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Delbert McClinton: Better than ever
BY L. KENTWOLGAMOTT
Friday, Mar 26, 2004 - 12:00:19 am CST

AUSTIN,Texas - Delbert McClinton had to pause and do a little counting to determine exactly how many years he'd been playing music for money.Ticking off the decades on his fingers, he shook his head in disbelief and said, "50."

A half-century of making music. A half-century on the road and in recording studios. A half-century of honky-tonks, bars and small theaters. A half-century, and he's still going strong.

"It's something I can't help but do," McClinton said. "It's kind of like a junkie, you know. I didn't have to work to get there. I have to work because of it. But it's fun. I think it's better now than it's ever been."

Leaning back into the corner of a well-worn couch in the production office of La Zona Rosa, the giant Austin club where he'd be playing a South by Southwest Music Conference showcase gig an hour later, McClinton settled in for a conversation that was filled with the same spark and genuine feeling that he brings to his legendary live shows.

The living master of Texas roadhouse music, McClinton churns up a soulful, hard-charging mixture of blues, country, rock 'n' roll and R&B - a sound rooted in his youth that he has kept fresh and powerful throughout his career.

"I came from the country music of the '40s and the pop music of the '40s through blues and rock 'n' roll," he said. "I've taken something all along the way - although I can't think of much I got out of the music of the '70s. But my music's been in the same basic place since I started."

Born in Lubbock, Texas, in 1940, McClinton moved with his railroad switchman father and beautician mother to Fort Worth when he was 11, the same year he figured out that maybe he should give singing a try.

That came while he was spending the summer with an uncle in Sweetwater,Texas.The uncle, normally a gruff sort, heard young Delbert singing one day and started showing the boy off, taking him on his 3 a.m. milk route and having him sing to customers along the way.

"That's kind of when I figured out that might be a good thing to do," McClinton said.

By the time he was midway through his teens, McClinton was playing the beer joints along Fort Worth's notorious Jacksboro Highway, a honky-tonk row where the musicians ducked flying bottles and rubbed elbows with plenty of unsavory characters.

By the late '50s, McClinton and his band, the Straightjackets, were backing the likes of Jimmy Reed,Howlin' Wolf, SonnyBoy Williamson, Big Joe Turner,T-Bone Walker and Freddie King as the house band at one of the clubs.

That involvement with the blues got McClinton's mama worried. To get his attention, she sent him a five-page letter trying to dissuade him from playing.Then she wrote, "If you're going to do it, son, why don't you sing country music?" By that time, however, McClinton's die was cast.

He started playing harmonica in 1958 - he remembered the year because he married his first wife in 1959 - and played the harp on Bruce Channel's chart-topping 1962 hit "Hey! Baby."

When Channel toured England, McClinton went along and wound up answering some harmonica questions posed by a young Brit who was part of the opening act. That young Brit happened to be John Lennon; the opening act was The Beatles.

Now McClinton's a footnote in Beatles history as the man who taught John Lennon to play mouth harp.

"I'm never telling that story again," McClinton said. "Ididn't really teach him anything. He just said something about it, and now it's like it's carved in stone. It's been romanticized. People want to hear good stories, they want to hear stories that move them in some way or another. Otherwise, they're boring.That's what happened with this story."

In the '60s and '70s, McClinton made records with the Ron-Dels and Delbert and Glen while other artists, including Doug Sahm, Waylon Jennings and the Blues Brothers, also had success with his songs.

The Blues Brothers connection helped McClinton land repeat appearances on "Saturday Night Live" in its heyday. In 1978, Emmylou Harris' version of McClinton's "Two More Bottles of Wine" hit the top of the country chart. Two years later, he had his first Top 10 hit with "Giving It Up for Your Love."

But the '70s and early '80s were a trying time for McClinton, who went through family problems, substance abuse and found himself on the wrong end of a $280,000 tax bill from the IRS at a time when he was making less than $20,000 a year.

In the mid-'80s, with help from Wendy Goldstein, an NBC news producer whom he would later marry, McClinton turned around his life and career.

In 1989, "Live from Austin" became McClinton's first Grammy-nominated recording. Two years later, he won his first Grammy for a duet with Bonnie Raitt on "Good Man,Good Woman."

