Delbert McClinton has no regrets for following his muse

Delbert McClinton says it was having his poem put in the school newspaper that helped set him on his path as a songwriter.

Delbert McClinton doesn't like doing photo shoots.

"There comes a point when enough's enough," says McClinton. "Doing a photo shoot is the most difficult thing for me. Looking back in my career and anybody's career, you look at these album covers and some guy is standing there trying to look like the coolest (expletive) in the world. But when you get to be my age and you get into that position it just looks like you got a colon problem!"

McClinton is a guy who is over worrying about much. He has a regular tour schedule in nice halls that are typically packed. He records new music when he's in the mood and his catalog of country-tinged classic R&B continues to sell. He hosts a yearly music cruise (Sandy Beaches Cruise) that, with a couple of exceptions, has been a consistent money-maker and remains personally satisfying.

"Everything is right pretty much where I want it, which is nice," says McClinton from his home in Nashville. "I work as much as I want to and that's it."

McClinton grew up in Lubbock and Fort Worth, Texas, and began playing music locally in the 1950s. As a guitarist, harmonica player and vocalist, he backed up the blues and R&B greats who came through town. It's McClinton's harmonica that can be heard on Bruce Channel's 1962 hit "Hey! Baby" and McClinton famously taught Beatle John Lennon harmonica licks when Channel and the group toured the British Isles.

McClinton says he was driven to sing from well before he was a teenager and he became a songwriter by way of poetry.

McClinton says a pivotal moment came when he was a junior in high school in Fort Worth, Texas.

"I was a terrible student. Terrible. They had a school newspaper called the Jacket Journal and around Christmas they had everybody in every English class write a poem and the best one would be selected and would be on the front page of the Jacket Journal Christmas edition."

McClinton wrote a poem about what Christmas would be like to a blind person and it was chosen as the best.

He hasn't stopped writing since.

"It wasn't that I wanted to, but that I had to. It just keeps coming out and it thrills you and keeps your heart beating the way you like it. You can't avoid a song that's coming out."

McClinton enjoys co-writing, and for many years his co-writer of choice has been Gary Nicholson. He says Nicholson understands what McClinton can do with his voice and helps challenge him.

McClinton has intentions of completing a solo album in 2012 and another disc with Glen Clark. Clark and McClinton worked as a duo in Los Angeles in the early 1970s.

"One of the reasons I wanted to do this with Glen is we sing so good together," says McClinton. "His voice is at least as strong as mine is. Every time we sing something together it's got a ragged-edge rawness to it that just thrills us both."

But don't expect either of the albums to be completed too soon.

"I've got quite a few things to record, but I'm not in the mood. That's the way it's always been with me. It usually comes around that I'm in the mood and I'm able to go in and record it in about a week — basic tracks. That's not that hard to do. But that givin' a (expletive) needs to be there or you're not gonna get your best."

He says sometimes following art has meant he's neglected people he shouldn't have.

"I've got regrets. I'm not ashamed of anything I've done, but some I really wish I hadn't. If you can't forgive yourself ain't nobody every gonna forgive you. You gotta not be stupid. ... But that's all part of life. You do that (expletive) and then you realize what you did and you realize you have to make it better. I don't know. It's been a wonderful chase all the way through it."

McClinton says there's not much he wants to accomplish that he hasn't.

"I'll be happy if I can just continue to do what I'm doing and someday just drop dead! Preferably in my sleep!"

© 2011, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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