Stuart McLean
November, 2004
Stuart McLean doesn’t have a clue and he loves it. Oh he’s an exceptionally bright human being alright and a wonderfully gentle one. But he doesn’t have an idea about how he does his job. OK well that’s not entirely true. It’s just that this CBC radio star and best-selling author doesn’t know why what he does connects so well with his Canadian fan base. “I haven’t a clue” McLean says flatly. “You’d have to ask other people. Maybe you have some ideas yourself.”
The world of Stuart McLean revolves around a guy named Dave who runs a used record store called the Vinyl Café, his wife Morley, and his kids Sam and Stephanie. The show’s fans just smiled as they read that because they know all about the occasionally hapless but loveable Dave and their children and neighbors. The stories read damn fine in print but in the hands or rather the voice of Stuart McLean the stories leap from the page to life.
The story of how this award winning author and performer came into his career is as charmed as the tales he tells. When McLean started out in 1979 it was indeed in radio but as a documentary producer. “I was the Executive Producer of the Sunday Morning show for a couple of years. I got fired from that” he shrugs. “I had one vision of the show; they had another vision of the show. It was their prerogative. I went to Morningside and spent about ten years doing a kind of personal journalism, sort of like a ‘page three’ column in a newspaper. And at one point in Morningside I tried a few fictional pieces; it was the next thing to try out.”
Those fictional pieces led to the Vinyl Café program. “It started off on Monday nights in the summertime” McLean explains. “For two seasons it was a summer replacement show. And in the third season we only did a couple of shows. It wasn’t until the fourth season that we really sort of cut loose on Saturday and Sunday at the same time.”
The ‘cutting loose’ McLean refers to dovetailed with the beginning of the growth of his audience. The motto of Dave’s record shop was "We may not be big, but we're small”. In an odd way that unassuming charm could double for McLean’s credo as well. Whatever the reason ‘The Vinyl Café’ is now a bonafide Canadian institution binding together this country in much the same way that Peter Gzowski did.
One would assume that McLean would have been at the least surprised at the devoted following of his show. “Surprise” he begins slowly in that patented drawl of his, “would indicate that I gave a lot of thought to it. And I didn’t.”
“We held steady at the beginning” he says flatly. “And I thought ‘well that's pretty cool’. And then I didn’t give it a lot of thought. So no, it didn’t surprise me a bit, not because I expected it, but simply because I didn’t think about it. If I thought about the show it didn’t go much further than ‘I gotta do another show. It better be good!’ That’s sort of as far as the strategic thought went.”
It was several years into the show’s rise in popularity when the idea of a live concert came up. “It wasn’t my idea. It was my producer’s idea.” McLean admits. “We were doing these studio shows and I think he was intrigued by the idea of working with live music and I was intrigued by the idea of working with an audience with the stories. And so we just tried one and it worked like gangbusters and it was fun! So we tried another one. So we decided that we should only do the stories in front of an audience. And that was that.”
The concerts are a pleasure apart from McLean’s storytelling finesse. There’s music and of course the storytelling during which McLean conjures up Dave, Morley, Sam and Stephanie in the audience’s imagination. One might assume that McLean has an image of what his characters look like. But he admits, “I don’t have a clear picture of what Dave looks like or what the other characters look like. I think maybe that serves me well because it allows people to fill in the blanks for themselves. But”, he admits, “I think the closest person to me is the little twelve year old boy Sam. I feel very sympathetic and very close to him as a character.”
And although he admits that in a few of the early stories “the details of my life were pasted onto the arc of the story” most of the stories since are pure works of McLean’s imagination and not insignificantly, his heart. As such despite the yearnings of many a fan, there really wasn’t a record store that supplied the inspiration for Dave’s business. “There was a second hand record store around the corner from my house” he admits “and a couple of times I went and visited it and sort of hung out in it to try and get a feel for what that might be like. But I always painted it in the broadest of strokes.”
What comes across when talking to McLean is how protective he is about not only his show but his responsibility to his fans, Dave and Morley’s fans. “It’s not a serious show but I take it very seriously” he explains. “I try to give it the respect that it deserves.”
