John Hood - That Pie Guy

Starry Starry Songster

A long, long time ago Okay, last Saturday. But it brought back a long,long time ago. Real long gone. When people were people and songs were songs.

That long ago. Okay, so people are still people and songs are still songs, yet somehow, someway there's a difference. The melody has changed its linger.

When songster Don McLean hit Lackawanna College's scrumptious Mellow Theater last weekend the difference in linger was made clear for all the wide world.

Well, some of it anyway.

You know McLean. Even if you dont you know him, you know his songs. Yeah, he's that Pie guy. He's also more, much more, than just a man with an anthem to his credit. He's a man with anthems. And he's a man of song

ood solid song.

Figures rightly that an ace songster would be a fan of song and McLean is nothing if not a songster who digs song. At The Mellow he was a medley of some of the very best in melody, of yesterday, of the day before yesterday, and, yes, of a long, long time ago.

Beginning with a barrage of Buddy Holly and later sliding through a stomp of Roy Orbison, McLean sang as if he were born to do so, as if the song depended on it. Which of course he and it was. Born to sing and write and strum the kinda songs that make every maybe happy for awhile.

And what a while of happy. Smiles and laughs, nods and bobs, cheers two and three high and wide, spread through the well-appointed pitch of patrons, a chill and an aside and a harkening. That the Don was dressed down in denim didn't seem to affect the enthusiasm. These were fans of the fan, and fandom infected the whole place.

Key though was McLean's telling of Crossroads. Alone with only his pianist and a symbolic empty chair, McLean began with a confession:

I've got nothing on my mind: nothing to remember, Nothing to forget, and I've got nothing to regret, But I'm all tied up on the inside, No one knows quite what I've got; And I know that on the outside what I used to be, I'm not anymore.

T'was a brave and bitter truth. He felt it. We felt it. And then he felled some more: Can you remember who I was? Can you still feel it? Can you find my pain? Can you heal it? Then lay your hands upon me now And cast this darkness from my soul. You alone can light my way. You alone can make me whole once again And there, then, McLean showed just what made him legendary.

Courage.

A crowd.

And fortitude. If he's been at it longer than most, its because he's got the wherewithal to stay with it. To not only know his place in the world, but to take it. Then bear it.

McLean's sober, somber confessional resounded into a roaring version of Crying that teared and tore with a whole new origin. A whole new soul. And its stirring brought up the entire house - to their ovational feet.

An inexplicable intermission was followed by the aforementioned rock-a-billy babying, then came the time everyone was awaiting: The lonely, lovely, lilting Vincent, spotlight sad and lily bright, segued into American Pie, this country's all-time favorite sing-along. And boy how the crowd sang. Full-throated, full-throttled, fully engulfed. An effusion of harmony. No, it wasn't 1972 all over again. And McLean was no longer the soft-spoken angry young man of all those yesteryears. But the song was the still song, the people were still the people, and the man took a chance, made the people dance, and yes, they were very happy for that treasured while.

There were no maybes about it