as “Taxi” and “Cat’s in the Cradle,” as well as his efforts aimed at easing world hunger. He died in a car crash at age 38 in 1981.

“Harry Chapin: A Celebration in Song” brings together a slew of his relatives, most of whom don’t see one another except onstage.

“For me this is pure delight,” says Tom Chapin, the singer-songwriter who started his career as one-third of the Chapin Brothers along with older brother Harry and their younger sibling, Steve, who also will play Friday. “I get to visit Harry’s songs, which I don’t get to sing that often, be with my brother, Steve, and play with the members of Harry’s original band. And I get to see my daughters in ways I wouldn’t otherwise.”

Tom Chapin’s three daughters, Jessica, Abigail and Lily, are often busy working L.A. clubs as the Chapin Sisters. And Harry’s daughter, Jen, is carving out a career in music, mostly in East Coast venues, and has taken her father’s philanthropic lead, recently stepping in as chairwoman of the World Hunger Year campaign.

Although the various members of the family come together several times a year for these tributes, Tom Chapin says this is the first one in the L.A. area.

“It’s been 23 years now, but we get people who remember him so well,” he says. “Then there’s a whole new world of younger fans. If you Google ‘Harry Chapin’ on the Web, you’ll find there’s a great world of Harry Chapin fans out there, and these are people who never saw him.”

Tom Chapin notes that his brother’s music continues to resonate, sometimes in unexpected places.

“We did a show here in New York, and Darryl McDaniels -- D.M.C. from Run-D.M.C. -- came to see it and told me what a fan of Harry’s he is. And he’s just recorded a new version of ‘Cat’s in the Cradle,’ ” Chapin says.