"I said, 'I know that you knew Buddy Holly.' And like a kid - I was just a kid - I said, 'What happened? Can you tell me what happened?' I wanted to know more than just, 'He got on the plane.'" In 1969, an aspiring singer-songwriter landed a spot in the annual Newport Folk Festival, where a conversation with rock 'n' roll legends the Everly Brothers changed his life in ways he never could've dreamed.Īs Don McLean recalls, "The Everlys were there. And they had always been my favorite group. It takes years and years of being out there on the end of the diving board.” Unfortunately for Caffè Lena or Saratoga Springs – neither of those places can lay claim to anything with regard to ‘American Pie.View Gallery: Don McLean and 'American Pie' through the years: Photos “We need a lot of those places around the country for people to learn how to perform. Many Saratoga residents claim the song was written and performed at Caffe Lena. She was always out to help me and everybody else for that matter," McLean said. "Lena was my good friend and she was wonderful to me in the '60s when I had no money. He said that of all the places he played in those formative years, Caffè Lena was by far his favorite place, and Lena was the best club owner that he ever worked for.
McLean spent a great deal of time hanging out at Caffè Lena in the 1960s and 1970s, absorbing the variety of musical styles he heard there. McLean was one of Caffè Lena's own prodigies, performing regularly at the little second-floor coffeehouse on Phila Street. Shortly after graduating from Iona College in 1968, the singer-songwriter turned down a scholarship to Columbia University Graduate School in favor of becoming resident singer at Caffe Lena in Saratoga, New York. What is fact no one will ever know for sure.ĭon Mclean performing at Caffè Lena in the sixties.
Below you will read differing opinions and tales related to that. There is much debate and folklore surrounding both how and where this song was written and what it was about. 1 position, and carving out a place in pop music and Saratoga Springs legacy. Six weeks later, "American Pie" ascended to the top spot in the nation, spending the next month at the No.
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