PAGE 6 VISION MAGAZINE MAY 2008 COVER STORY BY RICHARD JACQUES He knew if he had his chance, he could make the people dance, and maybe, they’d be happy for awhile - now, nearly 40 years later, Don McLean is still making them smile. Through times of war and peace and the ever-changing landscape of the music industry, his voice has remained constant, the message of his songs, timeless. And like his lyrics, which demand reflection, in four decades of chart-topping hits he has man- aged to raise questions - and it seems he prefers it that way. From his Maine home of the last 17 years, the artist took time out of his busy schedule to open up his songbook and life to questions. His sea- soned professionalism was evident from the moment he began to speak, his musical purpose clear. “I never thought about anything,” said McLean. “I just thought if I could make a living I would be better than my father who had to work for a company; and I managed to accomplish that very early but I didn’t look ahead, I never looked ahead. I just put my head down and followed the music wherever it took me and that’s what I’m still doing.” Through the turbu- lence of the 1960s, which would later resurface in some of his work, the guitar-playing singer from New Rochell, New York, withdrew from Iona University and began to perform his and other songs wherever he could. “When I was a kid, I would do birthday parties, I would do anything.” According to his official Web site, american- pie.com, in 1961, McLean took his one and only vacation with his father – a trip to Washington D.C. when he was 15. A few months later his father died. Determined to become a profession- al musician and singer, he was already making contacts in the business by the age of 16. He played his first professional gig in1962 at an Israeli coffee house in Manhattan. While at Villanova University in 1963 (he stayed for just four months), Don met and became friends with Jim Croce and President Kennedy was assassi- nated. “I quit school thinking that the world would be waiting for me and I found out they couldn’t care less and I wasn’t very good,” said McLean, now 67. For nearly six years he continued paid his dues and honed his skills performing where he could. A Hudson River Trubedeur in 1968, he played up and down the valley under the sponsorship of the New York State Council on the Arts garner- ing the attention of many. And also during that time period, McLean return to college and earned his degree. But everything really began to change as the 60s drew to a close. With bad news literally outside the doorstep of a Berkley recording studio during the Vietnam protests in 1969, McLean, now in California, was inside laying down the tracks to the “Tapestry” album which would put him on the map musically. Although produced two years before “American Pie,” it was a record that he says was his most important. “In ‘70 it came out and then I was headlining college concerts ... and major nightclubs, where before I had been second on the bill and even third,” he said. For the young artist, it was a huge change. Accepted to Columbia University for graduate school, he declined to pursue his passion. “I turned them down and went into music,” he remembered. “From there on, my oddysee really started to take off.” Looking back, McLean said people always focus on the “American Pie” album, as they should because it was his biggest commercial suc- cess by a long shot, but the “Tapestry” album was the most important album of all. “It was the beginning of getting through that brick wall and getting inside the world of the music business, getting played on radio stations, getting known, getting reviews and so on,” he recalled. Like so many in the music world of the 1960s, the Beatles had an influence on McLean. “It’s really hard to remember just how much simpler everything was back in the late 60s and early 70s. It’s become very loud and raucous now, there’s so much stuff going on. There are hundreds of TV stations and all sorts of adver- tisements blaring away and you never get a moments piece,” said McLean. “Back when we were younger, if the Beatles or somebody impor- tant came out with a great record you worked on that for a long time ... they didn’t just come and go like they do now for six months or whatever.” Another of his early influences was Frank Sinatra, a master of breath control and phras- ing. “Anytime anybody’s an influence on an artist - not someone on American Idol - but I mean a serious artist, you don’t hear it,” he said. “What I use the breath control for is not to copy Frank Sinatra, but it’s the concept of breath control which you can hear on all the songs I sing, espe- cially “Crying,” which is very difficult to sing. Even try singing “Vincent” sometime or Catching up with Don McLean