"I don't know if I've been everywhere, but I've had a lot of varying degrees of elation and depths of depression doing this," McClinton said.

At the turn of the century, he joined New West Records, the Los Angeles/Austin-based independent label that is now the home of the likes of John Hiatt, the Old 97s and Drive-byTruckers.

"He was the first really big artist we signed," said New West Senior Vice President PeterJesperson. "The first one who'd sold hundreds of thousands of records. It was a big turning point for the label. We're huge fans of him as a singer. He's just one of the great American singers of all time."

McClinton has put out three records for New West: 2001's Grammy-winning "Nothing Personal," 2002's brilliant Grammy-nominated "Room to Breathe" (both of which sold around 200,000 copies) and last year's two-CD "Live."

The latter, recorded at a festival for Norwegian radio, is a solid sampling of his propulsive performances that bring the audience into the captivating, dance-inducing, soulful roots sound.

At La Zona Rosa, McClinton and his seven-piece band hit the stage blasting, tearing through "Take Me to the River" and "Standing on Shaky Ground" before pausing to take a breath.By the time the SXSX-mandated 40-minute set was over, they'd wrung the soul out of eight songs, including a stunning duet with '60s hitmaker and longtime McClinton friend Gary U.S. Bonds.

"I've always felt like you're as good as your last show," McClinton said.

But he doesn't have as many shows as he once did.That happens when you hit your mid-60s.

"I don't go out and do it like I used to, but, fortunately, I don't have to," he said. "The elasticity (in his voice) isn't there anymore. I can only do two or three nights a week. In the old days, we'd go out for two or three months and play six or seven nights a week. I couldn't do that again."

Regardless of where he plays - in Norway, Austin, on one of his cruises or Wednesday at Blackjack's Underground at Lincoln's Pershing Center - McClinton draws a crowd.

"I have a fan base that would take a bullet for me, and I love 'em," he said.

But a half-century into his career, McClinton still wants to make that fan base bigger, to sell more records, to become more visible, to do all the things he's been trying to do since he got on stage back in Fort Worth.

"I feel like I'm still trying to make it," he said. "I've kind of been on the fringes as far as a recording success for many, many years. I'm still trying to make a mark. That's part of the motivation."

Reach L. Kent Wolgamott at 473-7244 or at kwolgamott@;journalstar.com.

If you go

What: Delbert McClinton with Seth James

Where: Blackjack's Underground,Pershing Center, 226 Centennial Mall South

When: 8 p.m. Wednesday

Tickets: $28.50 advance, $31 day of show, available at the Pershing box office and all Ticketmaster outlets

Go New West, young musician

Delbert McClinton was the first big-selling artist signed to New West Records, a Los Angeles/Austin-based independent label, and, according to Peter Jesperson, the label's senior vice president/A&R, McClinton's presence helped attract other musicians to the imprint.

Now New West has 14 artists on its roster, including Dwight Yoakam, John Hiatt, Old 97s, Drive-by Truckers, Buddy and Julie Miller, The Flatlanders, Vic Chesnutt and Slobberbone.

That's a very cool, very impressive lineup of roots music acts put together by Jesperson, whose job involves finding new artists for the label.

"We wanted to create a place where people can make a living doing what they want to do, artists and staff alike," Jesperson said.

That philosophy began when Jesperson and label President Cameron Strang started going to see TheFlatlanders in Los Angeles after the trio of Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Butch Hancock and Joe Ely had a song in the film "The Horse Whisperer."

"We just went crazy, it was so good," Jesperson said. "We thought we could approach them with a place to get their music out and a very good business plan for both parties."

The success of McClinton, The Flatlanders, Hiatt and, most recently, Drive-byTruckers has helped New West bring in recent signees Old 97s, the Millers and Yoakam.

"It's the same old story," Jesperson said. "We're trying to make a lot of fabulous music and still make some money. We'd better have a lineup of high-caliber artists to work with."

New West has recently expanded its staff and has obtained the distribution rights to "Austin City Limits" programming.A series of DVD and CD releases from the popular roots music public television program will begin later this year, Jesperson said.

- L. Kent Wolgamott