Attachment Parenting International Announces Benefit Concert
Featuring Delbert McClinton & Friends on October 18, 2003
For further information, contact:
Lysa Parker,
Executive Director, Attachment Parenting International
256-430-4370
Nashville, TN -- Attachment Parenting International (API) announces a benefit concert featuring Delbert McClinton with special guests Alison Krauss and Ron Block. Also performing will be Don Henry, Jeffrey Steele, Gary Nicholson and “surprise” guests. The concert will take place Saturday, October 18, 2003 at 7:30 p.m. in the Ford Theater at the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum. There will be a reception with the artists in the Rotunda following the concert. Proceeds from the concert will benefit Attachment Parenting International, the Nashville based non-profit organization.
Grammy award winning artists Delbert McClinton (New West Records) and Alison Krauss (Rounder Records) are advocates for attachment parenting methods and support the vision of Attachment Parenting International, “Peaceful Parenting for a Peaceful World.”
Tickets are available for the concert. Ticket prices are $75 for the concert only, and $100 for the concert and reception following with the artists. A portion of the ticket price is tax-deductible. Please call Attachment Parenting International at 615-298-4334 or email for more information.
Attachment Parenting International promotes parenting methods that create strong, healthy emotional bonds between children and their parents. Through education, support, advocacy and research, Attachment Parenting International seeks to strengthen families and increase awareness of the importance of secure attachment, ultimately helping to reduce or prevent child abuse, behavioral disorders, criminal acts and other serious social problems. More information about Attachment Parenting International can be found at www.attachmentparenting.org.
THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/04/arts/music/04DELB.html
October 4, 2003
A 40-Year Meander to Fame
By PETER APPLEBOME
He began his career dodging flying bottles and whipping through greasy versions of “Watermelon Man” and “Tequila” behind the strippers on the Jacksboro Highway, the infamous Fort Worth honky-tonk row.
During 40-plus years he has flirted with bankruptcy, burnout and all the standard issues of substance abuse and familial chaos that come along with a career at the ragged edges of a lifelong road trip.
But these days Delbert McClinton finds himself in the strangest place of all - the mainstream - with respectability, acclaim and even, as his last CD was called “Room to Breathe.”
As he prepares to play at the B. B. King Blues Club and Grill in Manhattan tonight and to release a new live album later this month, even he finds himself a bit flummoxed by his slow crawl toward becoming kind of, sort of, hot.
“I think I just became the guy who wouldn't go away,” said Mr. McClinton, whose raucous blend of blues, rockabilly, country and R&B has finally gone from cult status to mainstream appeal. “I never would have guessed I'd ever get to this point, but for now it's a pretty good place to be.”
Or as Willie Nelson said: “It's about time. Delbert's stuck to his guns, he's been really good for a really long time, and he's as good as anyone.”
Mr. McClinton was born in Lubbock, Tex., in 1940, the son of a railroad switchman and a beautician; they moved to Fort Worth when he was 11. By the time he was 17, he was fronting bands, playing harmonica and singing to a blend of lowlifes, petty crooks and local honky-tonkers, like the old gangster he still warmly recalls who always wore a silver sharkskin suit and got all misty when his lady bought him a chrome-plated .45 automatic for Christmas.
Mr. McClinton imbibed everything from Bob Wills and Hank Williams to Sonny Boy Williamson and Big Joe Turner, tapping so many sources that he has never had a ready commercial niche.
His first big moment came in 1962, playing harmonica on Bruce Chanel's hit “Hey! Baby.” He hung out with the Beatles later that year and eventually became a fixture in every roadhouse and blues club south of the Mason-Dixon line. In 1975 he released his first solo album, “Victim of Life's Circumstances.” John Belushi, a big fan, got him national exposure as a repeat guest on “Saturday Night Live,” and for the first time it looked as if he might hit it big.
Instead, in a bid for a spot in the Bad Luck Hall of Fame, he saw every label he recorded for between 1971 and 1981 go out of business. He toured frantically but was hit with an I.R.S. bill for $280,000 at a time he was clearing $18,000 a year.
“I was about to give up on myself,” he said. “I played all the time, but I wasn't even making enough to keep a band together. I was just spinning in a circle and not going anywhere.”
Things began to change in the mid-80's when he took up with Wendy Goldstein, an NBC news producer from Long Island. She took over his business affairs, and things began turning around. (They wed in 1996.) His 1989 CD “Live From Austin,” won a Grammy nomination for best contemporary blues album. She used her NBC retirement money to buy a very used GMC 4104 bus that saved them a fortune on lease and rental fees; she also untangled publishing rights that started bringing in money that had been lost for years and worked out a repayment schedule with the I.R.S.
In 1991 he won his first Grammy for a duet with Bonnie Raitt on “Good Man, Good Woman.” After other setbacks and bad record deals, he decided to finance, help produce and take ownership of his own records. In 2001 he won a Grammy for “Nothing Personal” and was nominated for “Room to Breathe” a year later. Those two CD's sold about 200,000 copies each: not Madonna, but not bad.
And partly because of support from Don Imus, an ardent fan for three decades who never misses a chance to put him on his radio and television show, Mr. McClinton has more visibility than ever.
Admirers say that at 62 he is better than ever.
“Delbert's stayed authentic and true to his funkiest roots, while still stretching himself in a really admirable way,” Ms. Raitt said, “which is a very rare quality in this business.”
In some ways his low-gloss success at doing what he's done for 40 years is the ultimate anomaly in a business built on youth, novelty and finding a narrow radio niche. But in other ways it makes sense.
