主题：【下载】Sound of Vincent -- 无双公子
家园 【下载】Sound of Vincent 一首写给凡高（Vincent van Gogh）的歌，一个温情的声音――本歌又名“星光灿烂的夜”，即是梵高一幅画的标题。这首关于梵高的动人歌曲受到了世界各国人们的喜爱，时至今日，它那质朴深情的旋律仍每天回荡在阿姆斯特丹的梵高博物馆里。
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Vincent (Starry Starry Night)
Don McLean
Starry, starry night
Paint your palette blue and gray
Look out on a summer's day
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul
Shadows on the hills
Sketch the trees and the daffodils
Catch the breeze and the winter chills
In colors on the snowy linen land.
Now I understand
What you tried to say, to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free
They would not listen, they did not know how
Perhaps they'll listen now...
Starry, starry night
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze
Swirling clouds in violet haze
Reflect in Vincent's eyes of china blue
Colours changing hue
Morning fields of amber grain
Weathered faces lined in pain
Are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand.
Now I understand
What you tried to say, to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free
They would not listen, they did not know how
Perhaps they'll listen now...
For they could not love you
But still, your love was true
And when no hope was left inside
On that starry, starry night
You took your life as lovers often do
But I could've told you,
Vincent This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you...
Starry, Starry night
Portraits hung in empty halls
Frameless heads on nameless walls
With eyes that watch the world and can't forget
Like the strangers that you've met
The ragged men in ragged clothes
The silver thorn, a bloody rose
Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow.
Now I think I know
What you tried to say, to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free
They would not listen, they're not listening still
Perhaps they never will...
唱片名称：《Don McLean / The Greatest Hits（梵谷之歌）》
艺人名称：Don McLean
出版公司：EMI
发行日期：2001/8
“我是个歌手，就这么简单――唱歌，找歌，写歌，录歌。糟糕的是，最近大家的焦点都放在音乐录像带上，而非歌曲本身。在这个领域里面，音乐的价值被贬低了。当然，棒棒糖也缩水了，政治人物也变笨了，什么地方都看得到代用品。不久以后，人们也不知道自己听的根本不是真材实料的音乐。”――唐麦克林/Don McLean
不过Don McLean可是货真价实；对他而言，音乐尚未死去。他在全世界赢得十二张金唱片单曲、专辑则有二十五张金唱片、十张白金唱片，举行过十次世界巡回演唱会，拥有一大堆经常被人翻唱的名曲，即使如此，一聊起自己的音乐，他仍然充满热情。
1971年发行的《American Pie》专辑，在美国专辑榜的冠军宝座停留了七周，并在英国专辑榜停留了一年多。American Pie是1970年代最著名也最让人耳熟能详的两首歌曲之一，这首歌在美国单曲榜的冠军位置停留了一个多月，并打入英国单曲榜前三名，被视为流行音乐的重要里程碑。当然这首歌在2000年由玛丹娜翻唱时，同样地再度成为世界各国的畅销曲。
Don McLean被全世界的人尊崇为流行音乐的资深政治家，他广大的歌迷总是热切地期待他的国际巡回演唱，而如今他也不再是拒绝演唱“American Pie”。或许当最后一期《Life》杂志在封面写上斗大的American Pie，McLean才明白这首歌是一首意义多么重大的作品。
但这绝不是McLean唯一的经典畅销曲，向画家梵谷致敬的“Vincent”、灵感来自电影明星Fred Astaire的《Wonderful Baby》及分别翻唱自Buddy Holly、Roy Orbison的经典曲“Everyday”与“Crying”等16首歌曲都是20世纪人类流行乐史的不朽金曲。
6 Castles In The Air (Original Version) 白日梦
[GLOW=255,blue,2]About Don McLean[/GLOW]
Don McLean was born on October 2nd 1945 in New Rochelle, NY to Elizabeth and Donald McLean. By the age of five he had developed an interest in all forms of music and would spend hours listening to the radio and his father’s 78rpm records. Childhood asthma meant that Don missed long periods of school and while he slipped back in his studies, his love of music was allowed to flourish. He would often perform shows for family and friends.
外链图片需谨慎，可能会被源头改As a teenager, he purchased his first guitar (a Harmony F Hole with a sunburst finish) from the House of Music in New Rochelle and took opera lessons paid for by his sister. These lessons combined with many hours in the swimming pool, helped Don to develop breath control, which would later allow him to sing long, continuous phrases, in songs such as “Crying”, without taking a breath. The exercise also meant his asthma got better.
In 1961, Don took his one and only vacation with his father ?C a trip to Washington D.C. Sadly, a few months later his father died. Don was just 15 years old.
By this time, Don's musical focus was very much on folk thanks, in part, to The Weavers landmark 1955 recording "Live at Carnegie Hall". Don was determined to become a professional musician and singer and, as a 16 year old, he was already making contacts in the business. After managing to get his home number from the telephone directory, Don phoned Erik Darling. They become friends and Don visited his apartment in New York frequently.
