Doug MacLeod

by Richard Skelly & Al Campbell
Unlike some other bluesmen now leading their own bands, guitarist and singer/songwriter Doug MacLeod spent many years as an apprentice before forming his own group. MacLeod has worked as a sideman for many different artists from the Los Angeles-area blues scene, including Big Joe Turner, Charles Brown, Pee Wee Crayton, Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, and George "Harmonica" Smith. MacLeod was born in New York on April 21, 1946, and his parents moved to Raleigh, NC, shortly after his birth. In his teens he moved to St. Louis and began frequenting the blues clubs there, learning from people like Albert King, Little Milton, and Ike & Tina Turner. He took up the bass in his teens and played around St. Louis with local bands before enlisting in the Navy. MacLeod was stationed in Norfolk, VA, and spent his off-duty time playing in blues bars. He eventually settled in Los Angeles, accompanying many other blues performers before forming his own band. His songs have been recorded by Albert King, Albert Collins, and Son Seals. MacLeod's 1984 album, No Road Back Home, was nominated for a W.C. Handy Award in 1984 and has since been reissued on compact disc on the Hightone label. MacLeod has widely available albums on Audioquest -- Come to Find (1994), You Can't Take My Blues (1996), Unmarked Road (1997), and Whose Truth, Whose Lies? (2000). His first Audioquest disc features guest appearances by harmonica players Carey Bell and fiddle player Heather Hardy, while the second has a guest appearance by harp player George "Harmonica" Smith. MacLeod has also recorded for a variety of independent labels, including such albums as Woman in the Street, 54th & Vermont, and Ain't the Blues Evil. MacLeod's A Little Sin was released in 2002, recorded in July of that year with producer/frequent collaborator Joe Harley.