“Americana” may be more a catchall term than a real radio format, but the success of artists like Lucinda Williams and John Hiatt, the ardent following of stations like WFUV-FM in New York, and the tastes of aging baby boomers all run in his direction. And if anyone is “Americana,” it is Mr. McClinton, whose music includes almost all the diverse strains included in whatever big tent “Americana” is supposed to be.
He still tours regularly but now has the luxury of slowing down a bit to spend more time with his wife and 10-year-old daughter in Nashville. And though he is not quite Amalgamated Delbert Enterprises Inc., in addition to the usual caps, T-shirts and the like, he does sponsor an annual boozy cruise to theCaribbean for fellow musicians, friends and fans.
Success, too, has its perils, but no one seems be worrying that Mr. McClinton is going to sell out at this late date.
“It's not his first rodeo,” Mr. Imus said. “I think he'll be O.K.”
# # #
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 21, 2003
DELBERT McCLINTON'S LIVE ALBUM,
SCHEDULED FOR OCT. 21 RELEASE, IS DEFINITIVE LIVE COLLECTION
2-CD Set Recorded in Norway
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Live, the forthcoming two-CD concert set from Grammy®-winning performer Delbert McClinton, is the definitive live collection from a showman whose loyal audiences will follow him to the end of the earth. Featuring 19 songs, the album was recorded live for Norwegian radio at the Bergen Blues Festival at the Teatergasjen venue. The double album will be released on New West Records on October 21.
The recording was not originally intended to be an album. But when the tapes from the Norwegian radio performance were played back, everyone present knew that it was a keeper. Don Smith (Rolling Stones, Tom Petty) mixed and the end result is the best live Delbert McClinton album yet.
The collection features some of Delbert's best-known live staples including “Giving It Up For Your Love” (a Top 10 rock hit from 1980), “Old Weakness,” “Leap Of Faith,” “B-Movie Box Car Blues” (a showstopper for the Blues Brothers),“I Wanna Love You,” “Livin' It Down” plus 14 others. Also featured are “Rebecca Rebecca,” a pastiche of old blues songs Delbert has known and loved over the years; “Dreams To Remember,” originally by Otis Redding; and “A Fine & Healthy Thing,” which dates back to Billy “The Kid” Emerson on Sun Records. It is the first time that many of the songs have been available in one collection -- and on one label.
According to Delbert, “We've recorded several shows but this one came out the best. The folks in Bergen had great equipment, great engineers and, as it so happened, we had a really great night. It sounds live and I like that. The band is over-the-top great on it!”
Live is Delbert's second in-concert album, the first one being the Grammy®-nominated Live In Austin (Alligator.) But with two discs and 19 tracks, the new album covers extensive musical ground, from Delbert's blues origins on through his Grammy® winning album on New West.
Journalists have long waxed rhapsodic about Delbert's live shows. Wrote Silas House in No Depression: “(When Delbert plays,) the people twirl and snap their fingers. They throw back their heads, arch their shoulders to the beat. They stomp their feet and move their hips and close their eyes, lost in the music. There is that honky-tonk aroma of beer and sweat and a hundred different perfumes combined into one overpowering good-time scent. Kind of like the Cotton Club 50-some years ago, when McClinton's own parents just wanted to have fun.” Entertainment Weekly called him “one of the planet's greatest roadhouse rockers.”
The album leads in to one of the greatest live events of Delbert's career -- the 10th annual Delbert McClinton Sandy Beaches Cruise -- which will sail from the Port of Fort Lauderdale to The Bahamas, Tortola and St. Thomas V.I. from January 11 - 18, 2004. More information on the cruise, and on Delbert himself, is available at http://www.delbert.com
# # #
For Immediate Release:
January 23, 2003
Readers of World's Largest Blues Publication Elect Tommy Castro
as Blues Artist of the Year
Delbert McClinton's Room To Breathe Takes Album of the Year
DES MOINES, Iowa---The readers of BluesWax, the largest subscribed Blues publication in the world, have selected San Francisco-based Tommy Castro as BluesWax Blues Artist of the Year. In the same reader poll, the largest open to fans in the Blues genre, Delbert McClinton's Room To Breathe was selected as BluesWax Blues Album of the Year.
Castro was selected as Blues Artist of the Year from a final reader-selected ballot that also included Delbert McClinton, Tab Benoit, Susan Tedeschi and Rick Holmstrom. Tommy Castro is known for his passionate, soulful performances that blend rock, soul and blues with his personal high energy. Castro's 2001 release Guilty of Love received strong reviews from many critics in blues and mainstream publications. He will be releasing a new album next month.
Room To Breathe was selected as Blues Album of the Year from a final reader-selected ballot that also included Susan Tedeschi's Wait For Me, Shemekia Copeland's Talking To Strangers, Jody Williams' comeback album Return of a Legend and Tab Benoit's Wetlands.
Delbert McClinton's Room To Breathe is also nominated for a Grammy® Award for “Best Contemporary Blues Album.”
BluesWax is the largest subscribed Blues publication in the world with readers in more than twenty countries. BluesWax is delivered free to subscribers each week via email. For more information, or to subscribe, go to www.blueswax.com.
BluesWax is published by Visionation, Ltd., one of the largest online publishing houses with more than forty weekly publications. More information at www.visnat.com.
For more information:
Chip Eagle
Publisher, Music
Visionation, Publisher of BluesWax, FolkWax and forty other cool ezines
815 Office Park Road #9
West Des Moines, Iowa 50265
515.440.0610
www.visnat.com
January 7, 2003
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DELBERT McCLINTON'S ROOM TO BREATHE ALBUM NOMINATED FOR GRAMMY® FOR “BEST CONTEMPORARY BLUES ALBUM”
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Delbert McClinton's critically acclaimed, commercially successful album Room To Breathe (New West Records) was nominated for a Grammy® Award in the category of “Best Contemporary Blues Album,” it was announced today at the Grammy® Award press conference here.
