Don McLean
McLean was born into a comfortable suburban home in New Rochelle,
New York. In 1963 - at the age of 15 - he began playing local
clubs and a couple of years later was playing throughout the state
of New York.
Initially moved to start playing guitar by the music
of Buddy Holly, Don moved away from rock and into folk
circles, and by 1968 was firmly established in that scene.
Pete
Seeger invited him aboard the sloop Clearwater for its
anti-pollution voyage along the Hudson River, and Don edited a
book telling the story of the trip and reproducing some of the
songs the singers sang on the boat.
American Pie (1971) was a lengthy, complex metaphoric
epic about the death of rock & roll and the state of the
nation. The eight-and-a-half minute song captured the imagination
of a generation and spent seven weeks at Number One in the US,
selling over three million copies.
He followed it up with the quiet Vincent, a song
about Vincent Van Gogh that was more typical of his usual
material.
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