Don McLean is coming back to New Zealand for five shows. Photo / Supplied
Don McLean is coming back to New Zealand for five shows. Photo / Supplied
He’s a Grammy award honouree, Songwriters Hall of Fame member, and BBC Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, but Don McLean claims he was never “with the times”.
Despite captivating audiences with his multiple award-winning records over his 50-year-long career, McLean tells the Herald, there is one renowned music publication that he couldn’t quite impress.
“I never was with the times, ever,” he says, recalling the early days of his career. “Rolling Stone made a very good effort to try to destroy me.”
“Back in the early seventies of the first three albums I made, Tapestry, American Pie and Don Mclean - three of the better efforts I think that I ever put forward - and they just lumped that into one thing and said I was horrible. That’s the way they felt ever since. I don’t think they changed their attitude.”
Despite not breaking down Rolling Stone’s alleged grudge against him, the star has plenty of fans here in New Zealand who he is looking forward to seeing when he returns to the country next year for five shows.
“We’re gonna rock’n’roll and we’re gonna play all the songs,” he says having just announced his 50th Anniversary American Pie New Zealand 2023 tour which will include performances from the American Pie album as well as other hits fans know and love.
Don McLean. Photo / Supplied
Set to play in Nelson, Invercargill, Christchurch, Palmerston North and Auckland, the legendary singer admits he is particularly looking forward to the Christchurch show as the city is home to one of his favourite activities.
“One of my favourite things to do used to be to go to the Christchurch Natural History Museum,” he says, “it’s such an amazing place”.
McLean’s tour comes at an interesting point in time as the namesake song, American Pie - released in 1971 – was recently defeated as the longest No 1 hit in Billboard’s Hot 100 chart history.
In November last year, following the release of Taylor Swift’s Red (Taylor’s Version) album, her 10-minute version of All Too Well overtook McLean’s as the longest song to hit number one on the charts.
Not that it worried McLean.
Don McLean's hugely successful album, American Pie. Photo / Supplied
He humbly admits, he didn’t even know he had the record, let alone that it hadn’t been broken in 50 years. However, the star shares he is very impressed with Swift and couldn’t help but find parallels in their music.
“I actually read the lyrics, listened to the song. I thought it was good,” he says, “I think this is sort of a confessional nature to her writing, and I think that in some ways I pioneered that. I think there’s a sympatico for my songwriting. I’m very impressed with her.”
A compliment he doesn’t give lightly as McLean believes songwriting nowadays, compared to his heyday 40 years ago is “just trash”.
“I don’t think that people write songs the way I think of songs,” he says, “if it were around 40 years ago, I think it would be laughed at. It’s just trash basically.”
Thankfully, for those that agree, McLean hasn’t said goodbye to his songwriting days, in fact, he doesn’t think he will ever get tired of writing new songs and stories which is why in 2018 he released his 19th studio album, Botanical Gardens.
And while the singer is a talented singer-songwriter, he is just like anyone else and has his own musical favourites.
The star released his 19th studio album in 2018. Photo / Supplied
Aside from being impressed with Swift, McLean says other industry professionals he has found to create work worthy of the title “masterpiece” would be fellow American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan.
Dylan – often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, has been a major figure in the music industry and rose to fame around the same time as McLean so while they could have easily been rivals, McLean says instead he is a fan of the country singer’s music.
“There are a number of Bob Dylan songs. I think that Blood on the Tracks album, the whole thing is a masterpiece actually.”
But it seems there is no collaboration in the works for the two. Having ticked more achievements off his bucket list than most people ever would, McLean says, he’s done everything he’s wanted to do.
“In the beginning, the journey was so exciting,” he says, “Here I was playing these little nightclubs and, and getting around people who were a little bit more successful and, and it was this journey, and all I did was think about it, you know, I didn’t think about anything else.
