November 27, 2024
By W.B. King–
An independent troubadour who has never conformed to industry expectations, Don McLean’s songs have long reflected the country he loves, America. A devout believer in writing tunes that reflect the struggles and perseverance of everyday folks, he encourages listeners to think outside the confines of mainstream media, which often favor division over commonsense collaboration.
“I like to write things that are about what I’m feeling and seeing—being real, not being on a Democratic side or a Republican side,” he told The Hudson Independent, adding that he has long had “visions” helping him predict future events, including the recent political turmoil emanating from both sides of the aisle. As an example, he pointed to his 1977 album Primetime that features the song, “Color TV Blues.” The lyrics read, in part: “There’s only one song that the TV sings and that’s ‘Pennies from Heaven’ while the register rings…We’d rather talk of dollars and forget about events. When what we have to decide is: Does it all make sense?”
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At 79, McLean continues to seek the answer to the all-important question he posed so many years ago. His approach includes surrounding himself with musicians who may share different ideological viewpoints but remain open to musical expression.
“I work with a lot of guys in Nashville, and there are a lot of right wingers in my band, and there are a lot of left wingers, but I have a new album now called American Boys and I did a song called ‘The Ballad of George Floyd,’ because nobody wrote that song,” McLean shared. “It had to be written.”
In reading the online comments, he said many people are upset that he wrote the introspective track, released in 2024. McLean, however, is not interested in fans who aren’t open to his honest interpretation and expression of such informative events. True to his socio-political, even-keeled stance, in 2022 he bowed out of a performance at the National Rifle Association convention in Houston. The concert was billed as “The Grand Ole Night of Freedom” and was to also feature a handful of other singers. But after news of the Uvalde, Texas mass school shooting aired, which left 19 students and two teachers dead, and 17 others wounded, McLean simply couldn’t do the show.
“It’s the independent aspect of who I am,” said McLean. A Western enthusiast, he has owned and trained appaloosa horses, known for their colorful spotted coat pattern. “Then this horrible thing happened that’s worse than you could ever imagine, so I said, ‘I’m not singing there.’ That was it.” While he received backlash from some fans and supporters for this decision, he pressed on, as always, unfettered.
A Powerful Event
Born on October 2, 1945, at New Rochelle Hospital (now Montefiore New Rochelle Hospital), McLean grew up in a home located on 15 Mulberry Lane. While attending Henry Barnard Grammar School and Albert Leonard Junior High, he earned spending money delivering newspapers—some of the headlines above the fold would later inform his legendary lyrics.
“I have a number of friends that I’m still in touch with. We were brought up in an almost Victorian way, believe it or not,” he reflected. “There was a dancing school with white gloves and blue suits that we went to once a month during the school year…a very formal type of a life, much different than anything people can imagine today.”
He caught the music bug as a youngster, first listening to records at home and later gravitating to folk music along with the popular, unfolding tunes of the day. When he hit his teenage years, McLean, who suffered from asthma, bought a Harmony F Hole acoustic guitar with a sunburst finish and took voice lessons, which were generously paid for by his sister.
“I think of what it is that I would dig to sing—that could be ‘The Mountains of Mourne’ or it could be ‘Crying,’” he told The Hudson Independent, noting that in those days AM radio was a blend of musical genres. “It’s all on my playlist, and it’s all mixed up, and that’s how I grew up…hearing [Frank] Sinatra and The Kingston Trio, and then hearing Bo Diddley, the Everly Brothers, Chuck Berry, you know, it was something for everybody.”
While his interest in music grew, adding acts like Buddy Holly and The Crickets to his favorites list, McLean’s father wasn’t enthusiastic about his son pursuing a career in entertainment.
