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McLean steeped in country ethos

He doesn't want to be a country music star, because it would get in the way of breaking horses and calving cows. It just doesn't get any more country than that.

He doesn't want to be a country music star, because it would get in the way of breaking horses and calving cows.

It just doesn't get any more country than that. Malcolm McLean is so steeped in his music roots he has grown into the heartwood of the tree.

The Alberta boy now calls the northern prairie of B.C. his home. He farms and ranches in the area near Dawson Creek, but he and his Edmonton-based bandmates braved the Pine Pass in a snowstorm to be in Prince George tonight.

The kind of country he brings to the stage is stuff he isn't sure he even wants to call country. He knows that is probably the best hat to wear with it, but it contains a lot of traditional western spirit, some dust-bowl folk, some hard-driving acoustic rock, and even some traditional Celtic tastes as well. He is, after all, Malcolm John MacLean VI, so he has to tip his tam to his Scottish constitution.

Whatever his music is - think of Wilf Carter and Jimmy Rodgers and Hank WIlliams at one end of the scale and Corb Lund and John Wort Hannam at the other end - he knew he was being recognized for it when Gary Fjellgaard gave his career an unexpected nudge of support. The legendary western singer-songwriter (and a Prince George cowboy from way back) was judging a singing contest at a western culture festival in Kamloops. MacLean wanted to play a bunch of the available time slots, but the organizers would only book him if he also entered the contest. He doesn't think contest for subjective things like music are a good idea, but he did the showcase and won second place.

Not bad for a farrier. He was used to shoeing horses for a living, mending fences, pulling calves, and he never considered his passing interest in singing, playing guitar and songwriting as anything more than his own fun. Perhaps that is why an audience started to build around the material he was producing.

"When I'm riding I write a lot," he said. "Being out on a horse, you're by yourself, there's the motion of the saddle, you're outside, it's kind of meditative," he said. "Sitting still in a room, writing at a desk, I can't write (crap) that way. I have to be doing something but only slightly distracted."

He also writes about the moment he is in. He is an observer of life and tells its stories. Some are about him, some are about those close to him, some are made up but based on real impressions. Consequently, he said, he would never be accepted on modern Western Canadian radio.

"There's only one way to write a song for country radio these days. They just pick items like off a menu and try to fit them into some rhyme pattern: a dirt road, a girl in a T-shirt, a pickup truck, beer, and that's all they do anymore," he said. "I write about the things I do and the things I know, so that's horses and farm life. I don't ever expect anyone to listen to it. I don't expect a waiter to write a song about how the tip was bad or the order got screwed up, so I'm always a little surprised when people say they like my stuff, because it's just me talking about my life."

One of the people who likes MacLean's stuff best is local singer-songwriter Joey Only. Only will be on stage tonight helping introduce MacLean to the Central Interior audience (there are also shows set for Quesnel and Fort St. James, Wells and 100 Mile House).

"Joey actually came up and helped me ranch a bit at my place at Farmington," MacLean said. "He's a really good worker. We played a festival up here, and then he helped me do a bunch of fencing. He's the kind of guy who never complains. It didn't matter how hot it was, if he was hung over, nothing made him complain."

Only and MacLean will be live tonight at Riley's Bar inside Days Inn downtown. Tickets are $10 and the music starts at 8:30 p.m.