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Story by Audrey Engdahl
On September 23, 2002 at 8pm, Scotland's
living legend, Dougie MacLean will perform at
the Historic Takoma Theatre, 6833 4th Street NW, Takoma
D.C. Proceeds from the concert go towards the revitalization
and operation of the Historic Takoma Theatre. To learn
more about the theatre, click on Takoma
Theatre Arts Project.
Dougie MacLean
Dougie MacLean, began his career as a
member of the renowned Tannahill Weavers, but has achieved
even greater acclaim with his solo career of twenty
years. He has toured extensively around the world, and
has gained recognition for writing songs which have
been described as "Scotland's new heritage music."
He has been voted "Favorite Male Vocalist"
on NPR's radio program The Thistle and Shamrock and
scored music for a major Hollywood film (The Last of
the Mohicans). His songs have been recorded by Mary
Black, Frankie Miller, and U.S. country star Kathy Mattea.
Since 1997, Dougie's tours across Europe
and the U.S. have virtually all sold out ahead of time.
If that's not enough to pique your curiosity, this is
how Whammie-winning Celtic / Folk performer Grace Griffith
describes Dougie's music:
"The first time I heard Dougie
McLean I was driving down the highway listening to Fiona
Ritchie's "Thistle and Shamrock", about fifteen
years ago. Strains of lovely fingerstyle guitar caught
my ear, only to be followed by an exquisitely warm,
husky male voice singing the most beautiful version
of Robert Burn's "Green Grow the Rashes-o"
I'd ever heard.
I had to pull off the road and take
it in. It was completely entrancing. I felt lifted the
way only rare moments lift us above the day to day machinations
that can dull our sense of beauty in this universe.
Over the years since then I have had
the great pleasure of coming to know Dougie as an impish
and passionately driven human being, but I have never
gotten over the sense of awe I felt that first Sunday
afternoon hearing him give new life to Burns's poetry.
Dougie McLean is an artist with much
to offer both lovers of contemporary songwriting and
lovers of traditional Celtic folk music. His music combines
finely honed writing skill with a voice as rich in character
as the Scottish countryside he calls home. Adept on
many instruments, he surrounds his songs with compelling
instrumental settings, with influences ranging from
aboriginal to Nashville to celtic tradition.
His melodies draw the listener in while
his words tell stories of things and people great and
simple and often call our attention to the impact of
humanity on nature and one another. His songs are infused
with a deep and evident love of the land.
Dougie's voice is warm and craggy and
appealing, accompanied by fine rhythmic and fingerstyle
guitar work often embellished with fiddle, percussion,
digeridu, whistle and other instruments.
But above and beyond the musical pleasures
of a Dougie McLean performance, audiences are delighted
by his anecdotes and gentle humor on stage. Dougie McLean
is an alchemist who transforms stories of the world
we live in to beautiful music to which we are invited
to sing-along. His songs can call us to good acts, make
us laugh or shed a tear, but always render us glad we
came to hear them and happy to look forward to to the
return of this world traveler who is regarded as a national
treasure in his homeland."
--Grace Griffith
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