Delbert is a two-time previous Grammy® Award winner, having won last year (2002) in the category of “Best Contemporary Blues Recording” for his album Nothing Personal, as well as “Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group” in 1991 with Bonnie Raitt for their duet “Good Man, Good Woman.” He was also nominated in 1988 in the “Best Contemporary Blues” category for his album Live In Austin.
The 45th annual Grammy® Awards will be announced and televised on Wednesday, February 23, 2002, from Madison Square Garden in New York.
2002 was a successful year for Delbert, whose Room To Breathe album charted on five Billboard charts simultaneously, topped Americana airplay charts for several weeks, received accolades in the media, and exposure via national TV. A brief recap of the album's achievements follows:
Among the excerpts from major reviews:
“Nothing Personal, won him a Grammy® for best contemporary blues album. If anything, Room to Breathe is even better... a freewheeling collection of raucous roadhouse (“Money Honey”) and killer boogie (“Blues About You Baby.”)” -- USA Today
“It would be a challenge for some artists to follow such a terrific success (Nothing Personal), but this is Delbert McClinton, for whom cutting cool tracks is business as usual.” -- Billboard
“...(McClinton) has rarely sounded as comfortable as he does here (on Room to Breathe).” -- Rolling Stone “The follow-up to last year's Grammy®-winning Nothing Personal finds him hitting on all six cylinders for the second consecutive time...with sharp, succinct ensemble playing and grooves deep enough to bury whole audiences, the autumnal McClinton is shaping up to be the best McClinton of all.” -- Blender
“Delbert McClinton is the quintessential Texas roadhouse rocker, applying his well-traveled rasp to songs from the hard-loving intersections of blues, country and soul.” -- The New York Times
“(On) Room to Breathe...syncopated syllables are connected to catchy melodies and smart funny lyrics. The rhythmic accents fuse blues and honky-tonk into one of McClinton's finest efforts ever.” --The Washington Post
And now, in 2003, there are no signs of slowing down. Delbert will soon embark upon the nineth annual “Delbert McClinton & Friends Sandy Beaches Tour” (http://www.delbert.com) from January 11-18 featuring a compendium of legendary country, blues, Americana and rock musicians. He will continue to tour the U.S. extensively with a side trip to Europe.
# # #
October 2, 2002
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DELBERT McCLINTON NEW ALBUM ROOM TO BREATHE DEBUTS AT #1 ON BILLBOARD BLUES ALBUM CHART: TWO ALBUMS IN TOP 10 WITH GRAMMY® -WINNING NOTHING PERSONAL NOW IN 82nd CHARTING WEEK ALSO DEBUTS ACROSS THE BOARD ON TOP 200, COUNTRY, INDIE AND INTERNET ALBUM CHARTS
AUSTIN, Texas -- American music legend Delbert McClinton has sprung onto the Billboard charts with his new album, Room To Breathe (New West Records). Delbert has always defied musical categorization as illustrated by his high entry on three other Billboard sales charts: Pop Albums (Top 200), Country Albums, Independent Albums and Internet Albums.
- #1* Blues Album Chart
- #84* Top 200 Albums
- #12* Country Album Chart
- #4* Independent Album Chart
- #5* Internet Album Chart
In addition to snaring the #1 position on the Billboard Blues Album chart, Delbert's last album, the Grammy® Award-winning Nothing Personal, has surged into the #6 position on the chart.
The excellent reception extends to press as well, where, among many other outlets, the Washington Post called it “one of McClinton's finest efforts ever.” Pulse! writes, “Delbert McClinton's follow-up to the Grammy®-winning Nothing Personal plays the same cards and wins again.” The Philadelphia Inquirer adds, “McClinton has been on a remarkable roll during the last several years, and it continues here.”
Delbert McClinton appeared on “Imus In The Morning” on New York radio and nationally on MSNBC-TV on the album's September 24 street date. He will return to New York, appear on “Good Day New York” on October 10, and on Imus once again on October 11, and will headline a two-nighter at B.B. King's on October 11 & 12.
Delbert will spend the rest of 2002 touring the U.S., and will embark on the 9th annual Delbert McClinton Sandy Beaches Cruise on January 11-18, 2003, flanked with a ship full of American music legends and fans.
# # #
DELBERT McCLINTON FOLLOWS BANNER YEAR WITH NEW
ALBUM, ROOM TO BREATHE, ON NEW WEST RECORDS
New Album, Out September 24, Follows Grammy® Award Winning Nothing Personal,
Still on Charts after 70 Weeks. Famous Friends Join Chorus on “Lone Star Blues”.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- American music legend Delbert McClinton will follow up his Grammy® Award-winning Nothing Personal album with a new CD, Room To Breathe, scheduled for September 24 release on New West Records. The new album, produced by Delbert with long-time collaborator Gary Nicholson, features 12 new songs, all of which he wrote or co-wrote.
One of the album's songs, “Lone Star Blues,” features what Delbert calls a “Gang Sang” - a chorus including friends Joe Ely, Butch Hancock, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell, Heather Waters and Jessi Alexander (all of whom recorded their parts in Nashville), plus Billy Joe Shaver, Ray Benson, Marcia Ball and Kimmie Rhodes (who recorded their parts in Austin.)
