"Mr. Tanner" is a song by Harry Chapin from his 1973 album, Short Stories.
The song tells the story of Martin Tanner, a local launderer from Dayton, Ohio, who has a gift for singing.
His friends try to talk him into becoming a singer because of his beautiful voice, until he finally agrees and uses most of his savings to travel to New York City and sing in a show.
Certain details of the song were improvised by Chapin, given the facts that the real-life Martin Tubridy, about whom the reviews were written, was not in fact from Dayton, nor did he work as a launderer, but rather a baritone from Weston, Connecticut who at one point rented Carnegie Hall and continued to perform in theater and local venues despite the earlier lukewarm critical reception of his New York performances.
Tubridy would later perform the song that he inspired before an audience in concert for the Harry Chapin Foundation, making a subtle shift in the lyrics of the final line of the song's chorus, "He did not know how well he sang, it just made me whole.