A
long, long time ago he wrote about
the day the music died, but for Don
McLean, it was just the beginning.
McLean will perform at the Oxford
Performing Arts Center on June 28. The
show, rescheduled from earlier this year,
starts at 7:30 pm. Ticket prices range from
$25 to $45.
BUY TICKETS
“I’m just excited to come there,” McLean
says of his upcoming visit. “We’ve got a
great band from Nashville that I travel with
all over the world… We are going to rock
and roll.”
Known worldwide for hits like “American
Pie” and “Vincent” (Starry Starry Night),
McLean has enjoyed a fifty year career of
singing and songwriting.
McLean released “American Pie” in 1971
and it went on to be named the fifth
greatest Song of the Century by the
Recording Industry Association of America.
“Over the years it’s become so big,” McLean
recalls. “The fifth greatest song of the
twentieth century and it went into the
Smithsonian. The lyrics I had around the
house went for a million two-hundred
thousand dollars, and you know it’s
become bigger and bigger.”
“It overshadows everything,” McLean
continues, talking about the song that
remained the number one song in the
country for four weeks and topped charts
all over the world. Though “American Pie”
may be his most iconic song, McLean
has spent his life giving us favorites like
“Vincent”, “Castles in the Air”, and others.
INSIGHT
Reflecting on his successful career, McLean
says, “I feel that this is the hand I was
dealt, and it’s a pretty good hand when
you consider it. I’ve had maybe I don’t
know eight or 10 songs in the top 20 and
several that have been number one in
many countries around the world, a lot of
album sales, tremendously long concert
and recording career, and, you know, I’ve
been so fortunate to be able to live this
long and see my children grow up and see
my grandchildren. So it’s really hard for me
to look a gift horse in the mouth. I’m just
thankful for the life that I’ve had.”
McLean has released 21 studio albums and
four live albums over his career and says
he has another one yet to be released. “I’ve
got an album in the can that I want to get
out.”
Though he’s not currently writing
songs, McLean explains what he tried
to accomplish in his music. “The thing
that I do, or try to do, is that I try to get a
feeling. If there’s a feeling in me then I try
to find a way to write something that will
produce that feeling in me when I hear it
even though I don’t feel it anymore. So I go
back to that world, that musical world, and
that will once again cause that feeling. I’m
trying to get emotion in a bottle, if you will,
and I think I’ve managed to do that quite a
few times. I guess I’ve failed to do it quite a
few times too because it’s hard to do.”
McLean, 73, now lives near Palm
Springs, California. “I am enjoying my life
enormously, and I don’t even golf,” he
laughs. “Everybody here golfs.”
Although he’s happy in his California home,
McLean keeps a busy tour schedule and
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