N'ganga Blues Tour: I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends; Welcoming Paul Bothner Music to the Tour

Friday, January 17, 2020

I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends; Welcoming Paul Bothner Music to the Tour

I'm pleased to announce that Paul Bothner Music will be returning as a Nganga tour partner. We've done a couple of comprehensive, southern African tours in the past, and it has always been a pleasure to work with them. Here, Bothner's new promo manager, Wayne Shelver, runs down production gear with me at the company's Cape Town warehouse. It's a family business, much like North America's Long & McQuade, and it works with most of South Africa's top tier artists. I'm grateful to be in such good company.

Doc MacLean

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n'ganga blues...

N'ganga. The healer. This thing we call Blues. I've rolled the bones all over the map. Sixty throws. Sixty mostly solo shows: they shadow South Africa. No place too large, too small, too grand or too humble. When you roll the bones you could come up snake eyes. Or you could score big. That's what the Old Man used to say.

Dust in my blood, I'm pushing back out into the desert. The Great Karoo is calling: and then the rest of it. It's healing music, these Blues. But the Blues is also this journey: close to the wire. The hot wire. A journey through life. This place where all things are possible. Or should be. Where stories hang like dust in the air: drawn to the heart by the rattle of the Bones. N'ganga.

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n'ganga blues tour...

Doc MacLean's fourth African tour, "N'ganga Blues," finds him returning to many of the places visited on previous adventures. The "World's Biggest Little Blues Tour" will touch most parts of South Africa, covering over 20 thousand km by land, and will include some 60 shows.

Telling songs and singing stories. This blues came from the Mississippi delta. But before that, it came from Africa. Passed down from mouth to mouth. More than music. A placement of the human spirit. Doc's early mentors were the grandchildren of slaves- and he keeps their gifts close to the heart, and close to the Bone. N'ganga Blues celebrates this relationship and explores this continuing journey.

MacLean now mentors a number of local blues, roots and traditional artists, actively seeking opportunities for them to tour North America and elsewhere. N'ganga Blues will feature occasional, pop-up collaborations with these artists. Around the edges of the tour, MacLean will co-write with Tim Parr and Albert Frost, and will record new album tracks with Frost in the producer's chair. N'ganga Blues: witness a unique and mature artist at the height of his powers.

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where it's going...

