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The venerable Delbert McClinton is a legend among Texas roots music aficionados,
not only for his amazing longevity, but for his ability to combine country,
blues, soul, and rock & roll as if there were no distinctions between any of
them in the best time-honored Texas tradition. A formidable harmonica player
long before he recorded as a singer, McClinton's career began in the late '50s,
yet it took him nearly two decades to evolve into a bona fide solo artist. A
critics' darling and favorite of his peers, McClinton never really became a
household name, but his resurgence in the '90s helped him earn more widespread
respect from both the public at large and the Grammy committee.
Delbert
McClinton was born in Lubbock, TX, on November 4, 1940, and grew up in Fort
Worth. Discovering the blues in his teenage years, McClinton quickly became an
accomplished harmonica player and found plenty of work on the local club scene,
where musicians often made their living by playing completely different styles
of music on different nights of the week. His most prominent early gig was with
the Straitjackets, the house band at a blues/R&B club; it gave McClinton the
opportunity to play harp behind blues legends like Howlin' Wolf, Jimmy Reed,
Sonny Boy Williamson II, and Bobby "Blue" Bland. In 1960, McClinton's cover of
Williamson's "Wake Up Baby" made him the first white artist to have a record
played on the local blues station KNOK. McClinton's harmonica was prominently
featured on Fort Worth native Bruce Channel's 1962 number one smash "Hey! Baby";
brought along for Channel's tour of England, McClinton wound up giving harp
lessons to a young John Lennon. Upon returning to the States, McClinton founded
a group called the Rondells (sometimes listed as the Ron-Dels), which had a
minor chart single in 1965 with "If You Really Want Me to, I'll Go." Although
the Rondells recorded for several different labels, wider success eluded them
and McClinton spent much of the '60s making the rounds of the Texas club and
roadhouse circuit, where his reputation kept growing steadily.
In 1972,
McClinton moved to Los Angeles, where he teamed up with Fort Worth
singer/songwriter Glen Clark as Delbert & Glen. Signed to the small Atlantic
affiliate Clean Records, Delbert & Glen recorded two albums in a mostly
country-rock vein, 1972's Delbert & Glen and 1973's Subject to Change.
Neither sold well and McClinton returned to Texas in 1974, where he was able to
land a solo deal with ABC on the strength of his emerging songwriting talent.
His first solo album, Victim of Life's Circumstances, was released in 1975;
although he was marketed as part of the emerging progressive country movement,
McClinton's music was too indebted to blues and R&B to neatly fit that tag.
Genuine Cowhide (1976) and Love Rustler (1977) followed to highly positive
reviews, if not much commercial attention, and other artists started to mine
McClinton's catalog for material; in 1978, Emmylou Harris took his "Two More
Bottles of Wine" all the way to the top of the country charts. A switch to
Capricorn produced two albums, 1978's Second Wind and 1979's Keeper of the
Flame; the former featured his original version of "B Movie Boxcar Blues," later
a part of the Blues Brothers repertoire. When Capricorn folded, he moved to the
Muscle Shoals Sound imprint and his 1980 label debut, The Jealous Kind, gave him
his first Top 40 single in "Givin' It Up for Your Love," which hit on both the
pop and country charts.
Unfortunately, Muscle Shoals Sound folded not
long after McClinton's follow-up, 1981's Plain From the Heart, and he
subsequently took a long hiatus from recording, concentrating instead on live
performances. His next prominent appearance was an acclaimed vocal turn on
guitarist Roy Buchanan's 1986 album Dancing on the Edge; that guest appearance
helped land him a deal with Alligator. In 1989, McClinton issued the comeback
album Live From Austin, which earned him his first Grammy nomination (for Best
Contemporary Blues Album). He signed with Curb in 1990, debuting that year with
I'm With You, and moved to Nashville, where he soon became a much sought-after
songwriter (often in tandem with new partner Gary  Nicholson) in the contemporary
country field. Over the next few years, McClinton placed material with stars
like Wynonna, Vince Gill, Lee Roy Parnell, and Martina McBride, among others.
His biggest break, though, came when he was tapped for a duet with Bonnie Raitt
on 1991's Luck of the Draw, the follow-up to her much-lauded comeback Nick of
Time. The result, "Good Man, Good Woman," brought McClinton his first Grammy for
Best Rock Vocal, Duo or Group, which suddenly raised his profile tenfold. He
capitalized with 1992's Never Been Rocked Enough, which featured not only his
duet with Raitt, but also guest appearances from Tom Petty and Melissa
Etheridge, and his biggest hit single since 1980, "Every Time I Roll the Dice."
Later that year, he hit the country charts with another duet, this time with
Tanya Tucker on "Tell Me About It." The song later appeared on McClinton's next
album, 1993's simply titled Delbert McClinton.
Despite enjoying the
greatest commercial success of his career, McClinton's relationship with Curb
was beginning to sour. His next two albums were released to comparatively little
attention and he finally extricated himself from his contract to sign with
Rising Tide, a small label associated with Universal. 1997's One of the
Fortunate Few was designed to restore McClinton to his early-'90s stature,
featuring an array of guest stars, including Vince Gill, Patty Loveless, Lyle
Lovett, Pam Tillis, B.B. King, John Prine, and Mavis Staples. It was still
definitely McClinton's show, however, and as such it received mostly
complimentary reviews; it also sold more than 250,000 copies before Rising Tide
went belly-up. McClinton next returned in 2001 on the Austin, TX-based New West
imprint with another acclaimed effort, Nothing Personal. It proved to be one of
the most popular recordings of his career, gaining substantial airplay on
Americana radio and ending up one of the year's biggest hits on Billboard's
blues chart; it also won him another Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues Album.
The impressive Cost of Living was released in 2005 on New West Records. ~ Steve
Huey, All Music Guide
Source:
http://www.mp3.com/delbert-mcclinton/artists/363/biography.html
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