Fortunateone

Delbert McClinton is free at last

by Mark Edmonds

Delbert McClinton's first disc in five years, One of the Fortunate Few, is finally due to surface in stores on October 7 (Nashville's Rising Tide). And I, for one, couldn't be happier about it. First and obviously, its release means McClinton's fans now have something new to listen to before his annual fall visit to the region (he appears next week in Somerville and Providence). But second, and more important, it marks a victory of sorts for a little guy who refused to play by Music City rules. And who among us can't help but applaud that?

After McClinton snared a Grammy in 1992 for his second Curb disc, Never Been Rocked Enough, label owner Mike Curb came up with a plan to take material from the two discs McClinton recorded for him (1990's I'm with You and Rocked Enough) and repackage a number of the songs into a "best of" series. But he didn't tell McClinton about it. So naturally, there were more than just hard feelings when the disc hit the streets.

Four years of bad blood and legal threats ensued between the two until Rising Tide owner Ken Leavitt and producer Emory Gordy dove into the McClinton/ Curb fracas intent on achieving some détente.

"I don't want to talk too much about it, because I think people are tired of all that stuff," McClinton confides. "But what Ken and Emory did was get a deal worked out that brought us to some resolution. They cleared it for me to record again. And best of all, they told me, `Just go and do a Delbert record.'"

Which brings us to Few, an album that concentrates on the musings typical to his past projects. Life, love, and the pursuit of happiness dominate throughout the disc's 10 tracks. Each song is supported with the same memorable variety of grooves that has put every McClinton project into a category of its own since Victim of Life's Circumstances -- his major label debut on ABC -- hit the streets in 1975. "Old Weakness," Few's opener, is one of those "missin' you" numbers that rides along squarely with the same Stones-esque guitar line that powered "Dice" to the top of the charts. "Leap of Faith" is a radio-ready "gettin' over you" tune that shuffles along to a snappy blues and gospel backbeat sweetened by the inclusion of intermittent horn lines and fluttering leads by B.B. King. And "Somebody To Love You" serves up an exotic blend of fuzztoned guitars and swishing percussion for its musical appetizer, followed by a boiling main course featuring McClinton and backing vocalists Mavis Staples and Bekka Bramlett charging through its "everybody needs somebody" chorus section.

Other highlights include the supremely funky "Lie No Better" -- with its organ-fueled hip-hop backbeat and heavy mid-song harp break by McClinton -- and "Best of Me" with its quirky, New Orleans bordello barrelhouse piano sound.

Probably the best track on the disc, "You Were Never Mine," is a deep-soul tearjerker written in the style of Dan Penn's masterpiece, "The Dark End of the Street" (made famous by soul singer James Carr). Set to a stripped-down melody of drums, organ, and a lonely guitar line, it's one of saddest tunes McClinton's ever written.

"We were going for something that sort of had `Jealous Kind' [a similar ballad] in mind," McClinton says. "And when we got done with it, we were a little surprised. It had this real heaviness to it. We kind of found ourselves hoping that some guy who was really down one day wouldn't hear it. It would be just enough to push him over the edge, and do himself in."

Noticeably absent from the disc is the booming, screeching sound of modern-day Nashville. McClinton says he never set out to record something that sounded like the latest from Music Row. Instead, "I wanted to make a record, that I'd be happy with.

"Basically, I don't care who else likes it. It has to please me. My biggest fear has always been to make a record, ignore that voice in me that guides me, and then have it come out and say, `Oh no, what have I done?' So I'm very careful about what I do. If it pleases me, I think it'll generally please other people, too."

That philosophy -- and another that dictates he put on the best show he can every night -- probably explains his enduring success. Even with five years between projects, near sellout crowds turn out to see him.

He's touched by the support. "Man, I could say a lot of things, but I won't 'cause I'd risk sounding like I'm blowing my horn. But I've got a legion of fans who'd take a bullet for me. They've been there for me no matter what, and that more than makes up for anything any guy in the music business could ever do to me."

Delbert McClinton plays Lupo's, in Providence, on October 10 in a benefit for the Steven Shaw Memorial Fund. Tickets are $15 for the 10 p.m. show. Call (401) 272-5876. McClinton will also appear at the Somerville Theatre on October 14. Tickets are $27.50. Call (617) 625-4088.