He is the only person to have won both Bardic Crown and Gold Medal at the same Royal National Mòd.
In the early 1970s he expanded his repertoire by spending more time on jokes between songs and became a stand-up comedian.
He played the lead role of the Miller in the 1998 BBC Alba children's programme Baile Mhuilinn.
[citation needed] Throughout his life, Maclean had a destructive relationship with alcohol which stopped him taking many opportunities.
[6] Maclean composed the pipe tune "Scarce O' Tatties",[7] he has composed long and short poems, including "Maol Donn", also known as MacCrimmon's Sweetheart, which won him the Bardic Crown in 1967, and has produced novels in Gaelic, "Cumhnantan" (1997), "Keino" (1999), "Dacha Mo Ghaoil" (2005),[8] and "Slaightearan" (2007), as well as his autobiography, "The Leper's Bell" (2009), in English.