Big Dave McLean

February 3, 2019

Winnipeg Manitoba based guitarist/harmonica player/songsmith, Big Dave McLean is a highly acclaimed Canadian Roots and Blues artist. A multiple award winner and recording artist, with a career spanning nearly four decades, McLean has become an influence on many Canadian players. His gruff raspy voice, with a feel for the traditional acoustic and electric Blues has established him as a stalwart on the Canadian Blues scene.

Big Dave McLean is the man often viewed as an unsung hero of Canadian blues and an inspiration to younger generations of musicians such as Colin James and Wide Mouth Mason. Ever since getting his start with an impromptu guitar lesson from John Hammond at the 1969 Mariposa Folk Festival, this Yorkton-born, Winnipeg-based artist has been devoted to his craft, touring relentlessly through Canada’s blues bars, folk clubs and folk and blues festivals, even when it meant supplementing his income in the early days with all manner of side jobs.

Along the way, there have been career highs:  opening for his idol, Muddy Waters; earning two WCMAs, a Prairie Music Award, a Whisky Award and countless Maple Blues honours – including the Blues with Feeling (lifetime achievement) Award; sharing a Juno for his contribution to CBC’s Saturday Night Blues Vol. 1 album; and, most recently, garnering his third career Juno nod for his last album, “Faded but not Gone”. Billboard’s Larry LeBlanc once wrote that Dave “has done more to shape western Canada’s blues scene than perhaps any other artist.”

Joining Dave on stage was one of Canada’s finest drummers, Calgary’s own Kevin Belzner.

See and hear Big Dave on Black Hen Music >>