American singer Don McLean was born on October 2, 1945 in New Rochelle, New York. An avid fan of music almost from the start, by the time he turned five McLean was listening to the radio much of the day. Poor health kept him out of school and at home, where he was given more of a chance to listen to music and perform for friends and family. McLean’s father would die early, however, when McLean was only 15.

He bought his first guitar at 16 and started taking lessons on playing it, not to mention opera lessons paid for by his sister. Between the opera singing and swimming practice McLean developed the lung capacity he needed to sing properly, a capacity he lacked as an asthmatic. He’d earlier developed an interest in folk music, and after dropping out of Villanova University in 1963 he started performing at a number of venues across the United States. He attended night school for Business Administration at the same time, graduating in 1968 from Iona College with a Bachelors degree.

 By 1968 McLean had expanded his range of venues, also beginning to protest the pollution of the Hudson River in 1969. It was during his protest days that McLean began writing the first songs that would develop into his first album, Tapestry, released in 1970.

Though Tapestry received little fanfare outside the folk music scene, his second album, American Pie, was a hit soon after its release in 1971. It spawned two of McLean’s most popular songs to date, “American Pie” and “Vincent”. It also saw a renewed interest in his first album, which hit the charts more than two years after it was first released. “American Pie” has since proven a bit of an enigma, and debate still rages today as to how its lyrics are meant to be interpreted.

McLean would soon attain notoriety again for a song he had no creative part in. In 1973 Roberta Flack released the single “Killing Me Softly With His Song”, written by Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel. They conceived of and wrote the song while watching McLean play in a live show. Centered solely on McLean’s prowess, “Killing Me Softly With His Song” garnered a great deal of attention not only for Flack but McLean as well.

Though he continued to be a success, McLean would never manage to rise to the same heights of superstardom again after American Pie. His subsequent albums were again more popular with the folk crowd than with mainstream Americans. He has written and released over 20 albums since 1972, and continues to write more to this day. He also continues to tour across the world. In 2001 he received an honorary doctorate from his old school, Iona College, and in 2004 he was granted a place in the Grammy Hall of Fame.

McLean’s latest noteworthy contribution to the world was the revelation of his life story via Alan Howard’s biography “The Don McLean Story: Killing Us Softly With His Songs”. The book is a first, as McLean was previously a relative recluse when it came to his private life.