Jazz Articles about Delbert McClinton

Delbert McClinton: Tall, Dark & Handsome

by Doug Collette
August 3, 2019

On his last album Prick of the Litter (Hot Shot Records, 2017 ), Grammy-Award winning [Delbert McClinton wholly fulfilled his image as the contemporary definition of modern Texas style r&b. He certainly didn't do it alone--his band the, Self-Made Men, added savvy and soul--but the man who showed John Lennon how to blow the harmonica imbued his original songs with personal meaning that only elevated their authenticity of style. Fourteen new tunes composed by the frontman in various combinations of ...

Delbert McClinton: Prick of the Litter

by Doug Collette
January 28, 2017

Texas-born Delbert McClinton is one of America's great natural resources. And that three-time Grammy Award-winning reputation is based on more than just his nurturing of John Lennon's interest in the harmonica back in the early '60s when McClinton, as part of the duo Delbert and Glen, were touring with The Beatles. A string of more than nineteen handsomely wrought albums melding, blues, country, soul and jazz is the real foundation of Delbert's reputation and Prick of the Litter adds substantial ...

Delbert McClinton and the Self Made Men: Prick of the Litter

by C. Michael Bailey
January 28, 2017

Delbert McClinton is from Lubbock, by way of Fort Worth Texas. I don't suspect that anyone would accuse Texas of being a “Soul" capital of anything. Isn't that Memphis, Muscle Shoals, Detroit, and Philadelphia? How can we account for who may possibly be the best white soul singer? Beginning in 1972, partnering with singer Glen Clark, McClinton began constructing his Texas brand of soul-blues. He wrote “Two More Bottles of Wine," “B-Movie Boxcar Blues, and “Every Time I Roll the ...

Delbert McClinton and Glen Clark: Blind, Crippled & Crazy

by C. Michael Bailey
July 19, 2013

In 1972, Texans Delbert McClinton and Glen Clark had already been a part of the Texas music scene for ten years. They recorded Delbert & Glen (1972) for Koch, inaugurating two careers, McClinton's being the more fruitful. That recording produced “B-Movie Boxcar Blues," which found its way onto The Blues Brothers' Briefcase Full Of Blues (Atlantic, 1978), jettisoning McClinton's already considerable popularity. The two singers team up again, forty years later, for Blind Crippled and Crazy, demonstrating that the formula ...

Delbert McClinton: Delbert McClinton: Cost of Living

by Doug Collette
October 6, 2005

Among Delbert McClinton's many virtues are his longevity and his integrity, not to mention the humility that gives the title to Cost of Living. Staying power comes at a price, but like his late, lamented Texas blues peers, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Doug Sahm, this Texan can't sell out, because he really does not know how.

Honky tonk is holy in the hands of this man, which is why a song of his called “Midnight Communion is so ...

Delbert McClinton: Nothing Personal

by C. Michael Bailey
July 1, 2001

Delbert McClinton returns to the studio for the first time in three years for a new label and serves up the same old thing—the most informed and honest bastard child of country music and blues one could hope for.

I saw Delbert McClinton at the now defunct Little Roxy in Little Rock, Arkansas in the exceptionally hot summer of 1984. He had his big band, horns and all. He played “Two More Bottles of Wine", “The B-Movie Boxcar Blues" and ...