Fleetwood Mac - Station Man

 #Fleetwood Mac #Mick Fleetwood #John McVie #Christine McVie #blues rock #heavy blues rock #psychedelic blues rock #blues-based pop rock #1970s

Peter Green is gone and he took his blues with him. Which means now Fleetwood Mac have to figure out what their new signature sound will be without him there. It'll take another five years, six albums, and the removal of half the original band for them to find that sound; but for now we have this: Kiln House. For the most part, this is the remaining members of Fleetwood Mac doing damage control. They can't play the blues anymore so what can they do? Well, they can play rock music I guess. Jeremy Spencer has returned to the spotlight after having been accidentally pushed to the side on Then Play On, and for the most part his stuff hems more towards classic rockabilly. He gets a Sun Records sound on "This Is the Rock", pays tribute to Buddy Holly on "Buddy's Song" (a track he credited to Holly's mother), and impersonates the classic vocal doo-wop groups with "Blood on the Floor" and the closing "Mission Bell". They're OK, but they don't really point the way forward. For that, you have to look to Danny Kirwan whose songs are more built around contemporary roots rock than classic 50s rockabilly. "Jewel-Eyed Judy" is the closest song that approaches the bluesy sound of classic Fleetwood Mac but it's not as much of a showcase of guitar pyrotechnics the same way the Green material of old is. It's far more subtle in its attack, which makes for a track that maybe doesn't hit as hard as the best of Green, but certainly makes for intriguing listening. On the same level is "Earl Gray", an instrumental which feels like the natural progressive evolution from the second half of "Oh Well". But if any Kirwan track points toward the future for Fleetwood Mac, it's "Station Man". And that primarily has to do with the uncredited arrival of Christine McVie on vocal and piano work. The woman who will later write "Say You Love Me" and "Don't Stop" isn't an official member of the band yet, but the moment you hear her distinctive voice breaking through the boys' club on the harmonies, it's an immediate attention-grabber that shows the way towards where this band will eventually end up.  From: https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/fleetwood-mac/kiln-house/

Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac - One Sunny Day

 #Fleetwood Mac #Peter Green #Mick Fleetwood #John McVie #blues rock #British blues revival #heavy blues rock #psychedelic blues rock #1960s

Their third LP, 1969's Then Play On, was Fleetwood Mac's first masterpiece, building on their beloved blues with edgier guitar tones, expanded arrangements and elements of folk, art-rock and psychedelia. There was plenty of space to get heavy, and a prime example is "One Sunny Day": Over Fleetwood's steadily thudding toms, Green and Danny Kirwan intertwine distorted, descending riffs and high, piercing melodies — even, at times, dipping their collective toe into the proto-metal pool.  From: https://ultimateclassicrock.com/heaviest-fleetwood-mac-songs/

I don’t want to rock the boat, but to me Fleetwood Mac never meant Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham or the tedious media fascinations with the band members’ relationship conflicts. To me, Fleetwood Mac meant one thing: Then Play On – one of the greatest blues-rock records ever made. Then Play On was the group’s third album, released on the Reprise label in 1969. This gatefold record is hard evidence of Fleetwood Mac’s growth from an excellent blues band to a blues-based act that defied description. The group at this point featured Peter Green and Danny Kirwan, each on guitar and vocals, Jeremy Spencer (whose only contribution here is piano on “Oh Well”), and the world-class rhythm section of bassist John McVie and drummer Mick Fleetwood.
I’m impressed by how Then Play On prioritizes what I assume Fleetwood Mac wanted to show of themselves: their ability to create both taut, vocal-led tracks and stunning instrumental workouts. Sure, Fleetwood Mac and Rumours are great albums that served up anthems for an era, but I can usually hear select cuts from those records while waiting at my bank machine, or at the grocery store. On the other hand, when I want to hear brilliant blues rock that never compromises and demands to be heard, I put Then Play On on my turntable and play it loud.  From: https://www.guitarplayer.com/players/why-fleetwood-macs-then-play-on-is-one-of-the-greatest-blues-rock-albums-ever-made

Buckingham Nicks - Don't Let Me Down Again

 #Buckingham Nicks #Lindsey Buckingham #Stevie Nicks  #blues rock #folk rock #melodic hard rock #pop rock #singer-songwriter #pre-Fleetwood Mac #1970s

