The Making of “American Pie”
Producer Ed Freeman stated that the “American Pie” single is a combination of 24 different takes of McLean’s voice. This happened because the singer wasn’t the easiest person to work with, and as such, multiple takes were taken during the same session on May 26, 1971, with a live and unedited backing band track.
Don McLean attends 86th Annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on November 22, 2012, in New York City. (Photo by Laura Cavanaugh/Getty Images)
The producer also stated that even though McLean was a very talented singer, he was sometimes criticized for singing with the same vocal inflections, so he decided to be more improvisational. “In my head, I knew what it was supposed to sound like—I don’t now remember how I arrived at that, but when I kept asking him to sing it in a certain way, he wouldn’t do it. He wanted to play with it every time, inserting slides, melismas and other things that, to my mind, didn’t fit. So we ended up recording him 24 times on 16-track tape and took different parts from different takes until I got every word the way I wanted it, without all the play, and I don’t think Don appreciated that very much…In Don’s case, I think he was happy with the finished vocal, but he was not happy with somebody else having that much influence,” said Freeman.