Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Doug McCleod


WC Handy Blues Festival, May 2015

We love this guy.
He's awesome.
Go see him.
Guarantee you, you will entertained.

He's like 80.
Grew up around the music.
In Virginia I think.
Played with everybody under the sun.
Big Joe Turner, Lowell Fulson and Big Mama Thornton among others.
Wrote songs for Albert King and Albert Collins.
Great storyteller.

2014 Blues Music Award  for Acoustic Artist Of The Year and 
2014 Blues Music Award Acoustic Album Of The Year (There's A Time)
2013 Blues Blast Music Award for Male Artist Of The Year.
Perennial Blues Music Award nominee.

The accolades are very well deserved.
Man has been at it a long time.

You can tell he loves coming to Henderson.
Loves the view of the train tracks going over the river he gets from the stage and the park itself and he's right.
It's really nice.
We've seem him three or four times.
We go out of our way to get up at 9 and get there by 11:30 because he's playing.
Plenty of other times when he wasn't playing we didn't go so early.
It's a great way to start the day's festivities.



One of his things is:
"I don't use a set list and I don't ever play the same song the same way twice. So you people right here are going to be the only people in the world to ever hear these songs played this way and I think that makes it a lil special for us all."

Another is:
"And it's going to sound exactly like this..." Sometimes with an added "Here in beautiful Henderson, Ky right on the river at the WC Handy Blues Festival on June 20th 2015."

He said the reason he says "Exactly like this..." is because that's exactly what's going to happen lol.
"String break? Exactly like this.
Forget a verse in a song? Exactly like this.
What the hell is "something like this anyway? Don't you hate it when they say that?
What the hell that mean? The people in St. Louis last night got the real version?"
Has an album called...

You guessed it:
Exactly like this.
Lol.

He is great.
He really is.

Go see him.
You'll be glad you did.

Promise.


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