Dr Alan Howard

“Don McLean is heading to Dover, guitar and oar in hand” – within hours my flippant tweet to Don’s twitter newsfeed featured in the Wall Street Journal as part of their coverage of flight disruption caused by the volcanic eruption in Iceland. In fact Don travelled to Europe in his luxury double-decker tour bus and [...]

On May 7th I was lucky enough to have a backstage pass and guest tickets for Don McLean’s show at the Royal Albert Hall, London. My friend Ron Buck and I had a lot of fun making the most of our access-all-areas permits and chatting to the band in the green room before the show. [...]

Don McLean has been talking about our book in an interview with the Sunday Tribune newspaper in Ireland. Three years ago, McLean’s official biography was published. His friend Alan Howard had written it – with his blessing. “I wanted to get the first shot at telling my story and telling it accurately. I have de-emphasised [...]

Don McLean is back in the UK in April, with appearances on BBC TV The One Show, Weekend Wogan, Loose Ends on radio 4 and Simon Mayo’s Drivetime show on radio 2, amongst many others. He has concerts across Europe in April/May including the Albert Hall on May 7th. His new album, Addicted to Black, [...]

lori lieberman‘s experience of seeing Don McLean in concert in LA in 1972 formed the basis of Roberta Flack and The Fugees’ number 1 hit “Killing Me Softly With His Song”. However Lori recorded the song first and has now, in 2009, released a new recording of her great song on her new album, “Gun [...]

Pete Seeger will be celebrating his 90th birthday on May 3rd 2009 with a benefit concert in aid of the Clearwater Organisation. Seeger was responsible for promoting the project to build and launch a boat that continues to navigate the Hudson River every summer stopping at every town to disseminate information about the environment and the [...]

To mark the 50th anniversary of Buddy Holly’s death, CNN has published a commentary that quotes extensively from my book “The Don McLean Story: Killing Us Softly With His Songs“.

I have just finished transcribing an interview with Don McLean that I recorded last week and which is mainly based on questions his fans submitted to his official website. The interview is available here and contains something of interest for most fans and casual readers including insights into Don’s favourite food and a surprising interpretation [...]

It was good to see Don back on British TV this morning appearing on BBC 1 and giving our book a good plug.

i am sometimes asked how I first met and got to know Don McLean. Having been a fan of his music since I was three and given my interest in the fast emerging World Wide Web I started a simple website about Don in 1995. In May 1997 Don returned to England for his first [...]