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This is Later with Lee Matthews,
The Lee Matthews Podcast More what You Hear

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Weekday Afternoon's on the Drive. Always
love having him on the program, whether

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it's talking about the fiftieth anniversary of
his number one hit or his exciting new

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album. Don McClain joining us now
And the name of the album is American

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Boys, of which you are one? Are you not? Don McClain,

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I am American. I'm an American
boy, and I helped create rock and

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roll. You sure did, You
sure did. And patriotism has always been

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kind of an underlying theme in your
music. Well, you know, I

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think you've got to be proud of
yourself, proud of your country. But

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I don't think you need to be
a big dumb flag waiver either. You

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know, you have to be sort
of in the middle and be realistic.

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And that was always the way it
was when I was brought up. Fairness

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and good sportsmanship and uh. But
now I think it's good for our people

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to know that American boys invented rock
and roll. We didn't just play it.

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This music comes from America, just
like the blues and jazz and so

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much some of our so many of
our great writers. For some reason.

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A lot of it comes from the
South, and it may have to do

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with with the problems the South had
and the slavery and who knows what else,

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but uh, it's created. And
of course the church and harmony and

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gospel and everything mixed in. Uh. This is all part of early rock

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and roll. And I think of
all the black groups too as part of

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of this. I don't think.
I don't like the term doop, you

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know, to me in the still
of the night was just rock and roll,

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you know, or blue Moon by
the Morsels or whatever. I was

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chuckling a minute ago when you were
talking about the South and the inspiration the

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South. I always chuckle at a
quote of Sam Houston when it was it

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was at the onset of the outbreak
of the Civil War, and it was

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his advice to the people of the
South. And basically you said, you

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don't understand the people of the North. They're not as fiery a people as

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you, for they live in a
cooler climate. Like that had anything to

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do with it, But maybe climate
does. I don't know. Well,

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I can't imagine the North really occupying
the South because it's so moist, and

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I can't imagine the other way around, with you know, plowing feet of

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snow and everything. So it was
it was one of those very ugly football

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games. Yes, yes, sure, Don McClain. His new album is

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American Boys. There's a lot of
great titles in here too, and they're

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all original Stone Cold, Gangster,
Thunderstorm Girl, Gypsy Road. That's right,

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they're all new songs, and I
do quite a few of them on

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stage. I have a really good
band that comes from Nowville, led by

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Tony Migliore on the piano, and
we have twin guitars and bass and drums,

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and of course my guitar is wired
now and so it's it's a rock

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and roll band, you know,
when we want it to be. And

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also I'll just sing a song with
a piano or twin guitars and or just

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be solo on guitar. If I
do a song like Vincent or something like

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that. Yeah, that's that you
were acoustic before acoustic was cool. I

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love my guitars, you know.
And one thing I love about in Nashville

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is that everybody there loved the same
things I did. They knew how to

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harmonize, they knew how to use
an acoustic guitar and all this music is

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I belong there, and I've recently
gotten some wonderful awards. I was given

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a star on the Nashville Walk of
Stars across from the Country Music Hall of

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Fame, and I was inducted into
the Musicians Hall of Fame, which is

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me one of the most wonderful things
that ever happened, because the people in

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that are the ones that really made
the music. You know that Jordanaires and

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the Crickets and all these different groups
that were at the bottom of everything that

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I really love, and they thought
enough of me to have me in there.

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Don McLain with US American Boys is
his newest album. It is out

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now and I always wanted to ask
you about the imagery of your lyrics.

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Did you draw inspiration from any of
the beat poets of maybe the nineteen fifties

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and sixties. You know what happens
to me is I see a little movie

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in my head and then I write
down and I usually sing the first part

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of the song right with the lyric
into the tape recorder, and then I

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add to it until I get a
form and then I can write more lyrics.

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But I've got the musical form,
and I write different lyrics for every

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song, Like a little song like
Wonderful Baby is not the same as Vincent,

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and it's completely different, a different
writing style, different musical style.

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So that's my thing. That's what
I do. And I know that's why

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I don't write lots of songs,
because they're all really different. But it's

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in my head. I can see
it. Do you dream in music?

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I do. I wake up with
melodies in my head, and when i'm

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really going good, I'll have a
tape recorder by the bed and I'll be

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singing into it every morning, something
that's come into my dreams and then it

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comes into our ears, like American
Boys, the new album out from Don

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McClain, Grammy Award winning Songwriters Hall
of Fame member, BBC Lifetime Achievement Winner

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two. I see some of your
other albums are in remastering as well,

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including and I didn't know this,
Don McClain sings Marty Robbins. Were you

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a fan huge? I love the
singers you know to me, Elvis was

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a singer, Orbison was a singer. Marty Robbins was a real singer,

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and I really got into his music. And then I decided to do this

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album, and I had a friend
of mine do the cover whose name was

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Thomas b Allen, who is famous
in the world of bluegrass for doing a

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lot of the flatt and scrugs covers
for Columbia Records, and he did a

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lot of other Columbia projects as well. Marty Stewart knows him well. He's

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put a book out on him,
and I think he has a lot of

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his work in his museum down there
in Mississippi. Marty Stewart a savant on

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his own right too. When it
comes to the Mandolin American Boys is the

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album and Don McLean is the legendary
artist that is out now. We'll look

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forward to hearing it and to your
next pass through Oklahoma. Don McLean,

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thank you for having me on your
show and best wishes everybody in Oklahoma.

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Thanks for listening to Later with Lee
Matthews the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember

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to listen to The Drive Live weekday
afternoons from five to seven and iHeartMedia Presentation