Chart entered : 25 August 1990
Chart peak : 58
On the one hand, it seems very surprising to be saying goodbye to Fleetwood Mac at this point. They're still a major live draw with people still interested in their endless comings and goings so you'd expect a more recent hit to reflect that. On the other hand, as with Pink Floyd, the singles chart has never fully reflected their stature, at least since their mid -seventies rebirth. Their colossal-selling Rumours doesn't have a UK Top 20 hit on it.
As noted above, Fleetwood Mac have the most unsettled line-up of any genuinely collaborative band ( i.e not the likes of The Fall or Dexy's ). The story is pretty well-documented but I'll summarise anyway. In 1968 the band's main songwriter Peter Green started feeling the pressure to keep coming up with the goods particularly as slide guitarist Jeremy Spencer was a one-trick pony when it came to writing songs. In the summer of 1968 he invited 18-year old guitar prodigy Danny Kirwin from their support band Boilerhouse to join the group and the band were immediately rewarded with their only number one single , the limpid instrumental "Albatross". In 1969 they were outselling the Beatles who wanted them to sign with Apple but it didn't happen. By the turn of the decade all was not well with Peter. Already suffering middle class guilt at the money they were making, bad acid trip brought on incipient schizophrenia as demonstrated on his final single with the band "The Green Manalishi, surely the most terrifying hit of all time. When the band rejected his suggestion they become a charity outfit, he left in May 1970. The band struggled on and bassist John McVie brought in his wife Christine Perfect as keyboard player. Christine had been singer with the band Chicken Shack who enjoyed a hit in 1969 with "I'd Rather Go Blind ".
Without their charismatic frontman , their sales dropped precipitately. In February 1971 they were on tour in LA when Jeremy disappeared , having been snagged by the religious cult Children of God when he went to buy a paper. Peter temporarily rejoined to help them complete the tour. After it finished, they hired American guitarist Bob Welch to replace Jeremy. Now it was Danny's turn to buckle under the pressure, exacerbated by an excessive alcohol intake. In the summer of 1972, Mick Fleetwood finally agreed to fire him after a violent incident backstage before a gig. He was replaced by a guitarist Bob Weston and singer Dave Walker who lasted for just one album. Weston managed two but was fired after sleeping with Mick's wife. Before he could be replaced the band had to fight manager Clifford Davis over rights to their name which put them out of action for a year . When that was settled, Welch suggested decamping to the US to which the others agreed. Despite that . Welch left disillusioned not long afterwards; though he had later success as a solo artist the band had no UK hits apart from the re-released "Albatross" during his tenure.
While looking for a replacement Mick heard a track from an album "Buckingham Nicks" by a little known folk duo of the same name. Impressed by the guitarist Lindsey Buckingham . he invited him to join Fleetwood Mac. His invitation was accepted on the condition that his singing partner and girlfriend Stevie Nicks must join too. Mick agreed and the quintet recorded the "Fleetwood Mac" album which reached number 1 in the US. That was then dwarfed by the follow-up "Rumours" , the quintessential baby boomer album which made them the undisputed kings of soft rock at the same time as their personal relationships disintegrated. Nevertheless, success kept them together through the experimental "Tusk" and water-treading "Mirage" until "Tango in the Night" in 1987 was a huge hit with CD buyers.
However once it was completed, Lindsey baulked at doing the tour and after a stormy meeting left the band in August 1987. He was replaced by two new guitarists Billy Burnette son of sixties rocker Dorsey Burnette and Rick Vito, a guitarist for hire with a long list of credits. Both had already worked with either Mick or John on projects outside the 'Mac
"In The Back of My Mind " was the second single from the album "Behind The Mask" , an instant number one on release here but coolly received in the US. I must admit I haven't heard the single edit and am only familiar with the seven minute version on the album so I'm having to guess which bits they left in. The two-minute moody synth intro leading the song into Peter Gabriel territory would have been dropped. The song was written by Billy with help from country songwriter David Malloy and seems to be about regret that a childhood friendship didn't develop into an adult relationship. With both Stevie and Christine doing vocal parts, it is vaguely reminiscent of The Chain but doesn't recapture the same sense of drama. It's also deficient in hooks and isn't obvious single material ( it wasn't selected as one for release in the U.S. )
There was a third single in the UK, the breezy opener "Skies The Limit", a typical Christine McVie song co-written with her boyfriend Eddie Quintela, but it didn't chart. In the US , "Hard Feelings" a dreary nondescript AOR song and the passable Stevie/ Rick collaboration "Love Is Dangerous" were sent out as additional singles but didn't make much impression.
