Delbert
& Glen . . .
ROOTS
MUSIC TITAN DELBERT McCLINTON
REUNITES
WITH FELLOW TEXAS TROUBADOUR GLEN CLARK
FOR
THEIR FIRST NEW ALBUM IN 40 YEARS
Blind,
Crippled And Crazy, co-produced by Gary Nicholson,
due
out June 18 on New West Records, blends masterful songwriting,
musical
maturity and down-home humor
NASHVILLE,
Tenn. — Three-time Grammy winner Delbert
McClinton’s 28th album Blind, Crippled and Crazy, set for release
on June 18 on New West
Records, blends R&B, country, blues and rock ’n’ roll with humor, heart
and roadhouse virtuosity. The disc also reunites McClinton with his longtime
friend and musical running partner Glen Clark, making these 12 songs the first
time the seminal roots music duo Delbert & Glen have recorded since
1973.
“We’ve
always had an amazing rapport as musicians and friends, but we’ve been off
living our own lives,” McClinton explains. “For the last decade Glen and me have
been talking about doing another album, and everything fell into place last year
here in Nashville with my songwriting partner Gary Nicholson.”
Besides
co-writing several tracks, Nicholson co-produced the LP with McClinton and Clark
and played guitar alongside drummer Tom Hambridge, fellow six-stringer Bob
Britt, keyboardists Kevin McKendree and Bruce Katz, and other members of
McClinton’s touring band as well as blues guitar hero Anson Funderburgh, who
guests on “Oughta Know,” a hot-licks fest penned by McClinton’s son
Clay.
Blind,
Crippled And Crazy’s opening Texas shuffle “Been Around a Long Time” sets a
reverberating tone of self-deprecating humor, as does the album’s
title.
“We’re a
couple guys who started playing together in ragtag bands around Fort Worth in
the ’60s,” Clark relates, “so we like to poke some fun at ourselves for being
older now.”
Clark
picked up the tune’s tag line many years ago from a feisty 102-year-old woman in
Arkansas, who told him, “Sonny, I ain’t old. I’ve just been around a long time,”
and the song finally emerged during the disc’s 2011 writing
sessions.
The
loping and textured “More and More, Less and Less” resonates similarly as it
dismisses the excesses of youth, although its acoustic guitar bedrock and the
yearning timbre of McClinton’s vocal performance and his haunting harmonica solo
add poignancy, too.
“The
bottom line is that we’re still bulldogs on a pork chop, but our teeth are
ground down, so it takes longer to chew that thing up,” Clark says, chuckling a
bit. “But we still get it right down to the bone.”
That
also explains the amount of sheer growl in Blind, Crippled And Crazy’s
grooves. “World of Hurt” is a snarling six-string rocker about biting
heartbreak, and “Good as I Feel Today” rings like a great lost Little Feat
number — although McClinton and Clark come by its drawling melody, swaggering
rhythm and buttery slide guitar via their own assimilation of R&B, blues,
country and nascent rock in the 1950s and early ’60s.
They
were schooled by the sounds of Ray Charles, Charles Brown, Little Richard, Bob
Wills, Elvis Presley and Hank Williams courtesy of the radio and their siblings’
record collections. Then they graduated to playing the roadhouses of their
native Texas.
Musical
mutual admiration rapidly followed. “Delbert was the first great singer I ever
saw in person, so he’s always been one of my biggest influences,” Clark relates.
In turn, McClinton testifies that “Glen is one of the few people I can
really duet with. Our phrasing just compliments each other, and our
voices sound great together. I have more fun singing with Glen than anybody
else.”
Clark
left Texas in the early ’70s for the lure of Los Angeles’ big-time music
business, and after a while McClinton followed. Soon the collaborators landed a
record deal and cut two albums, 1972’s Delbert & Glen and the
follow-up Subject to Change. Both of these now-hard-to-find classics
plumbed the same turf as Blind, Crippled And Crazy, albeit in the
sweeter vocal registers of younger men.
McClinton’s
“B Movie Box Car Blues” from Delbert & Glen was re-cut six years
later by the Blues Brothers for the double-platinum-selling Briefcase Full
of Blues and has become a standard of the genre. In a twist of fate, Clark
would later play keyboards with the Blues Brothers after becoming music director
for Jim Belushi in 1997.
Delbert
and Glen began their four-decade hiatus after both men moved back to Texas
separately to follow romance and their solo careers. Clark returned to Los
Angeles in 1977. He became a popular songwriter, authoring tunes for Rita
Coolidge, Etta James, Loretta Lynn, Wynonna Judd, Kris Kristofferson and many
others. He also hit the road with his keyboards, touring with Kristofferson,
Bonnie Raitt and others before beginning his dozen years with Belushi, which
included nine years as composer for the sitcom According to
Jim.
Of
course, McClinton became an international star in the realms of blues and
traditional country music, cross-pollinating the genres into his own unique
sound. Since 1980, when his sixth solo album The Jealous Kind sparked
the top 10 hit “Givin’ It Up for Your Love,” he has remained one of the most
respected figures in American roots music. In 1992 the man who gave John Lennon
his first harmonica lesson — when McClinton toured England in the early ’60s as
part of Bruce Channel’s band — won his first Grammy Award, for the duet “Good
Man, Good Woman” with Bonnie Raitt. That was followed by a second win in 2003
for Nothing Personal in the Best Contemporary Blues Album Category. In
2006, he won a third Grammy for his Cost of Living album. McClinton’s
songs have also been recorded by a who’s who of country music royalty including
Vince Gill, Wynonna Judd, Garth Brooks, Emmylou Harris, Martina McBride and
Trisha Yearwood.
Over the
decades his blend of soaring blue-eyed soul singing sprinkled with red Texas
dust, the emotional wealth of his songwriting and his command of virtuoso
supporting ensembles has built McClinton a wildly avid fan base in the United
States and Europe. They are nearly like Deadheads in their willingness to travel
to repeated shows and their level of support. Each January they turn the Delbert
McClinton & Friends Sandy Beaches Cruise, a weeklong music festival he hosts
aboard luxury liners, into a sell-out.
“The
bottom line is, at this point I don’t believe in doing anything that’s not fun,”
McClinton says, “and recording Blind, Crippled And Crazy was a blast.
Me and Gary, who I’ve known for 40 years starting back in Texas, handpicked
every musician on the record and made sure every song was perfect. The title,
from the old soul tune, is something I’ve wanted to use for years. And singing
with Glen again — between the way our voices mix and his sense of humor — makes
me excited about us taking this music out on the road together.
“I’ve
got a good deal in life,” McClinton continues. “I’ve got a lot of good people
for fans who support me — although I’ve won over each of them one-by-one on the
road. I can pick and choose whatever I want to do. And I’ve never had to keep a
job for long, thank God, because jobs stink. I know. I’ve had a lot of them, and
I know why I got fired from every one. And believe me, making this album and
singing these songs with Glen is nothing like a job.”
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