A sign of that respect has been his response to the inevitable requests to bring Dave and Morley to tangible visual life via TV or film. “I’ve had a lot of offers and I’ve always turned them down” McLean says flatly. “I thought they reside in the imagination much stronger than they would on TV. I think they would destroy it. There was an offer to do it as animation and to that I said yes to because I thought that animation like fiction is an act of imagination so I didn’t think that would get in the way of what I was doing. But” he sighs with perhaps a touch of relief, “the project is on life support right now so it may not happen.”
What’s in Stuart McLean’s daytimer right now is a few more Vinyl Café live shows, then his renown Christmas shows, two nights of which grace London’s Centennial Hall on November 26th and 27th. The highlights of the shows are the musical surprises, Canadian musicians as unknown as they are remarkable. “I’m bringing with me the three best young artists that I’ve seen in the last year.” McLean says with no little pride. “A fourteen year old blues player Jimmy Bowskill, who does the blues as well as anyone I’ve ever heard do the blues. A violin player, Owen Pallet, who is classically trained but has written an opera and experimental avante garde music but does this kind of thing that I can’t even describe. He has a sampling machine that loops what he plays while he sings. And I’ve got a young singer songwriter, a woman by the name of Harmony Trowbridge. She reminds me of a young Joni Mitchell, a kind of jazzy folk musician.” McLean pauses a moment for breath and adds, “I want people, to leave the show going ‘wow’. And I think they will!”
So a capable CBC radio documentary producer becomes a renown Canadian author and performer. Was that always the plan? “Oh none of this was planned” McLean chuckles to himself. “Even as it grows and still grows, there’s no plan, there’s no strategy. I had no idea where I was going, I still don’t” he says with a kind of helpless pride. “I love the Neil Young quote about when he had a hit, he was heading for the middle of the road and as soon as he got there he headed for the ditch because it was more comfortable there. I really understand that. As soon as it gets easy, it’s not interesting anymore. So you have to make it harder. That’s really how all of my decisions have been made. There’s been no plan!”
Stuart McLean doesn’t have a clue and he loves it. Oh he’s an exceptionally bright human being alright and a wonderfully gentle one. But he doesn’t have an idea about how he does his job. OK well that’s not entirely true. It’s just that this CBC radio star and best-selling author doesn’t know why what he does connects so well with his Canadian fan base. “I haven’t a clue” McLean says flatly. “You’d have to ask other people. Maybe you have some ideas yourself.”
The world of Stuart McLean revolves around a guy named Dave who runs a used record store called the Vinyl Café, his wife Morley, and his kids Sam and Stephanie. The show’s fans just smiled as they read that because they know all about the occasionally hapless but loveable Dave and their children and neighbors. The stories read damn fine in print but in the hands or rather the voice of Stuart McLean the stories leap from the page to life.
The story of how this award winning author and performer came into his career is as charmed as the tales he tells. When McLean started out in 1979 it was indeed in radio but as a documentary producer. “I was the Executive Producer of the Sunday Morning show for a couple of years. I got fired from that” he shrugs. “I had one vision of the show; they had another vision of the show. It was their prerogative. I went to Morningside and spent about ten years doing a kind of personal journalism, sort of like a ‘page three’ column in a newspaper. And at one point in Morningside I tried a few fictional pieces; it was the next thing to try out.”
Those fictional pieces led to the Vinyl Café program. “It started off on Monday nights in the summertime” McLean explains. “For two seasons it was a summer replacement show. And in the third season we only did a couple of shows. It wasn’t until the fourth season that we really sort of cut loose on Saturday and Sunday at the same time.”
The ‘cutting loose’ McLean refers to dovetailed with the beginning of the growth of his audience. The motto of Dave’s record shop was "We may not be big, but we're small”. In an odd way that unassuming charm could double for McLean’s credo as well. Whatever the reason ‘The Vinyl Café’ is now a bonafide Canadian institution binding together this country in much the same way that Peter Gzowski did.
One would assume that McLean would have been at the least surprised at the devoted following of his show. “Surprise” he begins slowly in that patented drawl of his, “would indicate that I gave a lot of thought to it. And I didn’t.”