Through Erik Darling, Don recorded his first studio sessions with Lisa Kindred and was invited to join a group with Darling and the other members of the Rooftop Singers. However, even at that time, Don saw himself as a troubadour and turned down the offer.
While at Villanova University in 1963 (he stayed for just four months), Don met and became friends with Jim Croce and President Kennedy was assassinated.
After leaving Villanova, Don worked for “Harold Leventhal Management”. This started a six year period during which time Don performed at venues like the Bitter End and Gaslight Café in New York, the Newport Folk Festival, the Cellar Door in Washington, D.C., the Main Point in Philadelphia, the Troubadour and Ash Grove in Los Angeles and over forty colleges throughout New York and New England. He appeared with such artists as Herbie Mann, Brownie McGee and Sonny Terry, Melanie, Steppenwolf, Arlo Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Janis Ian, Josh White, Ten Wheel Drive and others. This was the start of Don McLean’s career as a professional singer, songwriter, musician and performer.
Don also found time to attend night school at Iona College and, in 1968, graduated with a Bachelors degree in Business Administration but turned down a prestigious scholarship to Columbia University Graduate School in favour of becoming resident singer at Café Lena in NY.
While resident at Cafe Lena, the New York State Council for the Arts invited Don to become their Hudson River Troubadour. He accepted and spent the summer travelling from town to town in the Hudson Valley, giving talks about the environment and singing songs for whoever would turn up to listen.
A year later, Don was a member of the first crew of the Sloop Clearwater. With Pete Seeger, they travelled the Atlantic seaboard giving concerts at each port and featuring in the news wherever they went.
外链图片需谨慎，可能会被源头改In 1969, Don also recorded his first album, “Tapestry”, in Berkeley, CA. The student riots were going on outside the studio door as Don was singing “And I Love You So” inside. The album was first released by Mediarts and attracted good reviews and achieved modest commercial success.
The transition to major international stardom began in 1971 with the release of "American Pie”. "American Pie” was recorded on 26th May 1971 and a month later received its first radio airplay on New York's WNEW-FM and WPLJ-FM to mark the closing of The Fillmore East, the famous New York concert hall. However Don's first live public performance of the song had received an indifferent reaction from the audience. He had excitedly got some pretty young girl to come up on stage to hold the (many) pages of lyrics for him. He sang the song and the audience was stunned into silence! Little did they know that they had just heard the song that was to become one of the most famous songs of all time.
Thirty years later, “American Pie” was voted number 5 in a poll of the 365 “Songs of the Century” compiled by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts.
The top five were:
"Over the Rainbow" by Judy Garland
"White Christmas" by Bing Crosby
"This Land Is Your Land" by Woody Guthrie
"Respect" by Aretha Franklin;
and "American Pie" by Don McLean.
外链图片需谨慎，可能会被源头改“American Pie” was issued as a double A-side single in November 1971 and charted within a month. Very quickly, the attention from media and public alike catapulted the single to #1 in the USA and Don to instant international superstardom. Every line of the song was analysed time and time again to find the real meaning. Don has always refused to sanction any of the many interpretations, so adding to its mystery. The great “American Pie debate” continues today on the Internet. Don once suggested that when he is old and poor he would open a pay-to-listen phone line on which he would tell all! Somehow, that is unlikely because Don has maintained the publishing rights to his songs. "So when people ask me what "American Pie" means, I tell them it means I don't ever have to work again if I don't want to."
The second single, "Vincent”, charted on 18th March 1972 going on to reach US#12, UK#1. The "American Pie” album remained at #1 in the UK for 7 weeks in 1972, and in the UK charts for 53 consecutive weeks.
In the wake of “American Pie”, Don became a major concert attraction and was able to call upon material not only from his two albums but from a tremendous repertoire of old concert hall numbers and the complete catalogues of singers such as Buddy Holly, and another McLean influence, Frank Sinatra. The years spent playing gigs in small clubs and coffee houses paid off with well-paced performances. Don's first concert at the Albert Hall in 1972 was a triumphant success.
Concert footage, and other with video clips, played to McLean songs formed the award winning 1972 film "Till Tomorrow” produced by Bob Elfstrom (a project they had started working on in 1968).
With all this success, "Tapestry” was reissued by United Artists and charted in the USA on 12th February 1972 reaching #111 and the top-15 in the United Kingdom; it includes two of Don's most famous songs: "And I Love You So” and "Castles in the Air”.
Don's third album, simply entitled "Don McLean”, included the song "The Pride Parade” that provides an insight into Don's immediate reaction to his instant superstardom. Don told "Melody Maker” magazine in 1973 that “Tapestry” was an album by someone previously concerned with external situations. “American Pie” combines externals with internals and the resultant success of that album makes the third one ("Don McLean”) entirely introspective”.
The fourth album, "Playin Favourites” became a top-40 hit in the UK in 1973 and included the classic, "Mountains of Mourne” and Buddy Holly's "Everyday”, a live rendition of which returned Don to the UK singles chart. McLean said, “The last album ("Don McLean”) was a study in depression whereas the new one ("Playin Favourites”) is almost the quintessence of optimism, with a feeling of "Wow, I just woke up from a bad dream".
