Bye-Bye, Mr. ‘American Pie’--Don McLean Gives His Pen a Rest

Don McLean first came into prominence for his songwriting. Critics hailed his 1972 mega-hit, “American Pie,” as the musical epitaph for an era; its lyrics were analyzed and reanalyzed by Life, Time and Newsweek. Nearly two decades later, McLean, now 44, has come out with a double album consisting entirely of interpretations of old pop songs.

“For the Memories, Volumes 1 and 2” is a collection of 20 classics from the 1930s through the early ‘60s, including Hoagie Carmichael’s “Stardust,” Irving Berlin’s “Change Partners,” Marty Robbins’ “A White Sport Coat” and Sam Cooke’s “What a Wonderful World.”

“I’m not just a songwriter, and I’ve always felt there were certain songs I could sing as a singer but never write,” said McLean, who will perform Saturday night at the Bacchanal in Kearny Mesa.

“They were songs I’ve always loved, and I felt I could do them in a different way, in my way, and interpret them as a pop singer would interpret popular songs.

“It’s just something I felt like doing, and I did it very quickly. I just went into the studio and sang and sang and sang, and it took about two days to record and mix the whole thing.”

McLean’s attempts to focus attention on his pipes rather than his pen date back to 1981, when he scored a big hit with a remake of Roy Orbison’s “Crying.” Since then, he’s made a point of mixing covers with originals, both in concert and on his albums, to further defy the topical-songwriter categorization that’s haunted him since “American Pie.”

McLean has never felt comfortable with that label, and with good reason: Variety has always been the essence of his career. One of the first songs he ever wrote, “And I Love You So,” was a huge easy-listening hit for veteran pop crooner Perry Como. Less than two years after “American Pie,” McLean recorded an album of songs in traditional folk and bluegrass styles.

On subsequent recordings, he’s been backed by everything from rock bands to symphony orchestras, and in 1987 he cut a straight-ahead country album, “Love Tracks.”

“I’m a lot of different Don McLeans,” he said. “I want to do something different with every record I do, so that when I’m dead and buried, you can go back and listen to all my records and not find any songs that sound alike.

“I want to use my career, and my chance to record, to express a wide variety of my talents, and this has always been my plan, my hope. It’s not a great idea if you want to be super commercial, but from the first album I ever made (1970’s ‘Tapestry’), I decided this is what I want to do.

“If you go back to ‘Tapestry,’ there’s stuff with a quartet, stuff with strings and stuff with just me and my guitar. And at the time, nobody else was doing that--the record companies would say, pick a sound and stick with it for 10 sides. But I could never do that, and I never did.”

McLean was born in New Rochelle, N. Y., and grew up listening to such disparate artists as Frank Sinatra, the Weavers and Buddy Holly.

“My father died when I was 15, and I was left with a widowed mother who I had to support,” McLean recalled. “But I was also free to pursue my dream, which was to play my guitar and sing, and that’s what I did.

“When I was 17, I went on the road and began performing in coffeehouses all over the country, but at the same time I was going to school. My father had always wanted me to go to college, and I did, studying economics at Iona College (in New Rochelle). I was on the road, and I usually had a school book with me.”

After graduating in 1968 with a bachelor’s degree in economics, McLean struck up a friendship with folk singer Pete Seeger. The two sang together at a benefit concert for the Hudson River Sloop Restoration, and later that year McLean was named “Hudson River Troubadour” by the New York State Council on the Arts. For six weeks, he traveled the length of the river, playing three concerts a day, five days a week, in various towns along the Hudson.

In 1969, McLean landed a recording contract with Mediarts Records, which was promptly absorbed by the nationally distributed United Artists label. “Tapestry” came out a year later, followed by “American Pie.” The title track, an 8 1/2-minute saga inspired by the death of Buddy Holly, went on to become one of the biggest-selling singles of 1972.

“I had always been a great lover of Buddy Holly’s music, and I felt his death personally,” McLean said. “I kept that with me, and one day it just came out. I fused my feelings about his death with a whole bag of other things in my heart about this sense of loss, this sense that we were somehow losing America, and it just turned into that song.”

The overwhelming critical and commercial success of “American Pie”--which ultimately spent four weeks at No. 1 on the national Top 40 charts--made McLean an instant superstar.

But he soon discovered that fame is fleeting. After scoring three follow-up hits with “Vincent” (a tribute to artist Vincent van Gogh), “Castles in the Air” and “Dreidel”--and being immortalized by songwriters Charles Gimble and Norman Fox in “Killing Me Softly With His Song,” Roberta Flack’s Grammy Award-winning single of 1973--McLean pretty much faded from view, although he continued to record and tour.

“I really wasn’t in a great mental state during those years,” he said. “The stresses and the strains of many things developed into a situation that wasn’t happy. The relationship between the people representing me and my label soured, and, coupled with the fact that I had a lot of personal problems, I wasn’t altogether thrilled with the way things turned out.”

In 1976, McLean left United Artists and signed with Arista Records. His Arista debut, 1977’s “Prime Time,” was a commercial dud; four years later, he resurfaced on the Millennium label with “Chain Lightning,” which yielded the Top 40 hit “Crying.”

Since then, McLean has jumped ship two more times--first to Capitol Records, after a protracted legal battle with his former manager, then to the Gold Castle label--but he has yet to find his way back to the pop charts.

He says that doesn’t bother him.

“I have a full concert schedule every year, and I’ve made enough money to keep me set for life,” McLean said. “Besides, if your whole life is centered around image and show business, you’re bound to be a tortured individual.

“Once you’ve been No. 1, once you’ve won your Grammys and your gold records, there’s only one place to go, and that’s down. So you really have to have another life, which is why I have so many other things I’m interested in aside from concentrating on being Don McLean, on recapturing my past success.”

McLean is putting together a musical, “Don McLean’s America,” scheduled to open in June at the Chichester Festival Theater in England.