See copyright notice at
 http://www.expectingrain.no/dok/div/copyright.html

McClinton, Delbert


Date: Fri, 27 Oct 1995 10:07:43 GMT
From: eddie@edlis.org (Ed Ricardo)
Subject: Delbert McClinton

Who is Delbert McClinton?
Does he have a Dylan connection?


Date: Sat, 28 Oct 1995 00:17:26 -0500
From: Marty Traynor (kipple@DELPHI.COM)
He is a reasonably well-known blues singer/harp player (blues harp, that is). I would think of him as a southern Paul Butterfield.
The only Dylan connection I am aware of is that Clydie King sang background vocals on "Second Wind", an album released in 1978 on Capricorn Records.
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 1995 11:28:56 -0400
From: Richard Hart (HART11@AOL.COM)

Just a sketch about McClinton. He's a white southern soul/blues singer (yeah, I'm uncomfortable with categorizations, too, but this is the best way that i know to explain). He's been around for awhile. Had a hit record with "Givin' It Up For Your Love (And Everything)," which may have been a duet w/ Bonnie Bramlett, but I don't remember that for sure. I've always really liked McClinton's voice. He's been on Austin City Limits a coupla times, too, so you may have seen him there.
As for a Dylan connection, Craig's Q has got me curious/thinking, too...but, nothing off the top of my head about this. Look forward to other responses on this


Date: Sat, 28 Oct 1995 10:34:14 -0500
From: Marty Traynor (kipple@DELPHI.COM)

Sorry, in my previous post I neglected to mention that the song "Corinna" is on Delbert's "Second Wind" album. It is, however, the Taj Mahal version from "The Natch'l Blues" rather than the Dylan version, which of course has a title which is twice as good.


Date: Sat, 28 Oct 1995 14:42:28 GMT
From: Mark Beebe (mabeebe@INDIANA.EDU)

Delbert is a great white blues/r'n'b/honky tonk singer from Texas with a long and varied recording and performing career. I don't know of any Dylan connection even though they mine a similar musical motherlode of american groove music and have probably met on the road somewhere.
I have heard the story that it was a very young Delbert who taught John Lennon some harmonica techniques while they shared a billing on a tour in England in the early 60's.
One of the best shows I have ever seen was a double bill of Delbert and Joe Ely(with ex-Rolling Stone sideman Bobbie Keys on sax) at a bar in Bloomington about 8 years ago.
Delbert is also a songwriter whose most well-known effort is probably "Two More Bottles of Wine" which was covered by Emmy Lou Harris on Luxury Liner.


Date: Sat, 28 Oct 1995 15:00:09 GMT
From: Mark Beebe (mabeebe@INDIANA.EDU)

Just thought of a tenuous but real Delbert/Dylan connection. They were both on the bill of the first FarmAid concert, during which Bob played a fabulous set with the Heartbreakers and Delbert was backed up by John Mellancamp's band, I think.


From: dsage@uoguelph.ca (David Sage)
Date: 29 Oct 1995 15:06:59 GMT

I'ver read the other posts and I have to add a personal p.o.v. I have always regarded McClinton as the greatest r&b singer/player/writer who never broke through. Although I have never seen him in person, any film I have seen of him in concert bears this notion out. He just rocks. He's another one of those southern guys who has assimilated every one of his influences into a personal sound. He had that one potentially great album with the Bonnie Bramlett duet on it. (As mentioned by another poster) I personally think this was the best band he had; she brought to him what she brought to Delaney, only Delbert is more talented so it _really_ worked_ when it worked. I say the album is potentially great because, and in this regard it acts as a reflection on the rest of his recorded (studio) material, it is junked up with a lot of overproduced attempts at commercial breakthrough. It's really unfortunate.

He's most often seen nowadays on TNN up here in the once great, soon to be subdivided, white north. He still has it though; even performances in that format cannot hide his fonk.

David.


Date: Mon, 30 Oct 1995 16:37:00 EST
From: Patricia Jungwirth (tricia.j@AARDVARK.APANA.ORG.AU)

>Does he have a Dylan connection?

Everyone has a Dylan connection... ;-}

Then again, that blues singer/songwriter/harmonica player with the same name, born in Lubbock, Texas in 1940, taught John Lennon a few harp tricks, (remember "hey, baby" in 1962?), put out an album in the 70's called 'Victim of Life's Circumstances'. Could be some empathy there...


Date: Sat, 28 Oct 1995 12:09:27
Subject: Re: Delbert McClinton
From: jcliburn@flintcreek.win.net (Joseph Cliburn)

Delbert McClinton is a Texas R&B singer (white). He is a friend of Willie Nelson & I would suspect Dylan knows him at least in that context. Author of "B Movie Boxcar Blues":

"Met two girls in a light blue DeSoto One's name was Jane The other was plain But they both had a racing motor..."

This was covered on Belushi/Ackroyd's "Blues Brothers" album lo these many years ago.

McClinton is a great performer & very popular in these parts (New Orleans-Memphis grits'n'chitlin's circuit).



Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 19:53:53 -0600
To: karlerik@telepost.no
From: markg@leland.stanford.edu (Mark Gonnerman)
Subject: Who's Who/Delbert McClinton

I put the following together after looking through several online news
sources, especially the Houston Chronicle:

Delbert McClinton (b. 1940) has been in the music business for more than 35
years.  He's a native of Lubbock, Texas.  He cut his first record (under
the name Mac Clinton) in 1960.  

In 1962 he was on tour in England with
Bruce Chanel when he inadvertently made his way into music history.  As he
recalls it, "This girl had been following Bruce around.  One night, she
came up to our dressing room.  She told us, 'You should come down and
listen to this group.'"  The group turned out to be the Beatles.  McClinton
taught John Lennon how to play the harmonica riffs he used on "Hey Baby!" 
Lennon used a similar lick on the Beatles' first hit, "Love me Do."  In the
mid-'60s, McClinton's group, the Rondels, made the national charts with "If
you Really Want Me to I'll Go."  The song was later covered by Waylon
Jennings and Doug Sahm.  

In 1970 McClinton teamed up with fellow Texan Glen
Clark for two albums that helped set the stage for the outlaw-country
movement.  His 1975 solo debut, "Victim of Life's Circumstances," combined
honky-tonk with Southern rock.  Subsequent albums moved in the direction of
roadhouse R&B, culminating in a cover of Swamp Dogg's "Givin' It Up for
Your Love" that reached the top 10 in 1980.  McClinton then hit a long dry
spell in which he underwent "a midlife crisis" while attempting to get out
from under a debt to the Internal Revenue Service. 

 In 1988, McClinton
released his first album in eight years, "Live from Austin."  He signed
with Nashville's Curb Records, for which he has released two critically
acclaimed albums, 1990's "I'm With You" and 1992's "Never Been Rocked
Enough."  He also recorded a Grammy-winning duet with Bonnie Raitt called
"Good Man, Good Woman."  There is a 1995 collection of his recordings
entitled "Come Together."  

He now lives in Nashville.  Of himself,
McClinton says, "I'm country. I'm blues.  I'm rhythm and blues.  I'm rock
'n roll.  I'm all the things I grew up on."
 

Who's Who