The band toured the album. When the tour finished. Rick left the band and, after a disagreement with Mick over the inclusion of her song "Silver Springs" on a box set, so did Stevie who had by far the most viable solo career. The box set "25 Years-The Chain" included one or two out-takes including Rick and Stevie's "Paper Doll" which was released as a single in the US in 1992, a quirky Paul Simon-esque effort with an over strident Stevie vocal and not much of a tune although it was a Top 10 hit in Canada. In the UK, a new Christine song "Love Shines" was released instead and is a decent but not particularly memorable slice of AOR.
The band returned to the headlines in 1992 when Bill Clinton chose "Don't Stop" as his campaign song and persuaded the "Rumours" line up to perform at his Inaugural Ball in 1993. Neither Stevie nor Lynsey wanted to rejoin at this point but Mick , John and Christine started work on another album. Billy wasn't going to be involved but changed his mind when Mick recruited his friend's daughter , Bekka Bramlett and former Traffic guitarist Dave Mason.
This was the least-loved of all incarnations of the band. They toured ( without Christine ) as support to Crosby Stills and Nash but when their album "Time" came out in 1995, the US public, feeling cheated of a proper reunion, resoundingly rejected it. It didn't even make the Top 200. In the UK, it only managed a week at number 47. It's not as bad an album as that would suggest but the identity crisis in the band is very obvious. Christine's contributions are well up to par including the single "I Do" which was a minor hit in Canada but don't sound like they belong on the same album as the country rock efforts of Billy and Bramlett ( whose soulful vocals are noticeable by their absence on any of Christine's songs ) . Mason throws in a couple of self-regarding AOR efforts while the album closes on Mick's spoken word account of his spiritual crisis, no doubt well meant but his ponderous delivery invites ridicule. As an LP, it comes across as a sham marriage and it's not too surprising it was so roundly rejected by the public.
No one had the appetite to tour it. Christine said she didn't want to record another album either and Billy peeled off with Bramlett to form a country duo. Mick and John accepted the game was up and dissolved the band. Within weeks though, Mick was back in the studio with Lindsey, ostensibly working on the latter's solo album. First, John was drawn in and then Chrisine. Then Lindsey got a call from Stevie asking him to produce a song she had written for the film Twister. " The song became a duet between the pair with Mick playing the drums, a typically dark love song behind an amiable veneer. With everybody now talking to each other , the inevitable followed and in March 1997 the "classic" ( to US fans at least ) line up of the band announced it was back in business.
Two months later, they performed live for MTV in California, sprinkling a few new songs into a greatest hits ( for this line up ) set . After a bit of studio tweaking, the bulk of the concert was released as "The Dance" and shot straight to number one in the US ( number 15 here ) . Stevie's gentle ballad "Landslide" , originally from the "Fleetwood Mac" album , was released as a single and reached number 51 in the US. The band spent the rest of 1997 on tour after which Christine announced her retirement.
The other members continued to work on an album at a leisurely pace. "Say You Will" eventually came out in April 2003. The album is a lengthy one at 75 minutes and with the compositions evenly divided between Lindsey and Stevie at nine each, it's tempting to see it as really two solo albums melded together. It's also a demanding listen, without any songs from Christine ( though she's present on a couple of tracks that were completed early on ), there's no let up between the increasingly bleak songs of the ageing, childless Stevie and the expected experimental leanings of Lindsey's contributions. There is a definite gain though in bringing the two writers together, most evident on Stevie's "Running Through The Garden" which is lifted to another plane by Lindsey's scorching guitar work ( what a relief to have him back after the conservative stylings of Billy and Rick ) and if his songs don't require so much input from the others, there's still a genuinely co-operative vibe. Lindsey's mildly political song "Peacekeepers " with its killer chorus was released as a single on the same day and became their last US hit reaching number 80. The album reached number 3 in the US and number 6 here. Stevie's title track, probably the blandest song on the album, made little impression as a follow up.
They toured it around the world in 2004 following which there were fanciful rumours of a reunion of the peter Green line up dismissively scotched by John. Both Lindsey and Stevie have since released solo albums since then with the band doing big tours in 2008,2009 and 2013. There were hints that they were working on a new LP but eventually they settled for a four track EP imaginatively titled "Extended Play" released in digital form only in April 2013. The lead track, released as a single in the UK was Lindsey's "Sad Angel" an upbeat tune driven by Lindsey's guitar work. The EP was his record really; he wrote two of the other tracks and Stevie's contribution "Without You" was a lost demo from before they joined the band in the first place.
