Episode Transcript
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What's going on? It is Hitmanwith you and I have an American Treasure
on the phone right now. Iam honored. I cannot believe I'm talking
to the legend himself, mister DonMcClain, Sir, how are you this
morning? I'm doing just fantastically.Well, it's a beautiful day and I'm
happy. Hey, all right,Yeah, He's coming to the American Bank
Center on July thirteenth. Tickets areon sale right now, of course,
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Ticketmaster dot com, the American BankCenter box office celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of
American Pie. Looking forward to that, Also looking forward to listening to the
brand new album American Boys, whichis out now. You can get it
on Amazon dot com. You canalso stream it on Amazon Music and also
on the iHeartRadio app. Don tellme about American Boys. Well, the
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song I wrote with my guitar playerBipperman, who has written a hit for
a lot of country artists. Andit took us a while to get this
thing done, and we wrote afew more songs together, and then I
wrote a bunch more after that,and we had this out. I had
not intended or thought about making anotheralbum until I completed the American Boys song,
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and then I really liked it alot, and and Mike Seevers,
my producer in Nashville, made aterrific track, and he got a great
piano player in there and a bunchof other musicians, and then I added
guitars and so on. We hadhome Free, the a cappella group that
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he's done work within the past,and it came out so well that I
said, well, let's make anothertrack of this one and one of that
one for you know it. Wehad, you know, an album that's
great. Yeah. And speaking ofthe title track, American Boys, tell
me, how did you find thata cappella group home Free? Well,
actually, Kurt Webster represents me inNashville and their manager are friends and they
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occasionally you know, sing o people'sstuff, and they suggested that we that
they do American Pie and so wenever thought of that. So they had
a huge hit with that American Pieversion that they did on Country, the
Taste of Country that I think thevideo we made it's the whole song was
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number one for like a month ortwo, and they've done Vincent now and
I said, well, I'd loveto have them on this album because we
could use the background singers and theywork terrifictly on this tune. The American
Boys. Wow, wow, Yes, you can get American Boys right now.
It's in stores right now. Tellme a little bit about the ballad
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George Floyd. I know that yourecently just released the lyric video for that.
Tell me a little bit about thatsong. Well, the song that
I wasn't you know, everybody sawI've heard about this, and so it
happened and then got politicized in away that I, you know, oh,
let's defund the police and all thisnonsense. I said, I don't
like that. We need the police. We don't need certain people in the
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police, and that's the problem.And so anyway, I left it alone.
And people would ask me all thetime, isn't it like the nineteen
sixties now, And I would say, well, no, it isn't,
because five guys would have written asong about this George Floyd event and nobody
touched it. And the reason isis this cancel culture out there, and
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everybody's a creative saying anything. ButI'm too old to worry about that,
right And I've always done what Ido, And I said, when I
saw the video and actually heard himsaying he couldn't breathe and calling for his
mother. I remembered when I couldn'tbreathe with asthma pneumonia when I was a
little guy, and I had thata lot. My mother would come in
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and just about saved my life andI would have to call for her in
the middle of the night. Andsomething spoke to me. I have a
heart, you know. I havefeelings for people, a lot of empathy
for things, and I have empathyfor police officers, and I have empathy
for people who are arrested. Ireally see a lot of different points of
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view right, And I wrote thesong as simple as that. Wow.
Wow. We're talking with American treasureDon McLane, of course, coming July
thirteenth to the American Bank Center.Recently, you were at the White House
and you got to meet the Presidentof Kenya and then you won a Silver
Telly Award for your long form documentaryAmerican Troubadour. Tell me a little bit
about that. How was that atthe White House? Well, people can
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look up the Daily Mail article andI can see my hot girlfriend Harris Dunn,
who I took with me, andshe blew everybody away and we had
a blast. I said, youknow, we got to do this.
The Biden administration has been very nice. They've asked me to come there ever
since the President of South Korea sangAmerican Pie to Joe in the Easter Room.
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They and they wanted me there lastyear for the Australian Prime Ministers at
dinner, but I was in Australiaon tour, so I couldn't do it.
So they were nice enough to inviteme to this and Brad Paisley played
and he was terrific. He entertainedeverybody, and you know, it was
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just one of those amazing moments whenyou go into the White House and and
you you're brought in with a stringorchestra, and I mean it's just as
about as high society as you canget. Wow. Yes, that's that's
great. I mean, you arean American treasurer. Of course, everybody
always loves American pie Vincent Castles inthe Sky. My personal favorite is when
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you Redid Crying, the Roy Orbisonclassic. Did Roy Orbison ever talk to
you about your version of that song? Yeah? Roy Orbison actually said he
liked my version than his. Youcan believe that. I mean, he
was very gracious, but he reallymeant it, and he started singing the
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song the way I did it,which was slower and because this is more
of a rumba. But of coursehe's the original and can't top that.
But he was just very sweet.But Larry Butler, this is one of
the first times I went to Nashvillein the late seventies. The song came
out about nineteen eighty. For alot of reasons that I won't go into,
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but Larry Butler, all of asudden, I walked into the studio
and they are all the heaviest,most famous side men in music history.
Bob Moore is there, the Jordanairesare there, Pete Drake on steel guitars
there, Jimmy Kapps ray edonton.I'm thinking to myself, when you walk
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into a studio on an afternoon inNashville with a sunny day in Tennessee and
you see those cats looking back atyou, you better have something, you
know what I mean? Yeah,you'd better have something. All right,
it's gonna be very dull and verylong evening. So because they have seen
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everything. So I had a wholelot of songs and they loved my music,
and they already knew me anyway,loved me and were so supportive,
and I said, you know,I really want to sing crying. I've
loved that song, and we didit. And when I heard it come
back over the speakers with no strings, Wow, I tears came to my
eyes. It was the most beautifulthing I'd ever heard. And then when
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they did the record, they theirplayback in Nashville were better than my finished
records in New York. Okay,wow, wow, we're how good they
were. We're talking with Don McLeanof course, coming July thirteenth to the
American Bank Center. What can peopleexpect live when we see you live at
the American Bank Center. What canthey expect for the show to during that
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night? Well, it'll go quicklybecause there are so many songs, and
I have a rock and roll band. You know, this is a kick
ass bet. The two guitars,bassed, drums, keyboards, me on
acoustic pounding away and singing and soit's, you know, the same as
you'd see if you saw Credence orany of those groups. It's a big
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sounds, but it also can evolveinto a more gentler sound. If I
want to sing empty cheers or andI love you so or something wow wow.
Well, looking forward to seeing youhere in Corpus Christi on July thirteenth.
Domiklin, thank you so much fortaking the time to talk to us
today and looking forward to seeing youwhen you come to Corpus. I'll be there.