1973 was also a great success for Don McLean the songwriter and Don McLean the performer. Perry Como recorded "And I Love You So” from the "Tapestry” album and took it to the UK top-5 and American top-30. Como's version was nominated for a Grammy but was beaten by a song about Don, "Killing Me Softly With His Song”, sung by Roberta Flack and written by Norman Gimbel and Charles Fox after Lori Leiberman had attended a McLean concert at the LA Troubadour.
外链图片需谨慎，可能会被源头改Throughout the 1970s, Don McLean remained an in-demand concert performer. In 1975, 85000 fans attended his London Hyde Park concert. 1977, saw a brief liaison with Arista Records that yielded the "Prime Time” album before, in 1978, Don's career began again in Nashville where he would work with Elvis Presley's backing singers, "The Jordanaires” and many of Elvis's old musicians. The result was "Chain Lightning” and the UK No 1, "Crying”. The early 1980s saw further chart successes with "Since I Don't Have You”, a new recording of "Castles in the Air” and "It's Just the Sun”.
Some people are amazed when they read how successful, “American Pie Man”, Don McLean has been. Far from fading away (like some of his 1970s singer-songwriter contemporaries), Don has remained very much in the upper echelons of popular music.
In 1987, the release of the country-based "Love Tracks" album gave rise to the hit singles "Love in My Heart” (top-10 in Australia), "Can't Blame the Wreck on the Train” (US country #49) and "Eventually”.
Two years later, Don hit the UK top-10 with "American Pie” prompting many appearances on radio and TV including a one-hour special with Nicky Campbell on BBC radio 1 (available in RealAudio on this site), and the recording of the Manchester concert for video release in 1993. A favourite memory for many fans is Don performing "American Pie” live on "Top of the Pops” in 1991.
In 1992, many previously unreleased songs became available on "Favorites and Rarities” while "Don McLean Classics” featured new studio recordings of "Vincent” and "American Pie”. In 1994, Don appeared at the Buddy Holly tributes in the USA and London, and "Guns and Roses” took a replica of Don's version of "Since I Don't Have You” (a US top-20 hit for Don in April 1981) to the UK top-10. 1995 and "American Pie' returns to the top-40; this time in "techno-music” format performed by European artist, Just Luis.
In 1996, "Killing Me Softly With His Song"', performed by The Fugees, was one of the biggest selling singles of the year.
Don McLean credits his 1997 performance of “American Pie” at Garth Brooks’ Central Park concert (attended by over 500,000 people) as the beginning of his third career comeback. According to Don, his first "comeback" had been the release of "Vincent" and the second, the release and massive success of "Crying".
外链图片需谨慎，可能会被源头改"Brooks was joined on stage by two surprise guest stars, Billy Joel and Don McLean, who brought down the house with an acoustic rendition of "American Pie." (CNN, 1997)
Two years later Garth Brooks repaid the favour by appearing as a special guest (with Nanci Griffith) on Don's first ever American TV special, broadcast on PBS and now available as the “Starry Starry Night” video, DVD and CD. A month later, Don McLean wound up the 20th century by performing "American Pie" for President Clinton at the Lincoln Memorial Gala In Washington D.C.
In 2000, Madonna recorded a cover version of "American Pie" that upon release in the UK entered the official singles chart at number 1 and made the US top-30 on air play points alone. This prompted EMI to release a new "Best of Don McLean" CD that gave Don his first top-30 album chart entry in almost 20 years.
外链图片需谨慎，可能会被源头改"Madonna is a colossus in the music industry and she is going to be considered an important historical figure as well. She is a fine singer, a fine songwriter and record producer, and she has the power to guarantee success with any song she chooses to record. It is a gift for her to have recorded 'American Pie.' I have heard her version and I think it is sensual and mystical. I also feel that she's chosen autobiographical verses that reflect her career and personal history. I hope it will cause people to ask what's happening to music in America. I have received many gifts from God but this is the first time I have ever received a gift from a goddess."
Don McLean, 2000.
Even more surprising than Madonna having a hit with a Don McLean song, was George Michael's decision in 2003 to record "The Grave", from the "American Pie" album, as a protest against the Iraq war. He recorded the song for MTV and performed it live on Top of the Pops.
I am proud of George Michael for standing up for life and sanity. I am delighted that he chose a song of mine to express these feelings. We must remember that the Wizard is really a cowardly old man hiding behind a curtain with a loud microphone. It takes courage and a song to pull the curtain open and expose him.
Good Luck George-Don McLean
The 21st Century has seen a number of new honours for Don McLean and his music. Iona College conferred an honorary doctorate on Don in 2001 and, in February 2002, "American Pie" was finally inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. This year sees Don McLean inaugurated into the National Academy of Popular Music Songwriters' Hall of Fame. The ceremony will take place on June 10th, 2004 in New York City and Don McLean says "this is wonderful, and unexpected validation for an old lone wolf like me. I am deeply moved."
(from:http://www.don-mclean.com/)
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