Blues legend returns for second SA tour
CANADIAN-based “blues vagabond” Doc MacLean’s second African tour, Cross Bones Blues, sees him returning to many of the places he visited on his previous Zulu Skies adventure.
As if that tour wasn’t big enough, Cross Bones includes nearly 50 shows, from the gala tour launch at the Canadian High Commission to the OppiKoppi Festival as well as in theatres, cafes and “wild little juke joints”.
The Eastern Cape is included once more, with MacLean on stage at Legends Showcase in East London at 7pm on Wednesday and PE’s The Music Kitchen at 69 Mangold Street, Newton Park, at 7.30pm next Friday. He will also be at Die Ramstal in Nieu-Bethesda next Saturday November 25.
MacLean has built an extraordinary musical career on hard travel and performance.
Much of his year is typically still spent globetrotting in the name of sharing the blues – music that, for him, will always come close to the bone.
He has played everywhere, from the deserts of the US to the Arctic Circle, under the Northern Lights. With a career spanning almost five decades, MacLean spent the early years living in cars, sleeping on floors and in cheap hotels while performing at some of the US’s best folk and blues venues.
Born and raised in Mississippi as the son of a civil rights lawyer, he relocated to Canada to be closer to his son.
He tells and sings stories in the Delta roots blues tradition in shows that are personal and venues that are small and intimate. Mississippi was a hotspot of the civil rights movement and this influence also comes across in his music.
Bay tickets are R100 pre-sold or R120 at the door (bookings on 066-200-2765). East London tickets are R100 from Lee Gold Music.