Under the Radar shines a light on lesser-known cover artists. If you’re not listening to these folks, you should. Catch up on past installments here.
Fear not, this is no obituary; Delbert McClinton is still around, a mere stripling of 84. Still, given that it’s been three years since his last album and more since he toured, I’d hate to have him slip away on me before I got the chance to celebrate him here.
Delbert who? That’s the response from most when I laud McClinton, his name having surprisingly little traction despite a career as long as my entire life. To answer the question, he’s a good ol’ boy from Lubbock, Texas, with a laissez-faire attitude to genre type-casting. Many of his records went top 20 positions in the US blues and country charts at the same time. We first heard of him playing his distinctive harmonica riffs on Bruce Channel’s “Hey, Baby.” In 1962! (That year he toured the UK with Channel; the Beatles were their opening act, and John Lennon famously got some playing tips from McClinton that he put to use on “Love Me Do.”)
That wasn’t even where McClinton began. He played Texas bar-bands from his teens, backing some of the blues legends then still on the road — Sonny Boy Williamson, Howlin’ Wolf, Lightnin’ Hopkins just to name a few. A hit with his own band, the Ron-Dels, “If You Really Want Me To, I’ll Go”, came in 1965, followed by a three-year partnership with Glen Clark, 1972-5, before striking out on his own. He was nominated for eight Grammy awards and won four — not too shabby. And let’s not forget his own songwriting, something he may even arguably be better known for. Emmylou Harris’s “Two More Bottles of Wine” was his, as well as many others that led to his 2011 indictment in the Texas Heritage Songwriters Hall of Fame.
But it is his gravelly, gritty renditions of the songs of others that we celebrate today, vocals that sound they have spent years in the saddle, ahead being trampled underfoot in a bar brawl, buried and then brined for posterity. Imagine a mix of Johns Fogerty and Hiatt, gargled with a sandpaper side, and you pretty much have it. A laryngologist’s nightmare, and perfect for his tramples over blues, country and rock and roll.
Delbert McClinton – Bright Side of the Road (Van Morrison cover)
Something familiar to kick off, a first casual listen may suggest little different from the original. Except Van the Man has never sounded quite this loose. One could never describe the benighted Ulsterman as relaxed, but McClinton gives “Bright Side of the Road” the full bar band swagger and snarl, positively bouncing through the lyric, in a real let’s-put-the-whole-show-on-right-here vibe. That the band has just that perfect mix between precision and chaos is spot on, with the harmonica from McClinton himself. It is possibly little surprise that the album, The Jealous Kind (1980), was made at Muscle Shoals, with the stellar cast of talent all present and correct: David Hood, Roger Hawkins, Barry Beckett, even Bonnie Bramlett on backing vocals.
Delbert McClinton – Take Me to the River (Al Green cover)
It seems wrong to pitch a second straight song from the same album, with so many others to peruse. But hey, you can’t argue with the Reverend Al, especially when McClinton gifts us with such a rollicking showboat of a version. The parent album was actually McClinton’s biggest cross-over success, attaining a Billboard #34. It’s a frustration that the studio went bust, giving him only one further outing with the same team.
Delbert McClinton – Texas Me (Sir Douglas Quintet cover)
Given McClinton shares, with Doug Sahm, the same healthy disdain for classification silos, it was entirely fitting that he should turn up on Keep Your Soul, a 2009 tribute to Sahm. His version of this 1969 song manages to retain the same sense of honkytonk as the original, but imbues a greater rock and roll chug than the chunky R&B of Sahm, despite each clearly both primarily country-fueled. Clever, that. The rest of the album shares a similar high standard, and, with artists of the standard of Los Lobos, Dave Alvin and The Gourds, possibly sets itself up for a Cover Me article in its own right.
