 JAMIE McLEAN NEVER THOUGHT HE’D SPEND HIS TWENTIES playing
guitar in The Dirty Dozen Brass Band. But what started as a sit-in blossomed
into a six-year tenure with one of New
Orleans’ most legendary collectives. “We just always
seemed to be the opening act for the Dirty Dozen when they came to Colorado,” McLean
reminisces. “I sat in with them at The Fox one night and it just kept going.”
Soon after, McLean relocated to the Big Easy
and assumed the position of The Dirty Dozen Brass Band’s lead guitarist.
But after a whirlwind few years that took him to Bonnaroo,
Fuji Rock and Madison Square Garden,
McLean made the difficult decision to step out
on his own. “I tell people it was my post-graduate work,” McLean
says of his time with the Dirty Dozen. “When I first joined the band, I came
out with a lot of flash and played a lot of notes. I went over the top with
everything. But I quickly realized that instead of 1,000 notes, three really
soulful notes will do it.” In 2006, McLean left the Dozen on a fulltime basis
and formed The Jamie McLean Band, a rock, blues, soul, Americana hybrid not unlike The Black Crowes.
“I was just writing a lot of music by myself on the Dirty Dozen tour bus,” he
says. “It’s real personal music, but when I start to get an idea in my head I
start to think about everyone’s instrumental part.”
The Jamie McLean Band has spent the past few years refining
its sound and, more importantly, becoming the tight band featured on 2008’s
American Heartache. “I have been digging more into the old blues and soul
stuff, which helped my guitar, my voice and my song writing. Lyrically, these
songs are just me writing whatever was pouring out of me, but this a band.”
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