Bekka Bramlett also sang backup on a few songs, James Pennebaker (alumnus of Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Lee Roy Parnell) contributed fiddle and pedal steel guitar, and Austin's venerated Bill Campbell played rhythm guitar. Delbert even enlisted a string section for two songs: “Everything I Know About The Blues (I Learned From You)” and “I Don't Wanna Love You Anymore.”
Among his songwriting collaborators on the album are Gary Nicholson, Benmont Tench, Al Anderson (formerly of NRBQ), Tom Faulkner, Billy Lawson and Fred Knobloch.
Among the many kickoff events for the album will be a national television appearance on the NBC special, “Dare To Dream 2002 ... A Concert For Hope,” a charity special hosted by “Access Hollywood”'s Billy Bush and WNBC's Lynda Lopez, and also featuring Michelle Branch and Sara Evans, among many others, and set to air on September 7. Delbert will spend the album's release date, September 24, in New York with an appearance on the nationally syndicated “Imus In The Morning,” plus other New York-based media.
Room To Breathe follows one of the music industry's top independent success stories of the past two years in Delbert's predecessor album, Nothing Personal, which achieved several distinctions, among which:
And as it does every January, the Delbert McClinton Sandy Beaches Cruise -- now in its ninth year -- will sail the Caribbean flanked with a full cabin of great American music artists.
###
Indeed, the venerable Texan by way of Fort Worth who now calls Nashville home turned the Roxy into a good ol' Texas juke joint with a hell-raising, nearly two-hour performance that showed that McClinton remains an American music treasure. His set, arguably one of the year's best club dates, seamlessly blended Memphis soul, Texas honky-tonk, rootsy Southern rock and Tex-Mex country, all sung by one of the most convincing singer-tunesmiths on the circuit.
Touring because he lives to do so but also because he's got a critically acclaimed album out on Austin indie label New West Records called “Nothing Personal” (his first new record in three long years), McClinton hadn't shown his pretty face around these parts for quite some time. The enthusiastic bunch that showed up was glad he did, though. Opening with a rousing cover of “Take Me to the River,” McClinton was in hellacious form from the get-go. Bawling out the lyrics like a man possessed, he and his way-hot six-piece band turned this many-times-covered composition into their own song as the two horns -- a sax and trumpet, sounding like a 10-piece section -- punched out the melody. McClinton and the rest of the boys pulled out all the stops as the song became a slice of Texas R&B/funk that set the standard for the rest of the evening.
Delbert and Co. jumped from one hot number to the next, a seamless mix of sound no matter what genre of music he pulled from up his sleeve. The punchy gospel of “I'm With You” melted into a stomping roadhouse shuffle before segueing into the slower, sparse pure blues of “I Just Want to Love You,” an emotional number that showcased the subtler talents of his extraordinary band via a muted trumpet solo and a riveting sax section, both solos very jazzy in nature. A taste of Stones-y rock, similar to “Honky Tonk Women,” followed before a soulful cover of John Hiatt's “Have a Little Faith in Me” left the house spellbound.
Much of the rest of the set was songs from the new album, each as good as the next, all revealing how wonderfully disparate and well-wrought McClinton's influences are. He even left the stage for two numbers to let the band cook on its own, smiling from the wings as they roared through a blues shuffle and a serious boogie-woogie.
McClinton also graced the faithful with his impeccable harp playing. He's one of the best in the country on this instrument, his economic playing and riffing adding yet another layer of rhythm and hues to his flawless approach. This was real music, miles away from the synthetic packaged crap being force-fed to the masses these days, performed from the gut, sung with fire and passion by a man who has as much fun doing this now as he did when he started 40 years ago. Just don't be such a stranger to these parts, preacher man.
Delbert McClinton, neatly coifed and with a natty mustache, clearly was inspired by the caliber of musicians in his seven-piece band during Monday's show at the Birchmere. The Texas native issued forth a torrent of roadhouse blues that mesmerized and energized the sold-out audience.
Now in his fourth decade of recording, McClinton has a voice that possesses an effective choked rasp on low notes and is equally capable of drawing tears--as he did during the brilliant ballad "You Were Never Mine"--and spontaneous standing ovations, as with his 1980 hit "Giving It Up for Your Love."
Guitarist Todd Sharp crushed out stinging blues solos while Hammond B-3 organist Steve Bassett created a melodic undercurrent that supported the emotive brass of trumpeter Terry Townson and Don Wise's tenor sax.
Piano player and area native Kevin McKendree proved that the kid can hang with these blues veterans, pounding out Moon Mullican-like barrelhouse riffs and song-stopping solos, including "I'm With You." With "Old Weakness (Coming on Strong)," the band--propelled by bassist George Harkins and drummer Lynn Williams--built an escalating wall of sound, hitting a delirious peak that any band would have found suitable as a finale. As this was Delbert McClinton, it was only five songs into the show, and it got better from there.
Featuring Delbert McClinton & Friends on October 18, 2003
For further information, contact:
Lysa Parker,
Executive Director, Attachment Parenting International
256-430-4370
Nashville, TN -- Attachment Parenting International (API) announces a benefit concert featuring Delbert McClinton with special guests Alison Krauss and Ron Block. Also performing will be Don Henry, Jeffrey Steele, Gary Nicholson and “surprise” guests. The concert will take place Saturday, October 18, 2003 at 7:30 p.m. in the Ford Theater at the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum. There will be a reception with the artists in the Rotunda following the concert. Proceeds from the concert will benefit Attachment Parenting International, the Nashville based non-profit organization.
Grammy award winning artists Delbert McClinton (New West Records) and Alison Krauss (Rounder Records) are advocates for attachment parenting methods and support the vision of Attachment Parenting International, “Peaceful Parenting for a Peaceful World.”
