08-21-03: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DELBERT McCLINTON’S LIVE ALBUM, SCHEDULED FOR OCT. 21 RELEASE, IS DEFINITIVE LIVE COLLECTION

The recording was not originally intended to be an album. But when the tapes from the Norwegian radio performance were played back, everyone present knew that it was a keeper. Don Smith (Rolling Stones, Tom Petty) mixed and the end result is the best live Delbert McClinton album yet.

The collection features some of Delbert’s best-known live staples including "Giving It Up For Your Love" (a Top 10 rock hit from 1980), "Old Weakness," "Leap Of Faith," "B-Movie Box Car Blues" (a showstopper for the Blues Brothers), "I Wanna Love You," "Livin’ It Down" plus 14 others. Also featured are "Rebecca Rebecca," a pastiche of old blues songs Delbert has known and loved over the years; "Dreams To Remember," originally by Otis Redding; and "A Fine & Healthy Thing," which dates back to Billy "The Kid" Emerson on Sun Records. It is the first time that many of the songs have been available in one collection -- and on one label.

According to Delbert, "We’ve recorded several shows but this one came out the best. The folks in Bergen had great equipment, great engineers and, as it so happened, we had a really great night. It sounds live and I like that. The band is over-the-top great on it!"

Live is Delbert’s third in concert album, the last one being the Grammy-nominated Live In Austin (Alligator.) But with two discs and 19 tracks, the new album covers extensive musical ground, from Delbert’s blues origins on through his Grammy winning album on New West.

Journalists have long waxed rhapsodic about Delbert’s live shows. Wrote Silas House in No Depression: "(When Delbert plays,) the people twirl and snap their fingers. They throw back their heads, arch their shoulders to the beat. They stomp their feet and move their hips and close their eyes, lost in the music. There is that honky-tonk aroma of beer and sweat and a hundred different perfumes combined into one overpowering good-time scent. Kind of like the Cotton Club 50-some years ago, when McClinton's own parents just wanted to have fun." Entertainment Weekly called him "one of the planet's greatest roadhouse rockers."

The album leads in to one of the greatest live events of Delbert’s career -- the 10th annual Delbert McClinton Sandy Beaches Cruise -- which will sail from the Port of Fort Lauderdale to The Bahamas, Tortola and St. Thomas V.I. from January 11 - 18, 2004. More information on the cruise, and on Delbert himself, is available at Delbert.com