“I had wanted to become a musician, a singer and a guitar player, but that was not something that he would ever have accepted. And so suddenly he passed away, which was a terrible blow,” McLean said, noting he was 15 years old. “It was such a powerful event that I made my mind up that I didn’t care what happened. I was going to do this, and by this time, I was performing around little places. And the thing to remember is that from about 1958 until about 1964, folk music was the biggest thing in the country. It was a huge sensation.”
Among folkies who caught his ear were The Weavers. Originally comprised of Lee Hays, Pete Seeger, Ronnie Gilbert, and Fred Hellerman, the group formed in 1948 and scored a major hit with “Goodnight, Irene” and later released the celebrated album, Live at Carnegie Hall (1955).
After attending Iona Preparatory High School, McLean went onto study business administration at Villanova University in 1963. While his first run at obtaining a college degree lasted four months, he would experience two pivotal events that spurred him to revisit music: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and meeting another up-and-coming songwriter, Jim Croce who later became famous for songs like “Time in a Bottle” and “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown,” among others.
“I was interested in meeting and knowing certain musicians, and certain members of a very famous group called The Weavers,” he said. “I got to know them slowly over the years. And they became my family, really. By the time 1964 came around, I was 18, and I guess I had to quit Villanova.”
There were certainly signs that he made the right choice as he won the folk-singing contest at the 1964 Worlds Fair, which took place in Queens, New York. And while he is associated with playing acoustic guitar, he was also a sought after five string banjo player who appeared on Leon Redbone and Clancy Brothers albums.
McLean began performing at The Bitter End and Gaslight Café in New York, the Newport Folk Festival, clubs across the country and colleges throughout New England, sharing stages with acts like Melanie, Steppenwolf, Pete Seeger, Janis Ian and the James Gang.
“What happened is a lot of white people started playing guitars and banjos and making their own music, basically singing folk songs. This produced the likes of Bob Dylan and other writers who had an influence on lots of people. They started writing really good songs that had really never been written in the folk world before,” he shared. “But a lot of these folk-type acts, most of them were awful. I was awful, but I had a place to start to become a little better. And there’s nothing like getting out on the stage and having all these ideas and thinking you’re going to be wonderful and having nobody react to you—that’s an eye opener.”
Disciplines of Learning
In time, McLean developed a close relationship with Pete Seeger who invited him to join the Hudson River Sloop Singers, which included Seeger and Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, among others. An environmental initiative Spearheaded by Seeger and his wife Toshi, these musicians played benefits raising money to build a replica 18th century era Dutch sloop, Clearwater, which was officially launched in 1969 and continues to sail the Hudson River. Today, the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater non-profit, based in Beacon, seeks to protect the Hudson River and surrounding wetlands and waterways through advocacy and public education.
“He was an interesting man. Seeger was always keen to work with young people that he thought had talent, and so he promoted me, brought me around to a lot of his shows,” McLean said, adding that his phone would often ring on a whim with an eager Seeger asking him to grab his guitar and set out for an unknown location, usually a college campus. “I would jump into the car and go. So, I learned a lot. I can’t even tell you how much I did learn.”
At the time, McLean had relocated to Cold Spring, playing as many gigs as he could, while also attending Iona University to obtain his degree. “Studying business [finance] was one of the best things I ever did because I didn’t hang around people who were only educated in the activism of the left wing,” McLean shared. “I saw things from the point of view of the Wall Street Journal and different teachers that I had who taught world politics and geopolitics and just so many aspects of things.”
Minoring in philosophy rounded out his perspective. “The curriculum was very rigorous. I read hundreds and hundreds of books. I learned a lot about all these religions of the world, and that began to really open me up,” said McLean who was given an honorary doctorate degree from his alma mater in 2001. “College is a wonderful thing. To go and have to be led through these disciplines that you would never do yourself. Oh, Lord, it was good for me.”
‘Something Touched Me Deep Inside’
While living in Cold Spring, McLean would write some of his best-known material, including “American Pie,” which along with “This Land is Your Land,” “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” “Respect,” and “White Christmas,” were selected as the five greatest songs of the 20th century in a poll by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Recording Industry Association of America. The lyrics he cultivated for this seminal song, and many others, were a direct result of his upbringing and the experiences he had after leaving home.
