CNN

March 29, 2011

Independent British singer/songwriter Lee MacDougall talks to CNN.com about his first U.S. tour.

Pollstar

February 1, 2011
By Jay Smith

He’s British, plays acoustic guitar and is coming to America.  Could he be your next favorite new artist?

Sporting a melodic voice coupled with McCartney-esque whimsy, MacDougall has already built up a following in London clubs while garnering comparisons to folks like Bob Dylan and Van Morrison.  Or, as Word Magazine’s Kate Mossman said, “He’s amazing and very confident.  Like Freddie Mercury meets Rufus Wainwright.  He’s going to go a long way.”

MacDougall embarks on his first-ever U.S. tour beginning later this month.  Accompanied by Rob Hargreaves on guitar and backing vocals, MacDougall’s journey begins at New York City’s Bitter End Feb. 25.  Other stops include the Passim Folk Music & Cultural Center in Cambridge, Mass., Feb. 28; Philly’s North Star Bar March 2; Durham, N.C., at the James Joyce Pub March 5; Nashville at 3rd & Lindsey March 9; Denver’s Larimer Lounge March 24 and Hollywood’s Hotel Café March 31.

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Jitzul

November 15, 2010
By Alicia

Lee MacDougall is an English musician who started playing in local bands before turning solo. Like other musicians just starting out, Lee has faced the hard times that come with a music career but is now enjoying his recent successes and the chance to spread his music to news fans in new places. Lee is getting ready to embarked on a 35 US City tour in early 2011 and hopes to one day move to the US permanently.

Lee released his first EP on iTunes in July 2010 where the track heard below can be purchased on such EP. You can learn more about Lee and his upcoming US tour dates on his MySpace.

You once said you ‘wanted to write more personal lyrics aiming to connect more directly with your live audience’. Why did you feel you had to accomplish this as a solo artist instead of in a group?

I think that the connection you have with the crowd when you're in a band - or the type of band that I was in anyway, is a bit different to the connection you feel when you're performing alone with an acoustic guitar. They're both equally viable, but in a rock band I think most of the time the crowd are feeding off the energy and rawness of the music and the kinetic force, as opposed to the intricacy of the lyrics. I've always been turned on by word play and storytelling, and when you're doing gigs where everything is turned up to 11 and the guitarist is turning his amp up to outdo the drummer and the bass player is turning his amp up to outdo both of them, the details in the lyrics tend to get lost somewhere along the way. People would come up to me after gigs and say "I loved that last song, haven't got a clue what you were singing about though", and to me that kinda defeated the purpose of spending so much time on lyrics and trying to relate with an audience in that way. The pen is mightier than the sword and all that.

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Buffalo Rocks

September 2010

Hey Lee. We are really looking forward to having you play Buffalo Rocks on the 23^rd September at The Monarch – are you excited about playing alongside James Walsh?

Definitely. He was on my music radar as a kid growing up and my friends and I followed his band, and so to share a stage with James is going to be a really nice feeling.

Were you a big Starsailor Fan?

I really dug the fact that they got Phil Spector involved, I thought that was really cool. Silence is Easy was probably my fave song of theirs and I thought the “Wall of Sound” production was great. They definitely stood out from a lot of other indie bands at the time because of that. And I thought Alcoholic was a bold song too.

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