Gordon McLeod
There's nothing like music to remind us that we're all human flames. It all goes out into the ether never to return no matter how we try to capture it. I like it like that, I guess, since there's no choice.
I have been composing and performing music for as long as I can remember. I have rather eclectic taste and enjoy playing, writing and producing many styles of music. I have recorded a collection of my original songs on my album called "Dog Year". The songs range from reggae-tinged pop to North Carolina fiddle ballads. You can hear samples of many of these on the audio page of this site. I have also been studying and performing a lot of acoustic and traditional music, particularly Irish fiddle. About ten years ago I started the celtic-flavored folk group, Beyond The Pale (www.beyond-the-pale.com) with my wife Christy. (Check out beyond The Pale’s latest CD “Paleontology” at CD Baby). I also perform with the Dirje Smith (the marvelous cellist) and Christy in the Aisling String Trio (www.aislingstrings.com ). Dirje and I also work together in the studio crafting string parts for hire in The Amazing Stringtet and Christy and I perform as a duo known as McLeod 9 playing our original music and our sometimes wonky versions of other well known favorites. Also of late I have been having a ball playing a few gigs with The Texas Gypsies.
I own and operate a full service 24 track recording studio called "McLeod Nine Studio ( www.mcleodninemusic.com ) where I produce recordings for a lot of singer songwriters and acoustic musical groups. I specialize in acoustic recording and love to produce traditional music projects. Some of my recent clients have been The Wahooloigans, Randy Brown, Loretta Callens and Lisa Byrn.
I have been lucky to perform over much the US and in Europe some too. Besides performances with my own bands, I also work as a sideman on fiddle and guitar live and in the studio with various acts in many styles from acoustic blues and folk ( with folks like Pierce Pettis and JohnSmith) to R&B, pop and jazz. I recently had the pleasure of doing a couple of shows with Sara Hickman ( a wonderful person and performer).
If for some reason you want my entire musical story you can keep reading:
I started out playing the harmonica, a big chromatic Hohner that I found in my Granpa Joe's junkroom in Jacksonville Florida. I was four. I wrote a song on it called "Marching to War". I remember the lyrics. They were easy, just the title repeated ad nauseum.
My whole family was pretty musical. Mom was a beautiful person who died too young back in 1972. One of the many blessings of my life. She could sing a beautiful alto and used to play the piano. My Dad has a rich baritone voice and played piano and harmonica. I found this out when I was a teenager when I came home one day and he was playing one of my harmonicas. Later at my girlfriend's house he got up and started playing the piano—boy were we surprised. My big brother Norm is a good singer, plays a little guitar and loves music more than anyone I think. My lovely sister, Flo played the oboe but gave it up to become a mother. She still talks about playing though. I hope one day she gets back to it. I thought she played beautifully. My little brother Andy is a solid drummer and plays a little sax. I hope he picks those things back up again one day. We can have a family band again maybe.
I graduated to the piano at age nine. We didn't have a piano so I played a paper keyboard spread out on my bed in our little cinder block house in Miami. The teacher came to school once a week and showed us scales and stuff. Then, they started violin lessons so I went for that. I should have stuck with it but for some reason , in junior high I went for the clarinet and bassoon. But I always envied the violin players in the orchestra. I wanted to be able to make one sing like Mr. Matracht, the director. He was a great musician, could play all the instruments like a soloist, even the oboe.
All through my childhood, I also burned to play folk music on the guitar. I started with a toy plastic ukelele---I waited all day by the radio to hear Peter Paul and Mary sing "Blowin' in the Wind" (that's how old I am!) Then I heard Bob Dylan sing " Don't Think Twice". I think that was the first song I could really play on the guitar.
Then I heard the blues. I sat in my room hours on end working out blues licks on my $ 5 Stella guitar. I think the strings were about 3 inches above the fretboard. My fingers hurt a lot but I could crush rocks with my finger tips.
