My Recordings
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2017: Been plinking around with six or seven of these songs for the past couple of years. Looking at the tunes as a whole for an underlying theme, they seemed to reflect the sounds and grooves that inspired me when I was just a young buck starting out in the seventies back in Erie, Pa. So, I blasted out a few more tunes this fall trying to keep with that 'rootsy' feel; and voila: here it is.
During that period of studying jazz guitar and music theory while gigging locally at night, all of the great music of Stevie Wonder, Brecker Brothers, George Duke, Chick Korea & Zappa all the way to Dubussy, Charlie Parker and Howard Roberts...apparently was penetrating deeply into my spongy, young psyche. I even felt obliged to include a cover of a 1976 tune by one of my favorite all-time bands: Tower of Power.
I, John G. McLane can attest that I performed all of the music on this cd. This includes: keyboards electric and acoustic guitar, bass, drums & percussion, tenor & alto sax, trombone (as the venerable Bones of Contention) and lead and background vocals. Cover photo by Danny Morgan. To quote the Ethel Merman of our times “step back boys, I'm gonna sing!”.
2010: 'Tropicizer' features many of my own
tunes, and a few more that were co-written with others. It's about half
instrumental & half vocal.
Having spent a portion of my gigging career in the tropics, these styles of
music came easily and naturally to me...and it was a lot of fun writing and
recording tunes that...for a change...actually reflect where I am
performing!
Describe this thang: This music has a reggae/soca/jazzy feel, with lots of
Jobim-like nylon-string guitar, a generous dusting of jazzy steel pan, and
lots of smooth jazz sax, piano, white boy soul vocals & horn sections
(attempting to mimic the great sounds of a Cuban big band).
If you like any of that stuff, you'll hopefully find something in here that
speaks to you! If not, maybe you can help me get a piece of intellectual
property rezoned....it's a tricky process.
THE ATLANTA YEARS
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I-TUNES CD BABY AMAZON GOOGLE PLAY |
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| "Compiled from previous John G. McLane cd releases, this is original stuff! I detect traces of Zappa, Corea, Breckers . Well worth a listen" - Tab Wenderson / Rolling Rock Magazine |
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It was a time of thirty mile gig
commutes through 12 lane mayhem, homeless panhandlers nightly trying
to make off with your gear, “spec'ed” all night hip-hop studio
sessions that later become #1 hits...for someone else! But,
regardless of all that, Atlanta was a great music town ; and it's
where I created most of the tunes for this re-release. While under personal artist management by Thomas J Miller in Los Angeles, I produced a cd called “John G. McLane” around 1993. Later on, I decided I just hadn't had enough of the real music industry and presto...another jazzy cd called “Keepin' It Casual” was completed around 2000! Neither are still available ...but are the sources for this exciting “collection”! Adventurous with not to many cornball “smooth jazz” artifacts, this stuff often falls more into a “fusion jazz” style. Lots of time changes and “dazzling” musical figures! You'll even pick up a healthy dose of Zappa-isms. Here's to the 90's and Atlanta. What a trip! |
2007: After a couple of rough hurricane seasons, there
was good reason to start that long - talked about recording project: "The
Blues Album". After writing and recording on and off over the next 18 months
with old music cohort Larry Z, the "One Blue Shoe" cd was finally completed!
We were even able to enlist "The Bones of Contention" to add a great
horn section to some of the tunes! Tim "Boogiehead" Poindexter added some
great sax to a couple of cuts; Geo G. Dawg added some lead guitar to one
tune; "Even Steven" kicked in his funky drum groove on several tunes; and
blue-eyed soul sister Caucazia sang her heart out on background vocals!
As Po'Bone says: "B.B Dogg plays with the right hand,
the left hand, that's why they call him B B Dogg".
CLASSICS:
The Talk: Youth and Other Lies 1989-91
This latest re-release is a compilation of the entire 1990-91 "Youth & Other Lies" and several chunes from 1989 "Souvenirs of Love" releases (originally both cassette only!)
"Another great unsung 80's band / writing team that found a more focused, tech- rock sound on this collection from 1989-1991. As is so often the case, they were a year or so too late. By the beginning of the 90's, the stripped down grunge period was just starting to supplant this more produced Big Hair style of writing and recording."-Malcolm Drie/Rolling Rock Magazine
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You Talkin' To Me ? 1984-89 "McLane and Bernet wrote and recorded literally hundreds of songs during the eighties and the first half of the 1990s. These 15 re-mastered songs were cautiously hand-selected from a 1984-1989 flurry of pop song writing: |
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GROW UP TO BE A BOY |
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LIVE TERRA PHANE VIDEO FROM COTTON CLUB / ATLANTA 1994