Time: 8 p.m.
Cover:$20 members, $25 invited guests

Doc MacLean http://www.docmaclean.com/

Contemporary delta blues and roots artist, storyteller, traveller.

“Doc MacLean is a blues Vagabond. After a life spent traveling, he knows that on the Blues Highway there’s no place too large, too small, too grand or too humble. Touching ten provinces and fourteen states, his 9th Annual National Steel Blues Tour includes a wide variety of venues ranging from urban theatres and festivals to cafes, house concerts, casinos, rural juke joints and gas stations. Dirt roads tied to super highways, bridges, truck stops, rusty ships. Big cities, small towns. All bets are open on the Blues Highway. Bowling with Johnny Winter, Bingo with Satan. The big Lincoln hums as it eats up the road. Canada’s Biggest Little Blues Tour.”

MacLean’s recent schedule has included club and concert dates with Joe Murphy, Guy Davis, Big Bill Morganfield, Eddy “The Chief” Clearwater, BB King, Duke Robillard, Lucky Peterson, Magic Slim, Tony Furtado, Downchild, Slick Ballinger, Colin Linden, Los Lobos, Johnny Winter and others. In Canada his relentless touring has reached nearly every area, and has seen him paired up with Juno/Maple winning artists such as Big Dave McLean, Michael Pickett, and Morgan Davis for headline theatre, concert, and festival appearances. (to hear a live track, play “Jimmie Lee Jackson’s Blues” and “Feel Like Goin’ Home.”) Fall 2013 and 2014 featured tours with Mississippi’s Libby Rae Watson, and an increased emphasis on southern shows and festivals.
2015 sees Doc back in the studio with Colin Linden producing. It is also the “X” year of the National Steel Blues Tour, so special events and appearances are planned.
Six years of Doc’s National Steel Tours have been sponsored by Long & McQuade, Canada’s largest music retailer, and have featured blues masterclasses and workshops in it’s many locations from coast to coast. His intimate knowledge of the blues has also seen him featured in numerous documentaries, and in an increasing number of educational, in-the-schools presentations.
Son of a civil rights lawyer and a fiddle player, MacLean was by his early teens playing harmonica and washboard in coffeehouses and festivals, and was appearing on radio and television variety shows. In 1972 he formed a duo with another young musician, Colin Linden, (Grammy nominated producer and recent Dylan guitarist) and became a frequent and popular opener for Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee, Muddy Waters, and John Hammond.
In his travels Doc met and became friends with many older musicians including Son House, Tampa Red, ‘Sippi Wallace, Yank Rachel, Robert Pete Williams, Rev Robert Wilkins and Bukka White. His youthful work as an accompanist included tours and performances with Peg Leg Sam the Medicine Show Man, Blind John Davis, Sunnyland Slim, Little Brother Montgomery, Rev Pearly Brown, the Carter Family and Sam Chatmon.
MacLean, who now resides in Toronto, has appeared at many of the larger North American folk and blues festivals. Radio and television appearances have included national programming such as CNN Today, PBS Morning Pro Musica, CBC 90 Minutes Live, Touch the Earth, Morningside, Canada Live, and Saturday Night Blues. Now appearing most often as a solo performer, he is equally comfortable at a folk festival workshop, priming a rowdy blues festival crowd, or telling a story in a hushed theatre. In his father’s footsteps, Doc’s concerns for social justice have lead him to perform in the prisons, soup kitchens, picket lines, and hospices of the many communities he passes through.
Doc MacLean remains a bit of a blues hobo, performing on the street when the opportunity or need presents itself. A constant traveler, he will come to your town if he is invited. Call now, life can be short.