A (Not So) Star-Studded Cast in the Background
“American Pie” ends with a campfire-type chorus, for which McLean used a background chorus that was credited as the West Forty-Fourth Street Rhythm and Noise Choir on the sleeve of the album. The ensemble was comprised of some of McLean’s friends, a mix of professional musicians and people with no musical background. Some of the members of the ad-hoc chorus included Carly Simon, Pete Seeger, and James Taylor and Livingston Taylor.
BOTTOMLINE Photo of Carly Simon (Photo by Richard E. Aaron/Redferns)
As for the challenges the length of the song brought to the producing team, Ed Freeman remembers that “it was a complete nightmare to fit an eight-and-a-half-minute track onto one seven-inch single.” The track had to be cut in half very carefully and added to both sides of the record. The final running times were 4:11 minutes for Part One and 4:31minutes for Part Two.