Proposed & Developing Schedule

The National Steel N'ganga Blues Tour

Jan 9 Arrival, Cape Town

Jan 10 Plankies, Pringle Bay

Jan 11 Camel Rock, Scarborough

Jan 12 Red Herring Noordhoek

Jan 16 House of Machines, Cape Town

Jan 18 Courtyard, McGregor

Jan 19 Striped Horse, Muizenberg

Jan 22 Jagger Lounge, Cape Town

Jan 23 Sgt Pepper, Cape Town

Jan 24 Fred & Max, Somerset West

Jan 25 Theatre Evita se Perron, Darling

Jan 26 Cape to Cuba, Kalk Bay**

Jan 27 Barleycorn Folk Club, Cape Town

Jan 28 Drawing Room, Cape Town

Jan 29 Steam, Stellenbosch

Jan 30 Striped Horse, Muizenberg

Jan 31 Villa Pascal, Durbanville

Feb 1 Karoo Saloon, Barrydale

Feb 2 Karoo Saloon, Barrydale

Feb 6 Ecolodge, Greyton

Feb 7 Gecko, Hermanus

Feb 8 Corner Bar Stage, Somerset West

Feb 9 Fisherhaven Pub, Hermanus

Feb 12 Four Sheep, Beaufort West, EC

Feb 13 John's Place, Richmond, NC

Feb 14 Occidental, Kimberley

Feb 15 Back to the Blues, Hartbeespoort

Feb 16 Taste of Tennessee, Centurion

Feb 19 Lucit Theatre, Pretoria**

Feb 20 Lagom Cafe, Pretoria

Feb 21 Hoed Rock Cafe, Hoedspruit

Feb 22 Three Bridges, Hoedspruit

Feb 23 Bohemian Groove, Kaapsehoop

Feb 24 KAYA-FM, The World Show, JHB

Feb 24 Mix 93.8, Mon Night Live, JHB

Feb 26 Edges Corner, Fairie Glen, Pretoria

Feb 27 Reception, CDN High Com, PTA**

Feb 28 Jarr Bar, Pretoria

Feb 29 Sinkshack, Bronkhorstspruit

Mar 1 Otter Lake German, Pretoria

Mar 4 Cafe Barcelona, Pretoria

Mar 5 Franks Wild Years, Johannesburg**

Mar 6 Smithfield, TBC

Mar 7 House Concert, Bloemfontein, TBC

Mar 8 Coffeeberry Cafe, Pietermaritzburg

Mar 11 TBA fill this date!

Mar 12 Shapes of Africa, Mount Moreland

Mar 13 The Knoll, Hilton

Mar 14 St. Clements, Durban

Mar 15 Crusaders, Durban North

Mar 16 Wild Coast-FM

Mar 18 St. Lucia, TBC

Mar 19 House Concert, Richards Bay

Mar 20 Kwadumikhanda, Eshowe

Mar 21 Rocky Ridge, Ramsgate

Mar 22 East Coast Brewery, Umkomaas

Mar 24 Jungle Monkey, Port St. Johns

Mar 25 Cintsa, TBC

Mar 26 Goat Shed, Kenton-On-Sea

Mar 27 Village Bistro, Bathurst

Mar 28 Old Cash Store, Port Elizabeth

Mar 29 St. Francis Brewing, St. Francis

Apr 1 House Concert, Nieu-Bethesda

Apr 2 La Dolce Vita, Oudtshoorn

Apr 3 Bloo Bistro, Knysna

Apr 4 Showcase Theatre, Prince Albert

Apr 5 Koedoeskloof, Ladismith

Dates and Route: All dates are now pretty much fixed and sold. While routes, dates and places are unlikely to change, TBA’s TBC's and non-listed dates may be available. "Ask." V04Jan.

**dates featuring Tim Parr

about the artist...

Forty-five years ago Doc MacLean was playing Charlie Patton songs in Son House's living room. From back porch to big porch. The storyteller. An emotional remapping of contemporary delta blues. At one time Blues Revue Magazine called him the "Prince of Darkness." There's redemption here beyond the simple, acoustic medium– and an appeal that reaches well beyond the Crossroads.

Doc MacLean has performed and recorded with a who's who of first and second generation blues, roots and gospel artists such as Sam Chatmon, Peg Leg Sam, and Blind John Davis. Among many others, he has supported Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Muddy Waters, Johnny Winter, and BB King. Now best known as a songwriter and storyteller, MacLean has more recently recorded with members of the Canned Heat and Mavis Staples bands. This real deal, old school troubadour self drives to hundreds of shows every year— sometimes busking the places in between. But America is now seen more often in the rear view mirror...

Over the last few years MacLean has driven over 100 thousand km across South Africa, taking it for his own. Named as one of the top sets at the massive, 2017 OppiKoppi festival, he's now played most of the largest festivals, smallest juke joints, coolest theatres, and best regarded presentation stages in the country. The thing that has been carried is again returned. "No venue too large, too small, too grand or too humble." Even places lost in the folds of the map.

Writing from the dark side of the road, Doc MacLean remains a songster from the delta tradition. A traveler. Gifted by the grandchildren of slaves, MacLean now sings his own stories and tells his own songs in his own voice. His mostly resophonic, finger style slide guitar pays sonic homage to Patton, House, and Big Joe Williams, while moving forward in a roots based, yet contemporary context.

To MacLean, the Blues is not a genre: it is a condition of the human spirit, a healing music, a journey of the soul, a container of past, present, and future. N'ganga.

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Friday, January 17, 2020

I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends; Welcoming Paul Bothner Music to the Tour

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