Known primarily for his gigantic smash hit American Pie, Don McLean is a legendary folksinger who got started with his music career in the 1960s. With musical idols like Buddy Holly, McLean crafted a style of music that no one had heard before. This singer-songwriter was born on October 2, 1945 and still produces music today at age 64.

Don McLean was a huge fan of lighthearted, folksy music from a very early age. Don picked up his first guitar when he was 16 years old and began to play songs for his family and friends. Don befriended other folk artists while still in high school and began to hone his talents before graduating.

After graduating from Iona Prep in 1963, Don entered into Villanova University for four months before deciding to drop out. While there, he met fellow singer-songwriter Jim Croce and began a tight friendship. McLean decided music was to be his life, and while earning a degree via night classes at Iona College, he was playing in many clubs around the area.

McLean received a government grant in 1968 and started heading out on the road and delivering his folk music to a wider audience. Don recorded his first album, Tapestry, in 1969 and was given a chance by Mediarts after being declined by dozens of other labels. The album was mildly successful, but company heads didn’t have the tools to promote it.

When Mediarts was bought out by United Artists Records, savvy company heads decided to keep Don on and even help him work on and release his second album, American Pie. The first hit from this album was Vincent, and the second, the album’s namesake, American Pie, would propel McLean to superstardom virtually overnight.

The song was released in 1971 and spent an impressive four weeks atop the Billboard charts in 1972. Although the time at number-one doesn’t seem quite long, the song has lived on for decades, and has become the defining tune of both the era and Don McLean’s career.

In 2001, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Recording Industry Association of America began compiling a list of 365 Songs of the Century. Don’s American Pie was number-five on the list, just behind immensely popular classics like Over the Rainbow, White Christmas, This Land is Your Land, and Aretha Franklin’s Respect.

McLean has many other well known songs that both he and other artists have delivered over the course of four decades. And I Love You So was a widely popular track written by Don and recorded by the likes of Perry Como and Elvis Presley. George Michael revitalized another one of Don’s hits in 2003 with the Vietnam anthem The Grave.

After American Pie, Don never again had such a widely successful song or album, but his 1980 cover of Roy Orbison’s Crying did hit number-five on the Billboard charts. Don still continues to perform on occasion today, and he even released an uncharted album in 2009 titled Addicted to Black.