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DJ
throws out Blues at CSULB with years of experience
By Brian Brannon
Summer On-line Forty-Niner
The deep and resonant
voice of Muddy Waters rings out from the studios of KLON FM
88.1 on the campus of Cal State Long Beach. It is transmitted
over the airwaves directly to the ears of thousands of dedicated
blues fans across Southern California. And via the radio station’s
Web site, the slow to medium-tempo sounds of “My Pencil Won’t
Write No More” touches listeners around the world.
Doug MacLeod is
the host of “Nothin’ But The Blues” on KLON every Saturday
and Sunday from 2 p.m. until 7 p.m. Sporting a black T-shirt,
khaki pants and a mat of curly gray hair, the thin, bespectacled
disc jockey sits amid banks of faders, dials and volume meters,
while presiding over the playlist for five hours each weekend
afternoon.
MacLeod never plans
what he will play on the show any further than the first two
or three songs, he says. He lets the music speak to him. Each
bit of blues, whether it’s from the Mississippi Delta, the
South Side of Chicago or deep in the heart of Texas, suggests
the next tune he should play, and so on, throughout the show.
Like famed Atlanta
twelve-string blues guitarist Blind Willie McTell, whose recordings
from 1927 to 1956 were characteristic of the ragtime-influenced
Piedmont guitar style, MacLeod plays the blues by feel. Thus,
the songlist for “Nothin’ But The Blues” is constantly changing;
shuffling through the many varied styles the genre represents.
“You’ll never hear
me play two slow blues songs in a row, ever,” MacLeod says.
True to his word,
following the Muddy Waters cut, he slips on “Ain’t No Place
Like New Orleans,” by Earl King. The composition is a celebration
of life in the Crescent City, gleefully capturing the spirit
of a “fais do-do,” (pronounced “fay-dow-dow”), a Cajun dance
party in French Creole phraseology.
As evidenced by
King’s ode to revelry in the Big Easy, the blues is not all
about sitting around and feeling sorry for yourself, says
MacLeod. Though some blues tunes are haunting and heart-wrenching
in the down-and-out stories they tell, much of the blues is
joyful, uplifting and cathartic in its approach to dealing
with life’s tribulations.
MacLeod was introduced
to the blues while growing up in St. Louis, when he and a
friend saw B.B. King make his guitar “Lucille” sing at a small
club on what was then the “black side of town,” the only place
where live blues music was played. Soon thereafter, the pair
was making regular pilgrimages across the proverbial tracks
to witness performances by Eugene Neill, Little Milton, and
Ike and Tina Turner. With his own eyes and ears, MacLeod experienced
the uplifting nature of the blues.
“I saw people laughing,
I saw people having a good time dancing, smiling, and I said
to myself, ‘I’ve got to be around this,’” he said.
And so began MacLeod’s
love affair with the blues. While stationed in Norfolk, Va.,
with the Navy, MacLeod met an old one-eyed guitar player named
Ernest Banks who shared with him some of the secrets of the
blues. Banks taught MacLeod that the blues is more than a
musical scale or a style of performing, it’s a way of looking
at life.
“He also told me
this, he said, ‘Never write or sing about what you don’t know
about,’” said MacLeod.
From that perspective,
MacLeod has definite credentials to host “Nothin’ But The
Blues.” As frontman for the Doug MacLeod Band, he released
four albums of electric blues from 1984 to 1991. Since 1994,
he has released five solo albums of acoustic blues, most recently
the critically-acclaimed “Whose Truth, Whose Lies.”
He has played with
blues legends such as Pinetop Perkins, Lazy Lester, Henry
Gray, Pee Wee Crayton, Lowell Fulson, Big Mama Thornton, Eddie
“Cleanhead” Vinson, Big Joe Turner and George “Harmonica”
Smith. Additionally, MacLeod’s compositions have been recorded
by Albert King, Albert Collins, Son Seals, Joe Louis Walker,
Papa John Creach, Dave Alvin, Eva Cassidy, Coco Montoya, Billy
Lee Riley and James Armstrong.
His exposure to
so many notable names in the blues allows MacLeod to share
priceless anecdotes and insights with his listeners. His experience
as a performer gives MacLeod the ability to convey a deeper
understanding of the many varied styles inherent in the blues.
Leaning into the
microphone, MacLeod introduces “Grinning In Your Face,” telling
his audience up-front that the song contains no instruments,
backup vocals or percussion, only the stark and stirring voice
of Mississippi Delta blues progenitor Son House.
Gary Chiachi is
the producer of both “Nothin’ But The Blues” and the world-famous
Long Beach Blues Festival. He is also the host of “Blues In
The Night,” which airs on KLON on Sunday nights from 7 to
9 p.m. A fixture at KLON since 1993, Chiachi has nothin’ but
praise for the host of “Nothin’ But The Blues.”
“I think he’s a
wonderful blues DJ, he has incredible knowledge about the
music, and I think he fits real well in terms of representing
the music how it should be represented,” said Chiachi.
While other DJs
put on airs or create radio personas to fit in with the type
of music they play, all MacLeod has to do to sound good is
just be himself while hosting “Nothin’ But The Blues,” says
Chiachi.
As the strains
of Son House’s testifying vocals fade away, MacLeod plays
a track by Ray Charles, who was nicknamed “The Genius” in
the fifties for his ability to inject soul into rhythm &
blues. On car radios, home stereos and computer speakers around
the world, blues lovers hear Charles sing, “Hallelujah, I
love her so…”
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Brian Brannon/Summer
On-line Forty-Niner
Doug MacLeod
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