“My parents were older than the parents of other kids who were my age, they’ve been through the Depression and World War Two. I struggled to get where I got and I’m just a small example. I could be homeless or dead now almost for sure, because there was absolutely no guarantee of anything. But I didn’t care. I was in love with what I was doing, and to me, I didn’t care about money,” he continued. “I cared about the next door that was going to open, the next song I was going to write, the next stage that I was going to stand on and sing that song and see how the audience reacted. This filled me with desire and enthusiasm. It was exhilarating.”
“American Pie,” which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2003, didn’t land on McLean’s first album, Tapestry (1970). The title track inspired the creation of the environmental action group, Greenpeace. Also featured on his debut record is “And I Love You So,” which was recorded by Elvis Presley, Glen Campbell and Perry Como.
The following Year, his second album, aptly named, American Pie, featured the now famous and chart-topping opus that describes “the day the music died,” propelling him to international stardom. To date, the album has sold more than 50 million copies.
“The happiest and the most important times of my life were from 1960 to 1970—that is what I remember as the most, the purest, hardest, most rugged time of my life. It was completely me against the world, and I was ready for it,” said McLean who was inducted into the Songwriters’ Hall of Fame in 2004. “That particular song took 10 years for me to write—the 10 years that I talked about from 1960 to 1970, and that’s the 10 years I’m talking about in the song: ‘Now, for 10 years we’ve been on our own,’ I’m referring to myself in that.” For fans looking for more song insights, he suggests watching the documentary, The Day the Music Died: The Story of Don McLean’s American Pie(2022).
“The song is always going to be basically a story of corruption. The more successful and corrupt you get, the more you’re going up in flames like Elvis Presley in the last year of his life. All that pleasure and money and love turns a person into a gigantic baby, and that’s what America is turning into,” McLean told The Hudson Independent. “It’s just a big baby syndrome that takes over, because they have everything, and that’s kind of what happens in the song. It will always be the same story. And it’s a good story to remember, because we can turn around and start to say, ‘Hey, we got to quit this and do something about it.”
A Homecoming
On December 6, McLean returns to the Tarrytown Music Hall to perform “A Starry Christmas—A Night of Hits and Holiday Favorites.” His seasoned band, which consists of two electric guitars, piano, bass and drums, provides a lot of room for musical dynamics, he said, including some good old rock and roll.
“I play all the big songs, some new songs, as well as some Christmas songs,” said McLean, whose other hits include “Vincent,” “Empty Chairs” “Castles in the Air,” and his stunning version of Roy Orbison’s “Crying,” among others.
Last year, McLean also released Christmas Memories, Remixed and Remastered, which include new personnel and instrumentation on “Blue Christmas,” “Oh Little Town of Bethlehem” and “Santa Clause is Coming to Town,” along with seven other holiday favorites.
“I really love Christmas music, and I’m going to put out a volume two, probably not this year, but next year, because the same company that put American Boys out, which is Sony Orchid, they’re releasing 17 of my albums in the next two years,” he shared, adding they will be available on CD and vinyl, derived from the original two-track master recordings. “The first three will be Primetime, Chain Lightning and Believers.”
The Tarrytown gig also represents a homecoming of sorts for McLean. His mother’s side of the family, the “New Rochelle Bucci’s,” will be there in force, along with many old pals. “I see all my Italian relatives, they all come out. I usually have a meet and greet with about 30 of them,” he shared. Returning to the Hudson Valley also reminds him of his long-ago musical family, noting that he might play Pete Seeger’s song, “In Tarrytown.” McLean joyfully offered the following verse acapela over the phone: “In Tarrytown there did dwell a lovely youth, I knew him well…That’s really a nice old song and I loved singing it with Seeger.”
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