Tickets are available for the concert. Ticket prices are $75 for the concert only, and $100 for the concert and reception following with the artists. A portion of the ticket price is tax-deductible. Please call Attachment Parenting International at 615-298-4334 or email for more information.
Attachment Parenting International promotes parenting methods that create strong, healthy emotional bonds between children and their parents. Through education, support, advocacy and research, Attachment Parenting International seeks to strengthen families and increase awareness of the importance of secure attachment, ultimately helping to reduce or prevent child abuse, behavioral disorders, criminal acts and other serious social problems. More information about Attachment Parenting International can be found at www.attachmentparenting.org.
THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/04/arts/music/04DELB.html
October 4, 2003
A 40-Year Meander to Fame
By PETER APPLEBOME
He began his career dodging flying bottles and whipping through greasy versions of “Watermelon Man” and “Tequila” behind the strippers on the Jacksboro Highway, the infamous Fort Worth honky-tonk row.
During 40-plus years he has flirted with bankruptcy, burnout and all the standard issues of substance abuse and familial chaos that come along with a career at the ragged edges of a lifelong road trip.
But these days Delbert McClinton finds himself in the strangest place of all - the mainstream - with respectability, acclaim and even, as his last CD was called “Room to Breathe.”
As he prepares to play at the B. B. King Blues Club and Grill in Manhattan tonight and to release a new live album later this month, even he finds himself a bit flummoxed by his slow crawl toward becoming kind of, sort of, hot.
“I think I just became the guy who wouldn't go away,” said Mr. McClinton, whose raucous blend of blues, rockabilly, country and R&B has finally gone from cult status to mainstream appeal. “I never would have guessed I'd ever get to this point, but for now it's a pretty good place to be.”
Or as Willie Nelson said: “It's about time. Delbert's stuck to his guns, he's been really good for a really long time, and he's as good as anyone.”
Mr. McClinton was born in Lubbock, Tex., in 1940, the son of a railroad switchman and a beautician; they moved to Fort Worth when he was 11. By the time he was 17, he was fronting bands, playing harmonica and singing to a blend of lowlifes, petty crooks and local honky-tonkers, like the old gangster he still warmly recalls who always wore a silver sharkskin suit and got all misty when his lady bought him a chrome-plated .45 automatic for Christmas.
Mr. McClinton imbibed everything from Bob Wills and Hank Williams to Sonny Boy Williamson and Big Joe Turner, tapping so many sources that he has never had a ready commercial niche.
His first big moment came in 1962, playing harmonica on Bruce Chanel's hit “Hey! Baby.” He hung out with the Beatles later that year and eventually became a fixture in every roadhouse and blues club south of the Mason-Dixon line. In 1975 he released his first solo album, “Victim of Life's Circumstances.” John Belushi, a big fan, got him national exposure as a repeat guest on “Saturday Night Live,” and for the first time it looked as if he might hit it big.
Instead, in a bid for a spot in the Bad Luck Hall of Fame, he saw every label he recorded for between 1971 and 1981 go out of business. He toured frantically but was hit with an I.R.S. bill for $280,000 at a time he was clearing $18,000 a year.
“I was about to give up on myself,” he said. “I played all the time, but I wasn't even making enough to keep a band together. I was just spinning in a circle and not going anywhere.”
Things began to change in the mid-80's when he took up with Wendy Goldstein, an NBC news producer from Long Island. She took over his business affairs, and things began turning around. (They wed in 1996.) His 1989 CD “Live From Austin,” won a Grammy nomination for best contemporary blues album. She used her NBC retirement money to buy a very used GMC 4104 bus that saved them a fortune on lease and rental fees; she also untangled publishing rights that started bringing in money that had been lost for years and worked out a repayment schedule with the I.R.S.
In 1991 he won his first Grammy for a duet with Bonnie Raitt on “Good Man, Good Woman.” After other setbacks and bad record deals, he decided to finance, help produce and take ownership of his own records. In 2001 he won a Grammy for “Nothing Personal” and was nominated for “Room to Breathe” a year later. Those two CD's sold about 200,000 copies each: not Madonna, but not bad.
And partly because of support from Don Imus, an ardent fan for three decades who never misses a chance to put him on his radio and television show, Mr. McClinton has more visibility than ever.
Admirers say that at 62 he is better than ever.
“Delbert's stayed authentic and true to his funkiest roots, while still stretching himself in a really admirable way,” Ms. Raitt said, “which is a very rare quality in this business.”
In some ways his low-gloss success at doing what he's done for 40 years is the ultimate anomaly in a business built on youth, novelty and finding a narrow radio niche. But in other ways it makes sense.
“Americana” may be more a catchall term than a real radio format, but the success of artists like Lucinda Williams and John Hiatt, the ardent following of stations like WFUV-FM in New York, and the tastes of aging baby boomers all run in his direction. And if anyone is “Americana,” it is Mr. McClinton, whose music includes almost all the diverse strains included in whatever big tent “Americana” is supposed to be.
He still tours regularly but now has the luxury of slowing down a bit to spend more time with his wife and 10-year-old daughter in Nashville. And though he is not quite Amalgamated Delbert Enterprises Inc., in addition to the usual caps, T-shirts and the like, he does sponsor an annual boozy cruise to theCaribbean for fellow musicians, friends and fans.
Success, too, has its perils, but no one seems be worrying that Mr. McClinton is going to sell out at this late date.
“It's not his first rodeo,” Mr. Imus said. “I think he'll be O.K.”