Delbert McClinton – Autograph (Kinky Friedman cover)
Sticking with a country flavor, “Autograph” is from another tribute album that this song hails, Pearls in the Snow. It shows off the more tender side of McClinton’s larynx, showing he is as adept with ballads as belters. Frankly a whole lot more realized than the ragged rawness of Friedman, maybe too this could be a pointer to its likely overlooked parent release. I guess the time may be wrong, however, for some of the lyrical, um, charm of the legendarily forthright songwriter. Pearls in the Snow also includes the likes of Willie Nelson, Tom Waits and Lyle Lovett, but McClinton’s yearning delivery is one of the album’s true highlights.
Bonnie Raitt w/Delbert McClinton – Good Man, Good Woman (Temptations cover)
We can include a duet, can’t we? Sure we can, and here’s one that sees McClinton more than adequate to spar with Bonnie Raitt. Indeed, vocals apart, the choogly shuffle of Raitt’s band is little different from the sort of arrangement that suits McClinton best. A Cecil and Linda Womack song, first a hit for the Temptations, this version was one of the highpoint of Raitt’s Luck of the Draw album, the follow-up to her breakthrough Nick of Time. And, yes, it is McClinton playing harmonica (well, of course it is!).
Little Milton w/Delbert McClinton – Some Kind of Wonderful (Soul Brothers Six cover)
What, you want another duet? No problem, as here McClinton and Little Milton vie for the the dirtiest throatful, as they creak and croak through the old staple, with a sneaky little lift creeping in from elsewhere. It’s not big and it’s not clever, but it sure as hell fun. Little Milton, who died in 2005, is a curious figure in the annals, with a hefty output, commencing in 1965 until his demise, never quite making pay grade. Undoubtedly scuffling around the same stages as McClinton over the decades, the pair effortlessly slip into the competitive camaraderie of their version.
Delbert McClinton – Sun Medley: Mystery Train, My Baby Left Me, That’s Alright Mama (Elvis Presley covers)
The track that led me first to McClinton was the first track on the eponymous 1993 album, and as such it was always a shoo-in for this piece. To be fair, it isn’t his strongest vocal, being more a showcase for Danny Gatton’s blistering fretwork, but as an antidote to the bloated image of Elvis still extant in my mind, 15 years after his death, it was mind-blowing. It took me back to listen to some of those Sun record original singles, when the King was still forging his crown. The rest of the album is good, very good, but the sheer vivacity of this performance still astounds me.
Delbert McClinton – Turn On Your Love Light (Bobby “Blue” Bland cover)
Now who does this sound like? If you say Van Morrison, you’re not wrong. He and the band Them put out a version in 1966. But McClinton’s version is very much closer to Bobby “Blue” Bland’s 1961 original. Having said that, “Turn On Your Love Light” is so venerable as to have had scores of covers. Once more, it is the ease with which the notes get squeezed out that holds most attention. From 1977’s Love Rustler.
Delbert McClinton – The Hunt Is On (Percy Mayfield cover)
This is actually one of the last cover songs released by McClinton, from his penultimate Prick in the Litter (2017), given he had a credit for most of the others on this and all on his subsequent last. The lyrics seem oddly age-appropriate for the senior he now is, the arrangement a lazy walk through the park. When you compare it with the jump blues of Percy Mayfield’s original, back in 1963, it is quite an alchemical process. I like this apparent acceptance of age, even if some of the other songs are in abject rejection of the same.
Delbert McClinton – Stir It Up (Bob Marley cover)
Finally, in an endeavor to show not all necessarily turns to, if not diamonds, to good quality coal, elementally the same, no doubt prompted by his producer, it was the time to see if he could turn his tonsils to reggae. OK, it isn’t bad, as in awful, but it is irretrievably vanilla. To be fair, that is the problem more the arrangement, as McClinton imbues a neat bluesy inflection to the pleading lyric. There were many worse reggae covers knocking around in 1992, but I wonder if the producer was listening to the better known Johnny Nash version rather than Marley’s original.
(Whoops, the producer was McClinton himself! Hey ho.)