There was a lot of competition in the singer-songwriter field in 1973, and Buckingham Nicks wasn’t the best of the lot, but it’s excellent, and it’s still puzzling how swiftly it vanished. It’s packed with top-flight session musicians—Waddy Wachtel on guitar, Jim Keltner on drums—and was recorded by Keith Olsen, a producer with dozens of gold and platinum records ahead of him, but it was a complete failure. Promotion was light, the few reviews were mostly bad, and Polydor dropped the duo a few months after the album came out. After a five-year build-up, the moment was over as quickly as it started. But Stevie and Lindsey were writing for their next album even before this one was finished. Lindsey had penned “Monday Morning,” and Nicks, inspired by a passage in a book about a Welsh witch, had a stunning new song called “Rhiannon.” There was another ballad called “Landslide.” They weren’t ready to give up on Buckingham Nicks, which made the next decision difficult. In December 1974, Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac received news that his guitarist, Bob Welch, was quitting the band. Line-up changes were nothing new - in their seven-year history, they’d already been through several - but Fleetwood’s band was due back in the studio soon. He’d heard Lindsey play once, and Keith Olsen, with whom he was friendly, mentioned his name. It didn’t take long before he offered Buckingham the job. Lindsey was reticent, afraid of giving up what he and Stevie had built together. He said that Nicks would have to be part of the deal. After having dinner with the members of Fleetwood Mac in January 1975, they both agreed to join.  From: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/buckingham-nicks-buckingham-nicks/

Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac - Rattlesnake Shake

 #Fleetwood Mac #Peter Green #blues rock #British blues revival #heavy blues rock #psychedelic blues #1960s

Peter Green formed Fleetwood Mac with Mick Fleetwood in 1967; the pair had met playing in bands in 1960’s London. They played in Peter B’s Looners and then the subsequent Shotgun Express, a short-lived R&B group that featured a young Rod Stewart as the vocalist. In addition to this, Green played guitar in John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, an iconic band that has featured some of Britain’s best musicians — he had joined to replace none other than Eric Clapton himself. Clapton had become a superstar with Cream, and Green wanted to replicate that for himself.
The long and highly mythologised history of Fleetwood Mac was to start when Bluesbreakers drummer Aynsley Dunbar left the band to join the new Jeff Beck Group, a band that would become legendary in itself. Without a drummer, Green suggested Fleetwood join, and Mayall agreed. The line up of The Bluesbreakers then consisted of Green, Fleetwood, Mayall, and bass player John McVie. Mayall had given Green some free recording time as a gift, and so he, Fleetwood and McVie recorded five songs. The fifth of these was an instrumental named ‘Fleetwood Mac’, after the instrumental section of The Bluesbreakers, “Mac”, being short for McVie. After this short recording session, Green proposed to Fleetwood that they form a new band. The pair headhunted McVie as bassist and attempted to entice him by using the name Fleetwood Mac. Unsurprisingly, rather than risk it with a new band, McVie opted to keep his steady income, and declined. Forgetting about McVie for the meantime, the duo hired slide guitarist Jeremy Spencer and bassist Bob Brunning; Brunning joined the band on the fairly harsh condition that if McVie agreed to join, he would leave. Brunning would only play a handful of shows with the new band, and this first iteration of many would debut live on 13th August 1967 at the Windsor Jazz and Blues Festival as ‘Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac, also featuring Jeremy Spencer.’ Within a few weeks of this show, John McVie agreed to join the band in what is now a legendary lineup change.
This second iteration of the band would have hits with Green’s compositions of ‘Black Magic Woman’, ‘Albatross‘, ‘Man of the World’, ‘Oh Well’ and ‘The Green Manalishi’. They remain fan favourites, cherished particularly among Mac purists. Along with these hits came international recognition, and of course, excess. The band released their second album, Mr Wonderful, in August 1968 and went on their first of many American tours. In an anecdote stereotypical of the time, they hung out with The Grateful Dead in San Francisco and were offered LSD, amongst other things, by the Dead’s now-legendary purveyor of psychedelics, Owsley Stanley. By December things had changed. At the start of a 30-date tour in New York, the band finally succumbed to Stanley’s pervasive products. This was the start of the end for Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac, including Jeremy Spencer. It is well documented that Peter Green’s unselfish nature allowed the then-members of Fleetwood Mac to thrive musically, and without him, they would not be the band we know today. This is true, regardless of how third guitarist Danny Kirwan felt; he had joined as an eighteen-year-old in 1968 and didn’t connect personally with Peter Green.
It is interesting to note though, that both Green and Kirwan’s mental states visibly started to change after the release of 1969’s single, ‘Man of the World’. Both were taking large doses of LSD, and Green had adopted a form of Buddhism influenced by Christianity — Green started wearing white robes and a crucifix around his neck. The frontman also became concerned with accumulating wealth, and Fleetwood recalls: “I had conversations with Peter Green around that time, and he was obsessive about us not making money, wanting us to give it all away. And I’d say, ‘Well you can do it, I don’t wanna do that, and that doesn’t make me a bad person.'” In a story as old as rock and roll itself, tension and drug use finally engulfed the band.  From: https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/why-peter-green-quit-fleetwood-mac/