Delbert McClinton
Rocking the Boat
JC Communications – DVD
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also available on amazon
This is a relaxed look at a Road Warrior who has been around a fair stretch of time, and has the scars, which help when he tells the stories, to show for his commitment to a life as a performer of this Rocking Blues music. The conversations are not forced, they are relaxed chatter between friends, but like the performances were all culled from over 150 hours of film aboard the 2006 Sandy Beaches cruise, this is a sample of a cruise he does every year. It is a good mix of acts that are both well known and those that are not so well known but due to their musical prowess are equally deserving of the attention. Though most performers come from the Blues or Rhythm and Blues fields he also includes Zydeco, Country, Funk, and Rock; the one thing all of the acts demonstrate is a soul that comes from the honesty of believing in what you do.
Delbert has been around since the 1950’s playing in clubs in his home city of Fort Worth, Texas; he always seemed to make a living, but had no real great successes until he moved back to Texas, after stints in Los Angeles and other cities, though he has lived in Nashville for the last umpteen
years. He was known as a rock solid performer who his peers regarded with great respect. In the 90’s he started coming into his own as what is now called Roots music, but was then playing a fusion of Blues, R & B, Soul and Country. His gravelly voice and harmonica (on a tour of England in the 1960s with Bruce Channel he taught a young John Lennon to play harmonica) playing has been his signature synthesis of the Texas music he grew up with. On this cruise he also has people such as Marcia Ball, Rodney Crowell, Wayne Toups, Terry Allen, Stephen Bruton among others to share the sea air. They all get a turn at performing and talking about their music, and the ‘incidents’ that make up life on the road. Singling out any one performance or performer is impossible on this DVD they are all high energy and the chatter is just as interesting and engrossing as the high voltage music.