# # #
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 21, 2003
DELBERT McCLINTON'S LIVE ALBUM,
SCHEDULED FOR OCT. 21 RELEASE, IS DEFINITIVE LIVE COLLECTION
2-CD Set Recorded in Norway
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Live, the forthcoming two-CD concert set from Grammy®-winning performer Delbert McClinton, is the definitive live collection from a showman whose loyal audiences will follow him to the end of the earth. Featuring 19 songs, the album was recorded live for Norwegian radio at the Bergen Blues Festival at the Teatergasjen venue. The double album will be released on New West Records on October 21.
The recording was not originally intended to be an album. But when the tapes from the Norwegian radio performance were played back, everyone present knew that it was a keeper. Don Smith (Rolling Stones, Tom Petty) mixed and the end result is the best live Delbert McClinton album yet.
The collection features some of Delbert's best-known live staples including “Giving It Up For Your Love” (a Top 10 rock hit from 1980), “Old Weakness,” “Leap Of Faith,” “B-Movie Box Car Blues” (a showstopper for the Blues Brothers),“I Wanna Love You,” “Livin' It Down” plus 14 others. Also featured are “Rebecca Rebecca,” a pastiche of old blues songs Delbert has known and loved over the years; “Dreams To Remember,” originally by Otis Redding; and “A Fine & Healthy Thing,” which dates back to Billy “The Kid” Emerson on Sun Records. It is the first time that many of the songs have been available in one collection -- and on one label.
According to Delbert, “We've recorded several shows but this one came out the best. The folks in Bergen had great equipment, great engineers and, as it so happened, we had a really great night. It sounds live and I like that. The band is over-the-top great on it!”
Live is Delbert's second in-concert album, the first one being the Grammy®-nominated Live In Austin (Alligator.) But with two discs and 19 tracks, the new album covers extensive musical ground, from Delbert's blues origins on through his Grammy® winning album on New West.
Journalists have long waxed rhapsodic about Delbert's live shows. Wrote Silas House in No Depression: “(When Delbert plays,) the people twirl and snap their fingers. They throw back their heads, arch their shoulders to the beat. They stomp their feet and move their hips and close their eyes, lost in the music. There is that honky-tonk aroma of beer and sweat and a hundred different perfumes combined into one overpowering good-time scent. Kind of like the Cotton Club 50-some years ago, when McClinton's own parents just wanted to have fun.” Entertainment Weekly called him “one of the planet's greatest roadhouse rockers.”
The album leads in to one of the greatest live events of Delbert's career -- the 10th annual Delbert McClinton Sandy Beaches Cruise -- which will sail from the Port of Fort Lauderdale to The Bahamas, Tortola and St. Thomas V.I. from January 11 - 18, 2004. More information on the cruise, and on Delbert himself, is available at http://www.delbert.com
# # #
For Immediate Release:
January 23, 2003
Readers of World's Largest Blues Publication Elect Tommy Castro
as Blues Artist of the Year
Delbert McClinton's Room To Breathe Takes Album of the Year
DES MOINES, Iowa---The readers of BluesWax, the largest subscribed Blues publication in the world, have selected San Francisco-based Tommy Castro as BluesWax Blues Artist of the Year. In the same reader poll, the largest open to fans in the Blues genre, Delbert McClinton's Room To Breathe was selected as BluesWax Blues Album of the Year.
Castro was selected as Blues Artist of the Year from a final reader-selected ballot that also included Delbert McClinton, Tab Benoit, Susan Tedeschi and Rick Holmstrom. Tommy Castro is known for his passionate, soulful performances that blend rock, soul and blues with his personal high energy. Castro's 2001 release Guilty of Love received strong reviews from many critics in blues and mainstream publications. He will be releasing a new album next month.
Room To Breathe was selected as Blues Album of the Year from a final reader-selected ballot that also included Susan Tedeschi's Wait For Me, Shemekia Copeland's Talking To Strangers, Jody Williams' comeback album Return of a Legend and Tab Benoit's Wetlands.
Delbert McClinton's Room To Breathe is also nominated for a Grammy® Award for “Best Contemporary Blues Album.”
BluesWax is the largest subscribed Blues publication in the world with readers in more than twenty countries. BluesWax is delivered free to subscribers each week via email. For more information, or to subscribe, go to www.blueswax.com.
BluesWax is published by Visionation, Ltd., one of the largest online publishing houses with more than forty weekly publications. More information at www.visnat.com.
For more information:
Chip Eagle
Publisher, Music
Visionation, Publisher of BluesWax, FolkWax and forty other cool ezines
815 Office Park Road #9
West Des Moines, Iowa 50265
515.440.0610
www.visnat.com
January 7, 2003
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DELBERT McCLINTON'S ROOM TO BREATHE ALBUM NOMINATED FOR GRAMMY® FOR “BEST CONTEMPORARY BLUES ALBUM”
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Delbert McClinton's critically acclaimed, commercially successful album Room To Breathe (New West Records) was nominated for a Grammy® Award in the category of “Best Contemporary Blues Album,” it was announced today at the Grammy® Award press conference here.
Delbert is a two-time previous Grammy® Award winner, having won last year (2002) in the category of “Best Contemporary Blues Recording” for his album Nothing Personal, as well as “Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group” in 1991 with Bonnie Raitt for their duet “Good Man, Good Woman.” He was also nominated in 1988 in the “Best Contemporary Blues” category for his album Live In Austin.
The 45th annual Grammy® Awards will be announced and televised on Wednesday, February 23, 2002, from Madison Square Garden in New York.
2002 was a successful year for Delbert, whose Room To Breathe album charted on five Billboard charts simultaneously, topped Americana airplay charts for several weeks, received accolades in the media, and exposure via national TV. A brief recap of the album's achievements follows:
- Topped Billboard's Blues Album chart for 10 weeks, while simultaneously charting high in Billboard's Country Albums, Independent and Internet Sales charts.
