audioslave0910's video: The One I Love

One of the most impressive contemporary singer songwriter guitarists to appear at the Hotel Elizabeth in the early and middle nineteen seventies was Mike McClellan. He was a regular guest through three administrations. In chronological order, he appeared at Mike Eves Sydney Folk Song Club, at Darts Kelimocum�s Elizabeth Folk Club and at Ian Jane's latter days of the Weekend Elizabeth.His audience drawing power was a boon and a blessing, not only to the club but also to the less well-known artists who appeared on the same bill. We always chose them very carefully, to present the best possible program on the night and, with an eye to the future, to give big audience exposure to the pick of the ripening crop of relative newcomers. The aim, of course, was to establish the next generation of favoured performers and to keep the posteriors of the interested in comfortable seats.Mike McClellan was born in Melbourne, Victoria on August 24th, 1945. He, like most of his generation, lived through and was influenced by the coming of 'Rock and Roll' and the emergence of the teenager as an economic, political and cultural force within a dramatically changing society. He left high school late in 1962 - just about the time when 'The Beatles' were getting ready to change the whole concept of popular music forever. From high school he went to teachers college in Armidale New South Wales, in 1963. There, in his final year, he bought his first guitar. The latent ambition to become a performer asserted itself and propelled him into the folk boom of the mid-sixties. He made his first public performance as a singer-guitarist at Jim Carter�s �Troubadour� coffee house shopfront folk club in the environs of Edgecliff, Sydney, in 1965.In the world of contemporary folk at that time Bob Dylan was King and Joan Baez was Queen. Ban the Bomb was the right good cause and peace, love and flower power brought flashes of light and bright colour to a world that seemed, to many, to be sowing the poisonous seeds of its own destruction. Sit-ins, sing-ins, love-ins and protests were the order of the day and the Vietnam moratorium was on the near horizon.The enigmatic McClellan, despite his involvements in a popular folk movement, was not a protest singer nor was he, by any stretch of the imagination, a traditionalist. The amalgam of influences and interests that brought about his musical direction, at the time, is best left to the man himself to describe in his own words:'I took the blues and American country music and fashioned a guitar style that drew on a wide variety of influences from Doc Watson and Chet Atkins to Eric Clapton and BB King. I sang whatever captured my imagination irrespective of the song's source - be it pop, American country, blues or folk didn't seem so important as long as it was good.In 1969 Mike McClellan entered a television talent quest, Channel Nine's, �New Faces�. Television, at the time a sort of radio with pictures, was kind to this clean-cut character with an easy manner, an engaging clarity of voice and an innovative and visually attractive guitar style. He looked good, sounded good - and won. After the 'New Faces' triumph he joined the 'Claire Poole Singers' and worked with them for a year on Barry Crocker's Channel Nine show 'Sound of Music'.I first heard Mike McClellan in 1970 at 'Pact' where, in concert with his legendary Gibson 'Humming Bird' he was a familiar figure. As writer, musician, concert performer, and as guitar teacher, he consolidated his position as mentor to a generation of skilful guitar pickers. Doug Ashdown and Marian Henderson were also much in evidence at the time. All three were influential. They formed the nucleus of a strong acoustic music movement. They were, to a great extent, the contemporary music role models of the day.Mike McClellan sang all lead vocals and some harmonies, played all acoustic guitar parts and produced. He also designed and printed the cover. The production, by trial and error, was a slow and painstaking process. The 1972 release date reviews were good and the faithful were happy.In 1974 Mike McClellan signed with EMI and made his first gold album, 'Ask Any Dancer'.� 'Song and Dance Man', a single cut from it, also carried off a gold, and the music business industry voted it 'song of the year'. He made two more albums with EMI, 'Until the Song is Done' in 1976 and, 'An Evening with Mike McClellan - Live' in 1977.As a singer-songwriter-guitarist Mike McClellan was not one to sit at home and let the albums do the travelling. He toured as support artist with Pentangle, Roger Miller, The Hollies, Melanie, and Doctor Hook. In his own right, as principal, he toured NSW six times across these busy years, Queensland and Western Australia four times, Victoria and the Northern Territory three times and Tasmania and South Australia twice. He has also toured New Zealand.