That kept me busy until I got to college. I wanted to play piano so bad, so I used to sneak in the chapel after midnight ( I knew the night watchman) and play the 9' grand and the pipe organ.
My good friend Jeff Lovett turned me on to country music, not just the country rock stuff but real country like Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard. He was from San Antonio, a big Texas boy with a Gibson J-45. He and I probably played more music and had more fun than any two kids oughta. We still do, and we still act like kids mostly, until about 8:30 or so.
My first wife very thoughtfully bought me a fiddle for my 21st birthday. It cost $200 which was a fortune, about three months rent. That was one of the many wonderful things she did for me. My landlord in Las Cruces was on old cowboy fiddler named Onnie Smith. He taught me "Flop Eared Mule " and "Soldier's Joy". He didn't have a fiddle so he'd come over in between runnin' his ranch and lumber yard and play my fiddle. He had wire rimmed coke bottle spectacles--he'd been considered blind as a kid in Alamogordo until some visiting optometrist made a mistake in making his glasses. He claimed he chased his horse once all the way from Hatch to White Sands, over the Organ mountains on foot.
My talented and beautiful daughter, Morgan, was born about this time. She has been a great inspiration to me. She is a world class dancer --jazz, ballet, you name it. I guess that's what makes her a great drummer. In fact, Morgan is the drummer on several of the songs on this site including "White Collar Criminal" and most recently on Beyond THe Pale's latest CD "Paleontology" .And she can sing too! Anyway, I guess my most successful performances were for her, singing her old folk songs and funny songs my Mom had taught me. I wrote a few songs for her too. Life is wonderfully inspring sometimes.
I played the fiddle and the harmonica some in my solo act in Houston back in the seventies. But mostly I played a flamenco-style guitar and sang my songs through a mic run into my guitar amp.
I drifted into playing in bar bands, bad country music in East Texas honky tonks. We'd try to play things like Al Jarreau covers but our audience couldn't relate. One big guy in a cowboy hat told me once after we played what I thought was a pretty good version of Chick Corea's "Spain" that if we played anything that sounded like that again he was gonna kill me.
One day my friend and neighbor Patrick Thurmond played his bagpipes for me and some Irish tunes on the guitar. I thought that was really great, and then he let me listen to Kevin Burke play "Lord Gordon's Reel" and I was hooked--I had to learn how to make those sounds.
My beautiful wife, Christy and I started going to Ireland and got to meet a lot of great Irish musicians. Wonderful people like Matt Cranitch ( the renowned Irish fiddler) and his charming wife Liz, Donal Murphy ( the great box player) and his lovely wife Mary and their three darling children, Melanie ( a fine young musician too) Danny and Eoin, Tommy O' Sullivan, Martin Hayes, Siobhan Peoples and her well known father Tommy Peoples, James Kelly, Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh, Ben Lennon, Brendan McGlinchey, Sean Ban Breatnach, Bobby Casey, Junior Crehan, PJ Hayes, Joe Moloney (sadly, these last four are gone now) and too many more to mention.We still go every year.
In 1995 we started the celtic-flavored band Beyond the Pale . Somewhat to our surprise , the band became a local success. We used to draw such big crowds at the Barnes and Noble in Tyler that they finally had to stop having music because people couldn't get in to buy books. I didn't believe the manager at first. I thought we had made somebody mad, but he offered to show me the books. We still get people who come up and say they remember those performances and that was where they first heard us. We ran in to a lady in Lisdoonvarna, Ireland who said this.
In 2001 Betsy Cummings and John Delaney joined the band. John and Betsy are great talents and have added a tremendous amount to the band. Betsy plays a sweet accordion and is a fine singer and John is so talented I don’t know where to start. The man can play anything, flute, hammered dulcimer, whistle, concertina, saxophone, you name it. He has a lovely baritone voice too.
Well, if you've gotten this far you're probably in a very exclusive club. Thanks for your interest and I hope to see you somewhere, maybe one of my shows. Please come up and introduce yourself.