A Scotsman’s last ride at the rodeo
Tom MacLear plays Saint Rocke tonight
Tom MacLear has been on a wild wander.
It started the day that the Roger Wagoner Chorale came to Bozeman, Montana. His parents, William and Mary MacLear, were singers and actors, and they didn’t believe in missing gigs, pregnant or not.
“It was kind of a medium light opera, somewhere between the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Mitch Miller,” MacLear said. “She was a hard working lady and didn’t want to miss one tour, of course.”
The show must go on. And so she sang her part and exited stage right at a theater in Bozeman. MacLear entered the world, appropriately enough, backstage.
“She went into labor and that was it,” MacLear said. “There I was, born on American soil.”
He wouldn’t be off the stage long. The family returned to Aberdeen, but as theater people, they were constantly on the move. When he was eight, the family was in Blackpool involved with a production of Oliver. MacLear was just a little court jester, a little part that mainly kept him kicking around underfoot backstage, when the boy playing Oliver fell sick.
“I knew all the songs,” he said. “I just got lucky, got thrown on the stage, and that was kind of my first gig. I just went from there.”
He hasn’t stopped singing since. In London as a teenager, he found he had an affinity for all things stringed – including lap slide and pedal steel guitars, dobro, mandolin, banjo and bass. His family moved to Los Angeles in 1973. As a 19-year-old kid, he found himself in the right place at exactly the right time.
MacLear walked into the Topanga Corral as a multi-instrumentalist just as a new kind of country music was being born. Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Canned Heat and Crazy Horse were all part of the scene. Soon the Scottish kid was on the road again, this time as a country music guitar player.
“That was magic, just pure magic,” MacLear said. “So many people today talk about Gram Parsons, but Emmylou was just starting out then, and nobody realized how big all that stuff was going to be. I was late, everybody was six or seven years older than me, but I got involved in the thing and soon I was flying all over the place.
He caught on first with the Flying Burrito Brothers and would go on to play with Emmylou and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Ry Cooder became his close friend, guide, and mentor.
“He was one of the most influential people I ever met,” MacLear said. “I met him through my sister, who was dating a friend of his. He really helped me refine some of my slide skills. He was in the thick of everything – Crazy Horse, I think the Stones wanted him to join for a while. I mean, he is just like the angel of slide. Ry Cooder is the guy.”
MacLear proceeded to have one of those prolific, quiet careers that many true musicians have – not the guys on the marquee, but the ones who write the songs, play whatever lick needs to be played, and occasionally venture out with a record or project of his or her own. If you have not heard of MacLear, you have almost certain heard MacLear. He has written for or played with Rod Stewert, Annie Lennox, and Concrete Blonde, among others, and enjoyed a career within a career as the frontman for the band MacLear during the Celtic rock boom. He has written screenplays, recently published a book of poems, and has produced art for such television shows as Californication and Caveman.
And now he’s going back to where it all began. His newest and perhaps final project is a band called One More Rodeo – which just released an eponymous album – featuring a firecracker lead singer named Rachel Quinn singing MacLear’s songs with a heavy dose of his slide guitar playing.
“If this is the last record I ever do, I am perfectly content with that,” MacLear said. “I’ve had a long career. I’m writing for people. I am not worried – I just want to have fun, and so far people have just loved the CD. If this is my one last rodeo, so be it.”
He also believes this will be a launching point for Quinn.
“I really predict she is going to be super big in a year or so,” he said. “People have no idea how good she is. I don’t want to be a front person. I’d rather have a band.”
At this point, MacLear said, it’s all for the sake of the song.
“That is the key, key thing,” he said. “You know, a good story goes a long way….to stand on a stage and see people ten rows back kissing or hugging over something you’ve sung, or to make somebody who has had a rotten week feel a little better – that is the biggest paycheck. To me, that is the special thing about art, and why I am happy with what I do. You could have a mansion or a Ferrari, but really, what you did, not what you have, that is what you are going to be remembered for.”
Tom MacLear and One More Rodeo play Saint Rocke tonight on a bill that also features Tom Frueud. See www.maclear.net for more info or www.saintrocke.com for tickets.