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A soul too young.

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I love Fleetwood Mac.
What I mean is that I love every incarnation of the band.
From my 11 year old stirrings, as my older brother played Greeny solos endlessly, through to the Rumours line – up, and beyond, I love it all.
But, if you were to threaten to nail my head to a coffee table, my favourite era is the ‘lost one.’
The Danny Kirwan one.
Bare Trees and Future Games are difficult to find on streaming sites but, in my opinion, they are 2 of the great albums. And they have, in Danny, some of the best English guitar playing of the 1970’s.
And yet, to many Mac fans, they might as well not exist.
When Danny was sacked, in 1972, he had been in the band for 4 years, through 3 different line-ups, and had an Olympic standard drinking problem.
He was 22 years old.
44 years later, I miss his guitar playing just as much as Greeny’s.

http://youtu.be/rLyn_GCxihY

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Comments

  2. I was listening to Rumours this week, a record I kind of love and hate at the same time. I needn’t explain why. But here’s the undeniably righteous incarnation of the band as a kind of palate-cleanser.

  3. I’m surprised you don’t mention Then Play On. I think it’s the best album of that era. And it opens with my favourite Kirwan track, Coming Your Way:

    • Oh, I dunno, Gar. From a band who gave us two of the most visceral, out-there singles of the age (Oh Well, Manalishi) Then Play On comes across a bit luke-warm, doesn’t it? The ham-sandwich production doesn’t help, but that moment when they start la-la’ing, and go on and on la-la’ing … Nah. It’s one of the biggest album disappointments of the sixties.

          • And. bafflingly, that Greatest Hits album contains the track <I<Dragonfly, a non-album Kirwan song released as the follow-up single to The Green Manalishi and recorded after Green’s departure.

            It wasn’t a hit, and features a strange effect on Kirwan’s guitar which makes it sound, frankly, out of tune.

            • I kind of like it even though it’s the proverbial sore thumb on that GH. Out of tune stuff on good records? Check out the harpsichord on the Four Tops’ Carpenter – very avant garde. Or a fuck-up, if you prefer.

            • The problem was that they didn’t have an actual, proper, album’s worth of Greatest Hits, either. So they had to bulk it up somehow. I stripped Dragonfly out and slotted it into TPO. Those (real) Greatest Hits in full:

              Albatross
              Black Magic Woman
              Man Of The World
              Oh Well
              Green Manalishi

              … that’s a pretty thin album!

                    • Jeremy Spencer is about as valuable as Jeremy Clarkson in terms of musical ability.

                      (Hey, Johnny – “killer album tracks” don’t usually get onto the Greatest Hits collections of acts who’ve had a decent amount of greatest hits. We’re already stretching the definition by including Need Your Love So Bad.)

                    • Instead of “Greatest Hits” let’s call it “Best Of”.

                      In which case killer album tracks (which are often re-evaluated later and found be as essential as the chart hits.

                      And Need Your Love So Bad charted twice in 1968 and 69, each with a different B-Side. Admittedly the highest it got was #31, but it’s still one of Mac’s finest moments.

                      We already had the short version here a week ago. Here’s the long version of Need Your Love So Bad which, instead of fading out as the guitar solo begins, carries on and On. It’s sublime.

                      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hL87WE81Z1w

                    • Love that Burns is also wonderful. Oh Well Pt 2 takes up about a quarter of what would be the length of an album at that time.

  4. @Gary It’s a great album, no arguments. My point about Bare Trees and Future Games is that, having joined ‘The Beatles of the Blues’, Danny was left holding the bag. Greeny had gone. Then, after Kiln House, Jeremy disappeared. The two rocks that the band was built on. Gone. And this kid didn’t crumble. He blossomed. His melodic, lyrical playing, which I can hear in Mark Knopfler, Tim Renwick and Robbie McIntosh, just set a benchmark that has never been bettered.
    He plays on some of the best British songs of all time. Green Manalishi, Oh Well, Man Of The World, DK is on all of them. But it was once Greeny & Jez had buggered off that Danny flew. Soared.

  5. Nice article, if a little heavy on the hyperbole. I could have done without stuff like “The vastly inferior Eric Clapton is barely fit to clean Green’s fish tanks with his tongue”. There wasn’t that much between them, even if we agree Green had a better touch.

    Here’s Kirwan and Green going head to head on Like It This Way with Danny on vocals.

    He breaks a string at 1.52 but keeps on going.

  6. I have no idea how I feel about Fleetwood Mac. Yes, I adore So What and The Green Manalishi, yes I have played Rumours and I don’t mind it. But even at this, they don’t actually move me. It’s like The Beautiful South. I don’t hate them, I don’t love them, I don’t even “meh” them. They’re fine. They have their moments. It’s odd. Fleetwood Mac turn me, an emotional Scot, into a bloodless public school boy…

  7. In 1969 the Peter Green line-up of Fleetwood Mac was the biggest charting act of the year in the UK with three huge hit singles. This was the first time the Beatles hadn’t won this since 1963.

    Albatross #1 (released 1968 but still top of the charts in January 1969)
    Man Of The World #2
    Oh Well #2

  8. Off topic, if the topic be Danny, but I watched FM live somewhere or someplace on the telly last night, the 4 piece imperfect (SWIDT!!) last but one line-up, about a decade ago. I had not realised what an utter dick was/is Lindsay Buckingham, all ego and ill-fitting trousers. OK he can play a bit of guitar and Lord, didn’t let us know it. I felt embarrassed for the other 3 who gamely pretended to be his backing band. Mind you, contrary to accepted “wisdom”, I think Tusk is shite, especially the song and the video.

    • That’s a very brave comment about Tusk, because I always thought it was shite, too, (especially the album and the songs and the videos) but have been too afraid to come out and say it. It’s a load off, I can tell you.

      • I once bought Tusk for 50p. I gave it plenty of chances but it never grew on me, so I chazza’d it. Shame, as it was was a beautiful package, and no-one appreciates a….(that’s enough, Ed.)

          • Another fan of Tusk here. I love all three songwriters’ contributions and the mix they create. So many good songs, it’s hard to pick a favourite. Sometimes it’s Storms (Nicks), sometimes Never Make Me Cry or Brown Eyes (Christine McVie). But I love the Buckingham tracks too. Half of Buckingham’s songs sound like they’re played using a toy guitar and a cardboard box. They have a real spontaneous feel to them (largely influenced by his love for The Clash’s Sandinista). Today my favourite is this gem:

  9. Listened to it last night: the squeeze is a fan and bought the triple CD version with 128 versions of the title track. At least. Am overall inclined to agree that, minus Buckingham it becomes a decent EP, Christine Perfect/McVie again demonstrating that class will out.
    And what is that Stevie Nicks track about? Or who? The groomee to the groomer. Eek.

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