- “No. 1 Americana Album of the Year” on the Album Network Americana Roots chart, spent four weeks at No. 1 and 15 weeks in the Top 10.
- Delbert and Nothing Personal ranked Billboard's No. 3 blues artist and No. 5 blues album in the magazine's year end issue.
- Appeared this year on “Late Night with Conan O'Brien,” “Austin City Limits,” “ Reuters TV” and Fox TV's “Good Day New York.”
- Featured on NPR's “Prairie Home Companion,” “E Town,” “Woodsongs,” “American Routes,” AP Radio, XM, Sirius and “House of Blues Radio.”
Among the excerpts from major reviews:
“Nothing Personal, won him a Grammy® for best contemporary blues album. If anything, Room to Breathe is even better... a freewheeling collection of raucous roadhouse (“Money Honey”) and killer boogie (“Blues About You Baby.”)” -- USA Today
“It would be a challenge for some artists to follow such a terrific success (Nothing Personal), but this is Delbert McClinton, for whom cutting cool tracks is business as usual.” -- Billboard
“...(McClinton) has rarely sounded as comfortable as he does here (on Room to Breathe).” -- Rolling Stone “The follow-up to last year's Grammy®-winning Nothing Personal finds him hitting on all six cylinders for the second consecutive time...with sharp, succinct ensemble playing and grooves deep enough to bury whole audiences, the autumnal McClinton is shaping up to be the best McClinton of all.” -- Blender
“Delbert McClinton is the quintessential Texas roadhouse rocker, applying his well-traveled rasp to songs from the hard-loving intersections of blues, country and soul.” -- The New York Times
“(On) Room to Breathe...syncopated syllables are connected to catchy melodies and smart funny lyrics. The rhythmic accents fuse blues and honky-tonk into one of McClinton's finest efforts ever.” --The Washington Post
And now, in 2003, there are no signs of slowing down. Delbert will soon embark upon the nineth annual “Delbert McClinton & Friends Sandy Beaches Tour” (http://www.delbert.com) from January 11-18 featuring a compendium of legendary country, blues, Americana and rock musicians. He will continue to tour the U.S. extensively with a side trip to Europe.
# # #
October 2, 2002
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DELBERT McCLINTON NEW ALBUM ROOM TO BREATHE DEBUTS AT #1 ON BILLBOARD BLUES ALBUM CHART: TWO ALBUMS IN TOP 10 WITH GRAMMY® -WINNING NOTHING PERSONAL NOW IN 82nd CHARTING WEEK ALSO DEBUTS ACROSS THE BOARD ON TOP 200, COUNTRY, INDIE AND INTERNET ALBUM CHARTS
AUSTIN, Texas -- American music legend Delbert McClinton has sprung onto the Billboard charts with his new album, Room To Breathe (New West Records). Delbert has always defied musical categorization as illustrated by his high entry on three other Billboard sales charts: Pop Albums (Top 200), Country Albums, Independent Albums and Internet Albums.
- #1* Blues Album Chart
- #84* Top 200 Albums
- #12* Country Album Chart
- #4* Independent Album Chart
- #5* Internet Album Chart
In addition to snaring the #1 position on the Billboard Blues Album chart, Delbert's last album, the Grammy® Award-winning Nothing Personal, has surged into the #6 position on the chart.
The excellent reception extends to press as well, where, among many other outlets, the Washington Post called it “one of McClinton's finest efforts ever.” Pulse! writes, “Delbert McClinton's follow-up to the Grammy®-winning Nothing Personal plays the same cards and wins again.” The Philadelphia Inquirer adds, “McClinton has been on a remarkable roll during the last several years, and it continues here.”
Delbert McClinton appeared on “Imus In The Morning” on New York radio and nationally on MSNBC-TV on the album's September 24 street date. He will return to New York, appear on “Good Day New York” on October 10, and on Imus once again on October 11, and will headline a two-nighter at B.B. King's on October 11 & 12.
Delbert will spend the rest of 2002 touring the U.S., and will embark on the 9th annual Delbert McClinton Sandy Beaches Cruise on January 11-18, 2003, flanked with a ship full of American music legends and fans.
# # #
ALBUM, ROOM TO BREATHE, ON NEW WEST RECORDS
New Album, Out September 24, Follows Grammy® Award Winning Nothing Personal,
Still on Charts after 70 Weeks. Famous Friends Join Chorus on “Lone Star Blues”.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- American music legend Delbert McClinton will follow up his Grammy® Award-winning Nothing Personal album with a new CD, Room To Breathe, scheduled for September 24 release on New West Records. The new album, produced by Delbert with long-time collaborator Gary Nicholson, features 12 new songs, all of which he wrote or co-wrote.
One of the album's songs, “Lone Star Blues,” features what Delbert calls a “Gang Sang” - a chorus including friends Joe Ely, Butch Hancock, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell, Heather Waters and Jessi Alexander (all of whom recorded their parts in Nashville), plus Billy Joe Shaver, Ray Benson, Marcia Ball and Kimmie Rhodes (who recorded their parts in Austin.)
Bekka Bramlett also sang backup on a few songs, James Pennebaker (alumnus of Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Lee Roy Parnell) contributed fiddle and pedal steel guitar, and Austin's venerated Bill Campbell played rhythm guitar. Delbert even enlisted a string section for two songs: “Everything I Know About The Blues (I Learned From You)” and “I Don't Wanna Love You Anymore.”
Among his songwriting collaborators on the album are Gary Nicholson, Benmont Tench, Al Anderson (formerly of NRBQ), Tom Faulkner, Billy Lawson and Fred Knobloch.
