Doug MacLeod

[realthog]

Thanks to a chance discovery a couple of weeks ago, I've been playing bluesman Doug MacLeod's music a lot lately, and have plans to dent the credit card soon getting some more of it, heh heh. I've had a query offlist from someone who (like me until recently) had never heard of MacLeod; by coincidence, I discovered that the new site established by the record industry, last.fm, encourages users to embed material in their own websites. Accordingly, here's a sample track:

Doug MacLeod Band – Send the Soul on Home (live)

The track's from the album The Doug MacLeod Band Live in 1991 Vol. 1, about which you can find more here: http://www.last.fm/music/Doug+MacLeod+Band/Live+in+1991+Volume+1. (My fave track on the album is in fact "Roll Like a River", which comes immediately before the one I've embedded above, but unfortunately it has a very long spoken introduction so is unsuitable as a taster.) This album was released back in the days when MacLeod was performing electric blues with a full band; some (not all) of the tracks have a feel a bit like Mark Knopfler and Dire Straits backing David Ackles on the latter's more ballad-like, less Brechtian songs.

Macleod's last half-dozen or so albums have been acoustic, with minimal (but superbly minimal!) backing, and are if anything even better. He coaxes noises out of an acoustic guitar I didn't know could be found there.

Comments

[quilterbear.livejournal.com]

ooo ooooooo!!! I love that music! I've never heard of him before. Tell me, what album should I get that reflects the kind of music that was on your sample? I really enjoyed it -- thank you so much for introducing me to him!

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"Tell me, what album should I get that reflects the kind of music that was on your sample?"

Of the albums of his I've heard, the one this track is from -- The Doug MacLeod Band Live in 1991 Vol. 1 -- is the one you should try. You can listen to the whole of it at free.napster (http://free.napster.com/view/artist/index.html?id=12412726#); and, if you like it, download either there or, slightly more cheaply, from Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Live-in-1991-Volume-1/dp/B0012JFYUO/ref=sr_f3_1?ie=UTF8&s=dmusic&qid=1201810964&sr=103-1). Unfortunately, it's not available as a physical CD: just as a download.

His more recent albums are available as actual CDs. Again, you can hear them at free.napster, this time at http://free.napster.com/view/artist/index.html?id=11537768#.

Last.fm's not so good for listening to whole albums as free.napster is. Last.fm insists on shuffling the running order of the tracks, which as far as I'm concerned is insanity: it's like shuffling the chapter order of a novel!

I think these listen-for-free sites are great. (The standard seems to be that you can listen three times for free, which seems fair enough. Those sites where you can listen to 30 seconds of each track are just wasting their own bandwidth, so far as I'm concerned.) I used to buy a lot of music in the days when you could go into record shops and listen to stuff; after that was phased out, my music-buying plummeted -- I had no way of discovering new artists. But now, once more, I can browse around these sites and try a few likely-looking items, and, when I find something I really like, like MacLeod, well . . .

[quilterbear.livejournal.com]

I love "Roll Like a River" -- I perked my ears up when he said he sat on a bluff overlooking the Missouri river. I grew up on a bluff overlooking the Missouri. Nice, nice music. Gonna get it. Question -- will it download into my iTunes?

I'm like you -- I need to hear the songs before I buy them, and not a tiny little byte, but really hear it. Don't wanna steal it, but want to have made its acquaintance.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"will it download into my iTunes?"

The Amazon download is supposed to work in anything, including iTunes. If in doubt: I noticed that on his own site (www.doug-macleod.com; hit "Music" and scroll down) there's an iTunes link.