Share a piece of "Pie" with Don McLean at Brown County Music Center on Aug. 19

Get a piece of the “Pie”; Don McLean’s success spans centuries

A likeness of American singer/songwriter Don McLean is tattooed in living color across the back of David New, a British fan, who got the ink in 1978.

Don McLean wrote the lionized song "American Pie," on the album with the same title. If one peeps at his resume his lead-up seems clear. His 1968 college degree is in finance and philosophy (duh). Tomes have been written about "American Pie," although few people appear to agree on the song's messages. McLean has kept fairly discreet, which of course fuels these analytical debates.

McLean comes to the Brown County Music Center on Aug. 19, and tickets are selling faster than a hog-wild Chevy on a levy.

To talk with McLean is to get a class in philosophy. His opinions cascade — on ripped jeans, mansions and law policy. He splashes his philosophy into his songs. It's as though he can't help it.

"I've put up with a lot of criticism. It's dangerous to have a different opinion," he said on the phone. Today, however, he said others' opinions matter less to him than they once did.

Darned good company

A poll by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Recording Industry Association of America chose "American Pie" (1971) as one of the five best songs of the 20th century. As a frame of reference, these were competitors of "American Pie": "This Land Is Your Land," (Woody Guthrie); "Over the Rainbow," (Judy Garland); "Respect" (Aretha Franklin) and "White Christmas" (Bing Crosby).

Twenty years ago "American Pie" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. The next year McLean himself was inducted into the Songwriters’ Hall of Fame.

There's much more than just 'American Pie'

The following McLean songs have been played more than 3 million times each on American radio: "American Pie," "And I Love You So," "Vincent" and "Castles in the Air."

McLean, that well-deliberated American singer, songwriter and guitarist, won the folk-singing contest at the 1964 World's Fair in New York. He was 18.

"I got world famous and toured the world, from the beginning," he said. And he got very very rich, although he disdains "disgusting materialism" and lives in a small stucco house in Maine. "We live outdoors most of the time."

Sydney Opera House, Boston Pops are firsts for McLean

The Sydney Opera House invited McLean to perform, making him the first American artist to do so. In 2000 he was the guest artist at the Boston Pops' Fourth of July commemoration, the century's first.

"My idol" is how Garth Brooks introduced McLean to more than 1 million attendees at a 1997 concert in Manhattan's Central Park. Naturally, the musicians joined to sing "American Pie."

No. 1 singles in two centuries plus a Johnny Cash yodel

McLean was the first songwriter to have No. 1 singles in two different centuries. And upon hearing McLean sing "Lovesick Blues" at Johnny Cash’s house, Cash wrote "I Wish I Could Yodel."

Don McLean Foundation helps students, others

McLean spends money and other resources on helping others. The Don McLean Foundation sends students with financial need to college and donates to shelters and food banks in Maine.

Mummified man gets grave — and a McLean-funded headstone

McLean’s heavy-hearted song "The Legend of Andrew McCrew" inspired Chicago radio station WGN to raise funds to buy a headstone for the mummified man, featured in the song, who had "lost his way."

According to a Robert Wilonsky report in the Dallas Morning News, "The Amazing Petrified Man" was the touring (circus) remains of a man who had had no home and whose embalmed body had been found in a Dallas basement. He finally received a dignified grave and headstone in a historic Texas cemetery.

"There was a mummy at the fair all crumpled in a folding chair.

The people passed but didn't care that the mummy was a man."

McLean donated his entire earnings from the song, for the headstone.

If you go

WHAT: Don McLean

WHEN: 8 p.m. Aug. 19

WHERE: Brown County Music Center, 200 Maple Leaf Blvd., Nashville

TICKETS: Start at $30, order online at https://www.ticketmaster.com/

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Don McLean to perform Aug. 19 at Brown County Music Center