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Hitman Talks to Don Mclean · Classic Hitz with Hitman

• 0:00
  What's going on? It is Hitman with you and I have an American Treasure
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  on the phone right now. I am honored. I cannot believe I'm talking
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  to the legend himself, mister Don McClain, Sir, how are you this
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  morning? I'm doing just fantastically. Well, it's a beautiful day and I'm
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  happy. Hey, all right, Yeah, He's coming to the American Bank
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  Center on July thirteenth. Tickets are on sale right now, of course,
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  Ticketmaster dot com, the American Bank Center box office celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of
• 0:27
  American Pie. Looking forward to that, Also looking forward to listening to the
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  brand new album American Boys, which is out now. You can get it
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  on Amazon dot com. You can also stream it on Amazon Music and also
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  on the iHeartRadio app. Don tell me about American Boys. Well, the
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  song I wrote with my guitar player Bipperman, who has written a hit for
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  a lot of country artists. And it took us a while to get this
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  thing done, and we wrote a few more songs together, and then I
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  wrote a bunch more after that, and we had this out. I had
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  not intended or thought about making another album until I completed the American Boys song,
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  and then I really liked it a lot, and and Mike Seevers,
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  my producer in Nashville, made a terrific track, and he got a great
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  piano player in there and a bunch of other musicians, and then I added
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  guitars and so on. We had home Free, the a cappella group that
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  he's done work within the past, and it came out so well that I
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  said, well, let's make another track of this one and one of that
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  one for you know it. We had, you know, an album that's
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  great. Yeah. And speaking of the title track, American Boys, tell
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  me, how did you find that a cappella group home Free? Well,
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  actually, Kurt Webster represents me in Nashville and their manager are friends and they
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  occasionally you know, sing o people's stuff, and they suggested that we that
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  they do American Pie and so we never thought of that. So they had
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  a huge hit with that American Pie version that they did on Country, the
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  Taste of Country that I think the video we made it's the whole song was
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  number one for like a month or two, and they've done Vincent now and
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  I said, well, I'd love to have them on this album because we
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  could use the background singers and they work terrifictly on this tune. The American
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  Boys. Wow, wow, Yes, you can get American Boys right now.
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  It's in stores right now. Tell me a little bit about the ballad
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  George Floyd. I know that you recently just released the lyric video for that.
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  Tell me a little bit about that song. Well, the song that
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  I wasn't you know, everybody saw I've heard about this, and so it
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  happened and then got politicized in a way that I, you know, oh,
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  let's defund the police and all this nonsense. I said, I don't
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  like that. We need the police. We don't need certain people in the
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  police, and that's the problem. And so anyway, I left it alone.
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  And people would ask me all the time, isn't it like the nineteen
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  sixties now, And I would say, well, no, it isn't,
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  because five guys would have written a song about this George Floyd event and nobody
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  touched it. And the reason is is this cancel culture out there, and
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  everybody's a creative saying anything. But I'm too old to worry about that,
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  right And I've always done what I do, And I said, when I
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  saw the video and actually heard him saying he couldn't breathe and calling for his
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  mother. I remembered when I couldn't breathe with asthma pneumonia when I was a
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  little guy, and I had that a lot. My mother would come in
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  and just about saved my life and I would have to call for her in
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  the middle of the night. And something spoke to me. I have a
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  heart, you know. I have feelings for people, a lot of empathy
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  for things, and I have empathy for police officers, and I have empathy
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  for people who are arrested. I really see a lot of different points of
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  view right, And I wrote the song as simple as that. Wow.
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  Wow. We're talking with American treasure Don McLane, of course, coming July
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  thirteenth to the American Bank Center. Recently, you were at the White House
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  and you got to meet the President of Kenya and then you won a Silver
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  Telly Award for your long form documentary American Troubadour. Tell me a little bit
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  about that. How was that at the White House? Well, people can
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  look up the Daily Mail article and I can see my hot girlfriend Harris Dunn,
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  who I took with me, and she blew everybody away and we had
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  a blast. I said, you know, we got to do this.
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  The Biden administration has been very nice. They've asked me to come there ever
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  since the President of South Korea sang American Pie to Joe in the Easter Room.
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  They and they wanted me there last year for the Australian Prime Ministers at
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  dinner, but I was in Australia on tour, so I couldn't do it.
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  So they were nice enough to invite me to this and Brad Paisley played
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  and he was terrific. He entertained everybody, and you know, it was
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  just one of those amazing moments when you go into the White House and and
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  you you're brought in with a string orchestra, and I mean it's just as
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  about as high society as you can get. Wow. Yes, that's that's
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  great. I mean, you are an American treasurer. Of course, everybody
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  always loves American pie Vincent Castles in the Sky. My personal favorite is when
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  you Redid Crying, the Roy Orbison classic. Did Roy Orbison ever talk to
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  you about your version of that song? Yeah? Roy Orbison actually said he
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  liked my version than his. You can believe that. I mean, he
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  was very gracious, but he really meant it, and he started singing the
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  song the way I did it, which was slower and because this is more
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  of a rumba. But of course he's the original and can't top that.
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  But he was just very sweet. But Larry Butler, this is one of
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  the first times I went to Nashville in the late seventies. The song came
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  out about nineteen eighty. For a lot of reasons that I won't go into,
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  but Larry Butler, all of a sudden, I walked into the studio
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  and they are all the heaviest, most famous side men in music history.
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  Bob Moore is there, the Jordanaires are there, Pete Drake on steel guitars
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  there, Jimmy Kapps ray edonton. I'm thinking to myself, when you walk
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  into a studio on an afternoon in Nashville with a sunny day in Tennessee and
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  you see those cats looking back at you, you better have something, you
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  know what I mean? Yeah, you'd better have something. All right,
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  it's gonna be very dull and very long evening. So because they have seen
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  everything. So I had a whole lot of songs and they loved my music,
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  and they already knew me anyway, loved me and were so supportive,
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  and I said, you know, I really want to sing crying. I've
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  loved that song, and we did it. And when I heard it come
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  back over the speakers with no strings, Wow, I tears came to my
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  eyes. It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever heard. And then when
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  they did the record, they their playback in Nashville were better than my finished
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  records in New York. Okay, wow, wow, we're how good they
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  were. We're talking with Don McLean of course, coming July thirteenth to the
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  American Bank Center. What can people expect live when we see you live at
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  the American Bank Center. What can they expect for the show to during that
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  night? Well, it'll go quickly because there are so many songs, and
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  I have a rock and roll band. You know, this is a kick
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  ass bet. The two guitars, bassed, drums, keyboards, me on
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  acoustic pounding away and singing and so it's, you know, the same as
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  you'd see if you saw Credence or any of those groups. It's a big
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  sounds, but it also can evolve into a more gentler sound. If I
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  want to sing empty cheers or and I love you so or something wow wow.
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  Well, looking forward to seeing you here in Corpus Christi on July thirteenth.
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  Domiklin, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us
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  today and looking forward to seeing you when you come to Corpus. I'll be there.