One Roadhouse Rocker Who Is Finally Doing It His Way

Don’t look for much truth in the titles of Delbert McClinton’s last two albums.

The roadhouse rocker named his 1997 disc “One of the Fortunate Few” when, he would shortly learn, nothing could be further from the truth. The disc got off to the hottest start of McClinton’s nearly 40-year career--selling 300,000 copies--when Universal Music Group pulled the plug on its Rising Tide subsidiary.

“It all went away like blowing out a candle,” he says. “I can’t take another corporate crunch.”

So in naming his latest effort “Nothing Personal,” McClinton had his tongue planted very firmly in his cheek. The disc, after all, is very personal.

McClinton bankrolled the recording, allowing him complete artistic control for the first time, wrote or co-write all the disc’s 13 songs and released it on the independent New West Records.

“I fall into a category that is not a superstar selling artist,” he says. “With a major label, it’s hard to get anywhere if you don’t come out selling a million records. But there’s a market out there for an artist who can sell 300,000 records.”

McClinton is a Texas treasure. His highest profile songs, “Givin’ It Up for Your Love,” “I’ve Got Dreams to Remember” (the Otis Redding hit) and “A Fool in Love,” have blurred the barriers between blues, country, Tex-Mex and soul on the strength of his seemingly indefatigable voice.

McClinton was responsible for teaching John Lennon some basic harmonica riffs (the result of which can be heard on the Beatles’ “Love Me Do”)--but that’s the stuff of lore, and McClinton would rather let the music of his long career tell the story.

He was born in Lubbock, Texas, and moved to Fort Worth in 1951, just three years before rock ‘n’ roll was born. It was a time when rockabilly, country, blues and R&B; collided to form a new sound.

“It was a great time musically and there was an awful lot of great music going on,” he says. “I was 14 years old when it started, so you can imagine what I heard.”

He was able to leave Texas on the strength of his harmonica playing on Bruce Channel’s 1962 hit, “Hey! Baby.” It was on a tour of England with Channel that Lennon first approached him.

McClinton was ready to strike out on a solo path after stints with the Ron-Dels and Fort Worth songwriter Glen Clark.

“Victim of Life’s Circumstances,” his 1975 debut, began a string of acclaimed albums that included “Love Rustler,” “Second Wind” and “The Jealous Kind.” In 1992, he won a Grammy Award for “Good Man / Good Woman,” a duet with Bonnie Raitt.

Other Artists Like Cover His Songs

Many artists over the years have covered McClinton’s songs: a club that includes Vince Gill, Wynnona, Lee Roy Parnell and Martina McBride. “If they do a good job, I feel really good,” he says. “If they do a lousy job, I say: ‘God, I hope nobody hears this.’ But they usually do a good job.”

Despite industry shake-ups, McClinton’s two most recent discs are among the most critically lauded of his career. On “Nothing Personal” his voice remains equal parts whiskey and sugar. He maintains a heavy tour schedule with nearly 180 dates each year.

At 60, McClinton has no plans for retiring.

“To what? Hell, I’ve already got the best life in the world. Why would I quit?” he says. “I’m going to continue doing this for as long as I can.”