Music Break: Fleetwood Mac (Sort Of)

During the last year of my time with AndRightySo, I started making monthly "Music Break" posts.  Naturally, I've wanted to resume that practice here, but was preempted, so to speak, by the deaths of Bob Welch and Jon Lord, each of whom I felt deserved a musical tribute.

Anyone who read my post about Bob Welch will realize that I'm a big fan of Fleetwood Mac, in many of their incarnations.  Like many in the late 1970s, I enjoyed the music of Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Christine McVie, Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, and also noticed that their ex-member Bob Welch was doing pretty well as a solo artist.  I knew that there had been earlier lineups, and was told by a friend that in their early years, they were led by a man named Peter Green.  Only more recently have I come to know Fleetwood Mac's complicated history.  This post will show a tangent to that history.  These are some songs recorded by members of Fleetwood Mac, before or after they were in the band.

In 1967, Peter Green (guitar) and John McVie (bass) were in John Mayall's Bluesbreakers.  For their album A Hard Road, they recorded Dust My Blues, a variation of the song Dust My Broom, which was written by Robert Johnson but sometimes attributed to Elmore James.  Besides singing the lead vocal, Mayall plays slide guitar.  Aynsley Dunbar, who later played for Journey and Jefferson Starship, is on the drums.

Before she married John McVie, keyboardist/singer Christine Perfect played in a band called Chicken Shack.  After they got married, but before she joined Fleetwood Mac, Christine McVie recorded a solo album titled after her maiden name.  This is Let Me Go (Leave Me Alone) from Christine Perfect.

Christine McVie is known as Fleetwood Mac's keyboard player, but she was not the first keyboard player in the band.  That distinction goes to original member Jeremy Spencer, who also played guitar (mostly slide) and shared the lead vocal duties with Peter Green, and later also with guitarist Danny Kirwan.  In early 1971, with a lineup that included Spencer, Kirwan and Christine McVie, the band was touring in California when Spencer walked out.  After joining the Children Of God, he resumed making music.  I don't know exactly when, but Spencer eventually came out with this thought-provoking anti-racism song You Don't Have To Be Black To Be Blue.

Danny Kirwan joined Fleetwood Mac in 1968, giving them a third singer/guitarist.  He would later help to hold the band together during the departures of Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer, and the additions of Christine McVie and Bob Welch.  In 1972, he was fired after smashing his guitar against a wall and refusing to join his bandmates on stage.  He later recorded three solo albums, but none became successful.  The second one, Midnight In San Juan included a raggae version of the Beatles' Let It Be.

In 1973, the folk-rock duo of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, who were also romantically linked, put out a self-titled album Buckingham Nicks.  It was critically acclaimed, but not very successful commercially.  After they joined Fleetwood Mac, the band performed the Buckingham Nicks song Don't Let Me Down Again during their shows.  A live version appears on their 1980 Live album.  This is the original studio version.  Buckingham, who wrote it, sings lead.  This video includes pictures of Lindsey and Stevie, both before and during their time with Fleetwood Mac.