2022 FREE Ruby Summer Concert Series- Don McLean

185 Garrett Street,Morgantown WV 26501

10 June, 2022

Description

The City of Morgantown & Hazel Ruby McQuain Charitable Trust presents the Ruby Summer Concert Series – free concerts every Friday night! We’re excited to feature legendary performers as well as local heroes in all genres of music at the Ruby Amphitheater this summer… …from rock & roll to bluegrass, country, hip-hop and more! This is a FREE event open to the public! June 10, 2022 | 6:30pm – 11pm | FREE SHOW 6:30pm: Opener 8:00pm: Don McLean- American Pie 50th Anniversary Tour Check the event schedule at the bottom to find a summer’s worth of world-class concerts…right here in Morgantown! Join us for another FREE Friday night concert on the river with Don McLean! Grammy award honoree, Songwriters Hall of Fame member, and BBC Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Don McLean is set to embark on his 2022 American Pie 50th Anniversary Tour with a stop in Morgantown WV on June 10th! Celebrating the 50th anniversary of one of the most iconic songs and album ever this year, McLean will entertain fans across the continent throughout nearly 30 cities from Honolulu to Toronto and everything in between, proving that “bye-bye, Miss American Pie” will forever remain a classic staple in American music. “After spending the past 18 months at home, I am thrilled to be getting back on the road with my band,” says Don McLean. “2022 marks the 50th anniversary from when American Pie landed at the #1 spot on the Billboard chart and we will be celebrating on tour all year long. We will be performing all the songs from the American Pie album plus many of the other hits that fans will be expecting to hear.” As tragic as the backstory behind the song “American Pie” is with the much too early death of the new rock ‘n roll hope Buddy Holly, the track is also magnificent and legendary. And “American Pie” still goes to heart as soon as originator Don McLean plays this classic at his concerts. Still, it’s worth remembering that the 76-year-old composer has written and sung numerous other melodic and harmonic successes in his decades-long career with “Vincent (Starry Starry Night),” “Castles in the Air,” “And I Love You So,” and “Cryin’,” all of which will be heard and reveled in along with newer pieces on the upcoming tour. The eight-and-a-half-minute ballad “American Pie” has been making history since its release in 1971. Alongside songs by other icons such as Bing Crosby, Judy Garland, Woody Guthrie, and Aretha Franklin, McLean’s composition was also voted “Song of the 20th Century“. Handwritten lyrics to the song were auctioned off for more than $1.2 million in 2015, and the composition was added to the Library Of Congress National Recording Registry two years later. Here, you’ll only find a few selected evergreens, such as “Somewhere Over The Rainbow”. Over the years, the song has been covered again and again by music icons like Madonna and Garth Brooks. Rapper Drake repeatedly sampled McLean tunes and hip-hop icon Tupac Shakur also cited him as an important influence.