How Juno-nominee Big Dave McLean became a blues legend

This story was originally published on March 8, 2020.

Big Dave McLean still remembers his blues awakening more than 50 years later.

"My tastes took in a lot of different styles," McLean said, thinking back to when he was a kid listening to music. "But when I started hearing blues, I said, 'Oh, what's that?'"

Big Dave McLean is an Order of Canada recipient. The 67-year-old mentored several great musicians from the time they were kids. He's been nominated for multiple Juno Awards, including this year for blues album of the year for Pocket Full Of Nothin'.

It's hard to imagine a world without the Canadian blues legend telling stories through the slide on his guitar and the notes from his gravelly voice.

Proud of the prairies

McLean is mostly known as a Winnipeg blues man. It makes sense, considering he has been living and making music there for most of his life.

But like so many famous artists, there's a Saskatchewan connection.

McLean was born in Yorkton, Sask. on Aug. 23, 1952. He lived there until he was about four years old, when his family moved to Moose Jaw.  The family then moved from Moose Jaw to Winnipeg when McLean was about eight years old.

He only remembers a few details from his youth in Saskatchewan — living near the Yorkton water tower, his brother breaking his arm after falling out of a tree, playing kick the can in Moose Jaw —  but Big Dave said people can still boast about him being from the province.

"Absolutely, man. I'm very proud of the fact that I was born in Saskatchewan. I love Saskatchewan," he said, laughing. "I'm a Prairie boy. I love the Prairies, period."

It's in the family

McLean's father was a preacher and often had to move from city-to-city for work. That's how they ended up in Winnipeg. McLean's mom was a pianist, a church organist and a big reason for his musical interest. She was always involved in musical events.

"When I was little, there would always be some opera singers singing in the living room with my mom practising for some Italian opera or something. I'd be trying to get to sleep and to me at the time it sounded like nails on a blackboard," McLean said.

"Just being exposed to music to begin with. It wasn't just necessarily my mom, but I would hear her playing quite often or practising and I had a real fondness for classical music."

Even many years later when McLean became a more established touring musician, he'd still take a piece of his mom wherever he went.

"Every once and a while I'd take a cassette player," he said, pausing. "Remember those? I'd take a cassette player on the road with me and sometimes after a gig if I wanted to unwind before I went to sleep, I would sit on the couch and listen to my mother playing classical music."

Another family member who really got Big Dave into music was his brother. More specifically, his brother's record collection.

"I started out listening to folk music: Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, and [Bob] Dylan when he was just coming out and making a big noise back in the '60s. I thought he was the greatest thing I'd ever heard," McLean said.

A legendary lesson

Eventually, blues music hit Big Dave's ears and he had his awakening. Soon after, in 1972, he got his first blues lesson from an unlikely and incredible source.

"Mariposa Folk Festival in Toronto out on the the island, I got to see John Hammond," he said. "I'd never heard anything like that in my life. It just floored me. I thought, 'Wow. Who the heck is this guy? What was that you just did to me, man?'

"Then I got to meet him and got a little improv guitar lesson from him. I had a cheap little guitar with me but I didn't know how to play it. So I asked him if he would just show me a couple of things, he put it in open D tuning, taught me how to play I'm a Man by Bo Diddley. That was the first thing I ever learned on guitar."

Finding his voice

McLean's progression to a full-time music career started like most artists: slowly.

He started a jug duo and they played gigs at Winnipeg coffee houses, which McLean said were big for live music in the late '60s and early '70s. That was wasn't enough to pay the bills, so he was supplementing his income with jobs like car jockeying, land surveying and washing dishes at several hotels.

Over those years, McLean started learning to play more instruments, like harmonica and the washboard, while continuing to get better at the guitar. He was also starting to develop perhaps the best instrument of all, his now legendary voice.

Big Dave's vocal tone is tough to describe.

"A cat with his tail caught in the door," McLean said, laughing. "I get compared to a milk truck with a busted front axle. Ten yards of railroad cars ... but I mean, it's all positive. These are favourable reviews.

"I got a rough a rough, gravelly voice so I think blues was probably the best choice rather than choir or gospel."

For the love of the blues

McLean is known as a road warrior. He's frequently touring across the country — to big cities and small towns — and playing multiple shows in each community.

His life on the road really started in the mid-'80s. He would go to Calgary to play the coffee houses and to the Folk Guild in Regina. It was there he met a nine-year-old Regina kid named Colin Munn, perhaps better known as six-time Juno Award-winner Colin James.

"I kind of helped guide him along into the blues, as best I could from what I knew," McLean said.

Mentorship is important to Big Dave.

"When I got out there in the beginning in Winnipeg there was hardly anybody around. I was kind of like a freak guy going around playing blues," he said.

"What I wanted to do is just keep some of these songs alive because they're just beautifully written songs. I'm glad I didn't have to suffer the hardships that these guys went through to create these songs. But it's the songs that knocked me out."

Pocket Full Of Nothin'

McLean said he shared more of himself on his latest album than ever before.

"It was fantastic, man, I loved it." he said. "I was so thrilled to have written nine of the songs and then to have it even be considered for a Juno nomination, that's wonderful."

One of the reasons the album was such a success, McLean said, is because of Steve Dawson, who produced and played on Pocket Full Of Nothin'.

"He's my hero," McLean said.

"I'd sent Steve the songs via email and he passed the on to the players and we met at the studio [Warehouse Studio in Vancouver]. We recorded the album in three days. And the first day, we met at the studio and I basically just blinked by eyes, shook their hands, and said, 'Hi, I'm Dave. This one is in the key of E.' And we sat down and we went at it."

The Juno Awards were supposed to take place on March 15, but the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered the in-person Saskatoon weekend of events. On June 29 at 7 p.m. ET, the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS) and CBC will reveal the winners in a special, virtual celebration via CBC Music and CBC Gem.