“We held steady at the beginning” he says flatly. “And I thought ‘well that's pretty cool’. And then I didn’t give it a lot of thought. So no, it didn’t surprise me a bit, not because I expected it, but simply because I didn’t think about it. If I thought about the show it didn’t go much further than ‘I gotta do another show. It better be good!’ That’s sort of as far as the strategic thought went.”
It was several years into the show’s rise in popularity when the idea of a live concert came up. “It wasn’t my idea. It was my producer’s idea.” McLean admits. “We were doing these studio shows and I think he was intrigued by the idea of working with live music and I was intrigued by the idea of working with an audience with the stories. And so we just tried one and it worked like gangbusters and it was fun! So we tried another one. So we decided that we should only do the stories in front of an audience. And that was that.”
The concerts are a pleasure apart from McLean’s storytelling finesse. There’s music and of course the storytelling during which McLean conjures up Dave, Morley, Sam and Stephanie in the audience’s imagination. One might assume that McLean has an image of what his characters look like. But he admits, “I don’t have a clear picture of what Dave looks like or what the other characters look like. I think maybe that serves me well because it allows people to fill in the blanks for themselves. But”, he admits, “I think the closest person to me is the little twelve year old boy Sam. I feel very sympathetic and very close to him as a character.”
And although he admits that in a few of the early stories “the details of my life were pasted onto the arc of the story” most of the stories since are pure works of McLean’s imagination and not insignificantly, his heart. As such despite the yearnings of many a fan, there really wasn’t a record store that supplied the inspiration for Dave’s business. “There was a second hand record store around the corner from my house” he admits “and a couple of times I went and visited it and sort of hung out in it to try and get a feel for what that might be like. But I always painted it in the broadest of strokes.”
What comes across when talking to McLean is how protective he is about not only his show but his responsibility to his fans, Dave and Morley’s fans. “It’s not a serious show but I take it very seriously” he explains. “I try to give it the respect that it deserves.”
A sign of that respect has been his response to the inevitable requests to bring Dave and Morley to tangible visual life via TV or film. “I’ve had a lot of offers and I’ve always turned them down” McLean says flatly. “I thought they reside in the imagination much stronger than they would on TV. I think they would destroy it. There was an offer to do it as animation and to that I said yes to because I thought that animation like fiction is an act of imagination so I didn’t think that would get in the way of what I was doing. But” he sighs with perhaps a touch of relief, “the project is on life support right now so it may not happen.”
What’s in Stuart McLean’s daytimer right now is a few more Vinyl Café live shows, then his renown Christmas shows, two nights of which grace London’s Centennial Hall on November 26th and 27th. The highlights of the shows are the musical surprises, Canadian musicians as unknown as they are remarkable. “I’m bringing with me the three best young artists that I’ve seen in the last year.” McLean says with no little pride. “A fourteen year old blues player Jimmy Bowskill, who does the blues as well as anyone I’ve ever heard do the blues. A violin player, Owen Pallet, who is classically trained but has written an opera and experimental avante garde music but does this kind of thing that I can’t even describe. He has a sampling machine that loops what he plays while he sings. And I’ve got a young singer songwriter, a woman by the name of Harmony Trowbridge. She reminds me of a young Joni Mitchell, a kind of jazzy folk musician.” McLean pauses a moment for breath and adds, “I want people, to leave the show going ‘wow’. And I think they will!”
So a capable CBC radio documentary producer becomes a renown Canadian author and performer. Was that always the plan? “Oh none of this was planned” McLean chuckles to himself. “Even as it grows and still grows, there’s no plan, there’s no strategy. I had no idea where I was going, I still don’t” he says with a kind of helpless pride. “I love the Neil Young quote about when he had a hit, he was heading for the middle of the road and as soon as he got there he headed for the ditch because it was more comfortable there. I really understand that. As soon as it gets easy, it’s not interesting anymore. So you have to make it harder. That’s really how all of my decisions have been made. There’s been no plan!”
posted by bk @ 10:58 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home