Between the departure of Peter Green and the arrival of Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood Mac soldiered on in the early-to-mid 1970s re-fashioning their sound over six albums, a span of time and music that is largely forgotten by the general music listening audience.
On those six releases, there are nuggets worth discovering or revisiting and an indication of where the band would eventually wind up artistically, considerably distant from where it started.
Fleetwood Mac quickly became a British blues institution in the late 1960s with a lineup that included the rock solid rhythm section of John McVie, bass, and Mick Fleetwood, drums, along with Green, one of the U.K.’s preeminent blues guitarists and Jeremy Spencer, an Elmore James loyalist and early rock ‘n roll enthusiast.
Mac enjoyed single and album chart success in the U.K. and enjoyed good album numbers in the States for their self-titled debut, second release Mr. Wonderful, augmented by horns and guitarist Danny Kirwan, and third record English Rose, along with the compilation Pious Bird Of Good Omen.
After Green’s semi-involvement with an excellent fourth record, Then Play On, which has a muddled history of its own, founder Green left. It wasn’t until 1975 that Mac found mega-million selling worldwide success with Buckingham, Nicks and Christine McVie with the release of Fleetwood Mac and then Rumours in ’77, music in a much more pop-oriented vein but executed beautifully.
The years in between saw the release of Kiln House (1970), same as the lineup for the second album minus Green, Future Games (1971), which saw the departure of Spencer, the additions of American guitarist Bob Welch and singer/songwriter/pianist Christine McVie and the emergence of Kirwan as an equal if not dominant writer in the group, Bare Trees (1972), Penguin (1973), goodbye Kirwan, hello singer Dave Walker and guitarist Bob Weston, Mystery To Me (1973), so long Walker, and Heroes Are Hard To Find (1974), adios Weston.
Welch left after Heroes and a year later came the Buckingham-Nicks era. Continue reading Under The Radar, No. 3: Fleetwood Mac, the forgotten years
Until then, it had fetched rather pricey numbers on auction sites despite not having been a big seller at the time of its release in 1968. Still it was one of the defining blues-rock albums of the times, bringing together an almost perfect combination of singer, players and producer for a raw blues outing with unbridled energy. And some of the best playing by some of England’s best musicians.
The guitar solos are ferocious on most cuts and although Clapton is said to have played on only four, he is extremely recognizable on the heavy groove of Lightnin’ Hopkins’ Feel So Bad, I’m Gonna Leave You (perhaps the album’s best two tracks), It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry and In My Girlish Days. This was confirmed on a Velez compilation, Angels Of The Future Past, released on CD in the late ’80s. The other solos are just as powerful and inventive, perhaps attributable to the only listed guitarist on the session, Rick Hayward, although Spit James (Keef Hartley) and Paul Kossoff (Free) are said to have also participated.