Among the many kickoff events for the album will be a national television appearance on the NBC special, “Dare To Dream 2002 ... A Concert For Hope,” a charity special hosted by “Access Hollywood”'s Billy Bush and WNBC's Lynda Lopez, and also featuring Michelle Branch and Sara Evans, among many others, and set to air on September 7. Delbert will spend the album's release date, September 24, in New York with an appearance on the nationally syndicated “Imus In The Morning,” plus other New York-based media.
Room To Breathe follows one of the music industry's top independent success stories of the past two years in Delbert's predecessor album, Nothing Personal, which achieved several distinctions, among which:
- Received the Grammy® Award for “Best Contemporary Blues Recording,” 2002
- “No. 1 Americana Album of the Year” on the Album Network Americana Roots chart, spending a record 12 weeks at No. 1.
- Charted on five Billboard charts for several weeks, and remains in the Top 10 of the Billboard Blues Album chart after 70 weeks.
- Chosen “Album of the Week” by The New York Times and deemed “Mr. McClinton's best recording ever” by The Wall Street Journal
- Appeared on “Saturday Night Live,” “The Late Show with David Letterman,” “The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn,” “Austin City Limits” and “Mountain Stage” (PBS edition)
- Featured on NPR's “Weekend Edition,” “World Cafe,” “E Town,” “Mountain Stage” and “A Prairie Home Companion”
- Rolling Stone wrote, “This Texan comes roaring out of the gate on Nothing Personal,” while Pulse! magazine proclaimed, “This is the second coming of Delbert McClinton.”
And as it does every January, the Delbert McClinton Sandy Beaches Cruise -- now in its ninth year -- will sail the Caribbean flanked with a full cabin of great American music artists.
###
From the HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, Nov. 30, 2001
Concert Review: Delbert McClinton
Roxy, West Hollywood
Wednesday, Nov. 28
Indeed, the venerable Texan by way of Fort Worth who now calls Nashville home turned the Roxy into a good ol' Texas juke joint with a hell-raising, nearly two-hour performance that showed that McClinton remains an American music treasure. His set, arguably one of the year's best club dates, seamlessly blended Memphis soul, Texas honky-tonk, rootsy Southern rock and Tex-Mex country, all sung by one of the most convincing singer-tunesmiths on the circuit.
Touring because he lives to do so but also because he's got a critically acclaimed album out on Austin indie label New West Records called “Nothing Personal” (his first new record in three long years), McClinton hadn't shown his pretty face around these parts for quite some time. The enthusiastic bunch that showed up was glad he did, though. Opening with a rousing cover of “Take Me to the River,” McClinton was in hellacious form from the get-go. Bawling out the lyrics like a man possessed, he and his way-hot six-piece band turned this many-times-covered composition into their own song as the two horns -- a sax and trumpet, sounding like a 10-piece section -- punched out the melody. McClinton and the rest of the boys pulled out all the stops as the song became a slice of Texas R&B/funk that set the standard for the rest of the evening.
Delbert and Co. jumped from one hot number to the next, a seamless mix of sound no matter what genre of music he pulled from up his sleeve. The punchy gospel of “I'm With You” melted into a stomping roadhouse shuffle before segueing into the slower, sparse pure blues of “I Just Want to Love You,” an emotional number that showcased the subtler talents of his extraordinary band via a muted trumpet solo and a riveting sax section, both solos very jazzy in nature. A taste of Stones-y rock, similar to “Honky Tonk Women,” followed before a soulful cover of John Hiatt's “Have a Little Faith in Me” left the house spellbound.
Much of the rest of the set was songs from the new album, each as good as the next, all revealing how wonderfully disparate and well-wrought McClinton's influences are. He even left the stage for two numbers to let the band cook on its own, smiling from the wings as they roared through a blues shuffle and a serious boogie-woogie.
McClinton also graced the faithful with his impeccable harp playing. He's one of the best in the country on this instrument, his economic playing and riffing adding yet another layer of rhythm and hues to his flawless approach. This was real music, miles away from the synthetic packaged crap being force-fed to the masses these days, performed from the gut, sung with fire and passion by a man who has as much fun doing this now as he did when he started 40 years ago. Just don't be such a stranger to these parts, preacher man.
From the Washington Post: Review of Delbert's Performance
July 17 at The
Birchmere in Alexandria, VA
Delbert McClinton, King of the Roadhouse
Delbert McClinton, neatly coifed and with a natty mustache, clearly was inspired by the caliber of musicians in his seven-piece band during Monday's show at the Birchmere. The Texas native issued forth a torrent of roadhouse blues that mesmerized and energized the sold-out audience.
Now in his fourth decade of recording, McClinton has a voice that possesses an effective choked rasp on low notes and is equally capable of drawing tears--as he did during the brilliant ballad "You Were Never Mine"--and spontaneous standing ovations, as with his 1980 hit "Giving It Up for Your Love."
Guitarist Todd Sharp crushed out stinging blues solos while Hammond B-3 organist Steve Bassett created a melodic undercurrent that supported the emotive brass of trumpeter Terry Townson and Don Wise's tenor sax.
Piano player and area native Kevin McKendree proved that the kid can hang with these blues veterans, pounding out Moon Mullican-like barrelhouse riffs and song-stopping solos, including "I'm With You." With "Old Weakness (Coming on Strong)," the band--propelled by bassist George Harkins and drummer Lynn Williams--built an escalating wall of sound, hitting a delirious peak that any band would have found suitable as a finale. As this was Delbert McClinton, it was only five songs into the show, and it got better from there.