One night in June at the Colony Music Club in Woodstock, New York, an 82-year-old man slowly walked onto the stage and cautiously sat at the keyboard. The packed crowd was here for the headliners, drinking heavily, talking loudly, and looking everywhere but the stage. That is until the man, Tommy McClane, quite reliably, soars, cuts through the din with a powerful voice, and suddenly his head snaps in his direction, stopping the conversation.
The next day, McLain said in an interview at Lunatico, a music venue in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, “I have to shock them.” “They didn’t know me. But if you have enough air in your lungs and a soul singing a song, you can have it.”
McClane should know. For decades, he’s been fussing over drunken crowds at casinos around his home state of Louisiana, as if he’s forever living the life of Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” protagonist. With the help of such high-profile admirers as Nick Lowe (who headlined the Woodstock show) and Elvis Costello, MacLaine sang on high-profile tours and made his first appearance on a new recording. We take the opportunity to showcase material from our official albums…for over 40 years.
The album, I Ran Down Every Dream, out Friday, includes the title track McLain wrote with Costello and a song he wrote with Lowe (the ironic “The Greatest Show on Heart”). I’m here. These two stars of his have also appeared on records, as have such notable artists as Van Dyke Parks and Ivan Neville. The music put a stripped-down twist on the sound that became the linchpin of the important but largely regional music movement that came to be known as swamp pop from the 1950s through his 70s. Thing.
Nurtured in Southern Louisiana, McLain, swamp pop has as many roots as a bayou cypress tree, intertwining New Orleans R&B, country, soul, pop, rock and a variety of Louisian styles. Elements of that Rolling his sound can be heard on songs recorded by such pivotal stars as Elvis Presley (his version of “Lawdy Miss Clawdy” by Lloyd Price) and The Beatles (“Oh, Darling”). increase. But mostly, it has spawned local legends such as McClane, Bobby Charles, Johnny Allan and Warren Storm. Beginning in 1966, McClane enjoyed national acclaim with top 20 hits for a short time. “A good dream,” Patsy Cline was also successfully recorded.
“I heard her version,” McClane said. “But I did it my way.”
Almost a decade later, when London-based DJ and label owner Charlie Gillett created another Saturday Night, a swamp-pop compilation album that included McLain’s work, McLain’s music was unlikely But we built a bond that will never go away. The soul and immediacy of this music made it a cult favorite in the UK, garnering enthusiastic support from the young stars of the time, Costello and Lowe, as well as Robert His Plant.
“Hearing the ‘Another Saturday Night’ album was like opening the door to a whole new world for me,” Costello said in an interview. “If you hear Tommy McLain singing and you can’t hear him, check your pulse. When you cut ‘Sweet Dreams'” — by myself 1981 album Almost Blue — “I had Tommy phrasing in my head”
In an interview, Lowe noted how the sound and timbre of McClane’s voice came from a particular place and time. It’s a place,” he said. “When Tommy sings, you can hear his life. can make you feel
For C.C. Adcock, the successful Louisiana musician who produced McLain’s new album, it sits between the roots of the Southern swamp pop scene that produced stars like Lowe in the ’70s and the down-to-earth ethos of British pub rock. are connected. “There’s a common denominator,” he says, Mr. Adcock. “Neither of them are for art school kids, they are for working class people.”
It was Adcock who made McClane’s comeback possible. A longtime swamp his pop fan, he befriended an older singer on the Louisiana music scene and was thrilled to discover that McClane had been writing new songs in secret for years. . But he had no way out to them. Adcock recorded some of those songs on his cell phone, played them for publishers, and in 2019 helped secure McLain’s new deal with his Decca record.
Unfortunately, things went deep south from there. While making the album over the last five years, McClane endured a series of Job-like disasters, including his three hurricanes in Louisiana that “ripped it all apart.” “In that heat even though the air conditioner is not working!”
His house then burned down. “If I had been there, I would have been enveloped in smoke,” he said.
Oh, and he also had a massive heart attack and needed double bypass surgery, which many believed he wouldn’t survive. I didn’t,” said the singer as he played.
In fact, McLain talks about virtually everything all the time. He sat in a wheelchair for the interview, but his long white beard, like Santa Claus, sets his age apart. Much like his singing, his speaking voice can put you through a wall. He is also quick-talking, but with a conviction born of 80 years of life and a transformative experience at the age of 45.
McClane’s success in the 1960s brought him some money, but he used it up, eventually immersing himself in the routine of “a little Coke, a little beer, and lots of girls in short skirts.” I noticed that you are doing He said. “I woke up one morning to find a woman I didn’t know sitting on the floor and she said to herself, ‘What am I doing?'”
Due to the accusatory nature of his father, a Baptist minister, he had turned his back on religion as a child, but was inspired by his mother-in-law, who found solace there, to seek redemption in the Catholic Church. . McClane went crazy and became a preacher himself. He then released his own gospel album titled ‘Moving to Heaven’ which was loved by Costello. “I don’t know how he heard that,” McClane said. “I never pressed more than 500 copies of it.” Costello said he sought it out.
Costello finally met the singer in 2010 when he performed in New Orleans in honor of local legend Bobby Charles. Lowe met McClane the following year when he played in London with Adcock’s group, Lil Band O Gold. “They are good friends,” said Adcock with a laugh.
When the producers reached out to each of them and helped McClane finish writing some songs he intended for the new album, they jumped at the chance. But there’s also a fresh version of the famous ’60s McLain song “Before I Grow Too Old,” with lyrics that have far more urgency and depth for his age.
Songs that often address crushed love, wasted opportunities, and dwindling time form a sustained string of losses. But McClane sings with sly grace, and there’s humor laced throughout. In “I Ran Down Every Dream,” McLain catalogs those dreams, calling them “the good ones, the bad ones, the ones you never mention.” “This is Tommy telling his story,” Costello said. “If the song wasn’t so assertive, it would be like ‘My Way.'”
When the album was completed, he faced yet another setback: Decca chose not to release it. McLain and Adcock said they never received a full explanation. (Decca Records did not respond to a request for comment.) Soon after, Lowe’s music-releasing indie label Yep Roc picked up momentum. “Tommy is 82,” Adcock said. “God forbid anything to happen. I wanted these songs out there.”
McLain shares the relief and thrill of finally being able to sing new songs. As he wrote in the new lyrics, “When you wake up to a brand new song, that’s how you know I’m still alive.” I still have a desire to be creative.”
“After all, I’m kind of hard to kill,” he added with a laugh. “Trust me, they tried. But I keep coming.”