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Biography - Selected credits and history of NYC and Nashville tunesmiths including George McClure, writer of "The Ballad of O.J.Simpson" and "I Made Love To An Alien Last Night". Inspired and unique, McClure is called "a true original" and "the imagination guru" by his peers, and critics label him "innovative", "genuine", and "a breath of fresh air". George is the creator of Song Portraits®.
George McClure's influences and musical styles are diverse and his understanding of the many idioms he explores, deep. John Steinbeck's writings had a profound effect early in his life along with visionaries like Salvador Dali and M.C. Escher. Selena, Haggard, Santana, Ray Charles, and thousands continue to enthuse George. But don't typecast him or his work, he will surely disappoint you if you do. Inspired and unique, McClure has been called "a true original" and "the imagination guru" by his peers, and his "ahead of his time" movement through life produces reactions from amazement and admiration to misunderstanding and outcasting. His is a genius captured in sound and verbal expression. McClure started playing and writing music in Southern Arizona, where he quickly taught himself five-string banjo, guitar, and learned to play bass viol and electric bass guitar from a friend. Within two years he was performing and in three had quit his day job, working the bars and clubs at night, teaching lessons by day. He wrote and published the first five string banjo book on improvisation, Variations on Theme, c.1980, and plays eight or more instruments. McClure absorbed the sounds around him in the rich cultural heritages of Sonoran Spanish, Tohono O'odham (Pima Indian), Mexican, Apache "Chicken Scratch" Bands, Mariachi, Ranch and Ranchero, bluegrass, country, and Western Swing. Writing from the first week he owned a stringed instrument - "Mass Grass", a lilting and moving modern jazz piece, was penned during this period - McClure has transcribed Mozart, Vivaldi, and Bach for acoustic ensembles, and writes prolifically in swing, jazz, neo-classical, Western and TexMex, Latin, gospel and country, bluegrass and blues idioms. Champagne Saturday (Alien Love)®, McClure's second album, is original and nouveau Western swing (fusion jazz). ["...like a breath of fresh air" "...innovative" Country Music Round-Up] He continues with his "McClure's America" (nee "Nashville Folks") small variety show, which toured 185 performances in 1996, covering 65,000+ miles that year. George also tours with his swing hot band, "the Phreaktones"®, writes, and creates Song Portraits®. Author of spin-off poetry as well as hundreds of songs and instrumentals, his "(Trauma,)" is published in Outstanding Poets of 1998, National Library of Poetry, Owings Mills; MD; "grey-green skies" is published in The Ever-Flowing Stream, National Library of Poetry, Owings Mills; 1997 and "Double-Sided Mirror" is published in Rainbow Wind, Sabre Publishing, Madison; 1990. McClure has also played in Dogbite Hoover at the Gaslight Theatre, Tucson; appeared on Nashville Network TV (TNN) Country News viewed by 240 million people; and was featured in a Nashville Tennessean/Banner article on "The Ballad of O.J.Simpson", one of his songs. McClure acted in Paramount's The Thing Called Love, [River Phoenix] filmed in Nashville, Tennessee. George founded Trowbridge Publishing while working in a NC studio, and continued his writing and performing throughout his eight year hiatus in the software and space industry, which ended with his resignation from NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, 1992, and his relocation to Nashville, TN. Sunny Summer Blues, George's first album, "projects a sense of style and identity" and is "a lot to enjoy..." [BU] |
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