Their tour that year was cut short by John's diagnosis with cancer. Less than a month later Christine publicly declared she was ready to return to the band if they wanted her. It's hard not to connect these two events. Of course her hand was bitten off and she rejoined the band for a big tour in 2014-15. Four-fifths of the band were working on a new album but Stevie declined to be involved and eventually the work was released as a duet album between Christine and Lindsey with Mick and John playing on some of the tracks.
The first single under the duo's name was "In My World" in April this year, a madly infectious pop rock tune penned by Lindsey. The album "Lindsey Buckingham / Christine McVie" followed in June and it's very good. Lindsey keeps things simple and concentrates on coming up with killer tunes saving a trademark guitar solo to close out the album on Christine's "Carnival Begin". Her voice is starting to sound a bit ragged but these are some of her best songs with the dreary "Game of Pretend" the only duff track.
The duo's tour has just finished. Fleetwood Mac - presumably with Stevie on board - plan to play a Farewell Tour next year . Given that their rhythm section will have a combined age of 143 when it finishes, you suspect that will be the band's last act but you never know with this lot.
So what happened to those who got lost on the way ? After leaving the group Peter first became a sort of star guitarist for hire playing with Peter Bardens, John Mayall, Gass and others. He had a long jam session with Zoot Money and others, the edited "highlights" of which were opportunistically packaged as hi first solo album "The End of the Game" which needs to be approached with extreme caution, His first real release was the single "Heavy Heart" in 1971 which he got to perform on Top of the Pops. The director missed a trick in not catching the audience reaction to what is basically a deathly slow and quiet guitar solo over a minimal percussion track. Needless to say it wasn't a hit. His second solo single "Beasts of Burden" co-credited his long term friend Nigel Watson and it's a matter of conjecture who does what on this heavy, wordy and uncommercial diatribe on animal cruelty ( if it's not allegorical ).
After those singles, Peter's illness progressed to the point that he became dysfunctional and he had spells in psychiatric hospitals . In 1977, he was arrested for threatening manager Clifford Davies with a shotgun. There's been much lurid speculation about this incident but it appears that Davies's accountant merely over-reacted to something Peter said to him on the telephone. The following year he released a single, a lovely little guitar instrumental "The Apostle" but it was almost immediately withdrawn for reasons unknown.
In May 1979, he released his first proper solo album "In The Skies". It was a somewhat gingerly return to recording with his wife Jane helping him out with the lyrics on the vocal tracks and Snowy White on hand as a second guitarist. It's a very low key underproduced album of quiet blues rock. Apart from the aforementioned "The Apostle " the instrumental tracks, particularly "Funky Chunk" , are terminally boring and the actual songs aren't much more interesting. The title track was released as a single, a simple expression of Christian millennial expectation set to a bossa nova rhythm which didn't stand a chance in those post-punk times. To say Peter wasn't up for promoting it, the album did OK in the charts, reaching number 32 and hanging round for three months.
Peter wasn't able to come up with any songs for his next album so his older brother Mike stepped into the breach writing most of the songs on 1980's "Little Dreamer" , Peter being credited on just the title track. There were two singles, the standard blues rock of "Walkin The Road" and "Loser Two Times" which incorporates some disco influences. The album is desperately uninspired throughout. It made number 34 and hung around for 4 weeks. It would be another 17 years before he'd trouble the chart compilers again. He recorded two more albums of his brother's songs. "Whatcha Gonna Do ? " ( 1981 ) included the singles "Give Me Back Me Freedom" , a reggae number complete with cod-Jamaican accent and "Promised Land" a wretched AOR number with embarrassing lyrics like "The chosen people have climbed the steeple" "White Sky". ( 1982 ) had his final single "The Clown " and to be honest that's what recording his brother's awful songs was making him .He then cobbled together another album "Kolors" from outtakes in 1983. He contributed to an album by a sort of blues supergroup Katmandu ( also featuring Mungo Jerry's Ray Dorset and Vincent Crane ) "A Case for the Blues" in 1985 and then disappeared again.
In 1988, a Fleetwood Mac documentary featured a small contribution from Peter talking over still photos of him balding and bloated and wearing a rough smock. Most shockingly he'd grown his fingernails to a ridiculous length , presumably to stymie requests to return to the fray. He was eventually coaxed back by Watson and the pair formed The Peter Green Splinter Group which initially featured Cozy Powell as drummer. There was another documentary about Peter's return to the fray but he cut a diminished figure ( in ability not in size ). There was footage of Powell as producer trying and failing to get a recordable performance of Walk Don't Run from him. Goodwill gave their first couple of albums a week in the charts each but, in reality, the Splinter Group were little more than a pub covers band. Lindsey, politely but publicly put suggestions that they might support Fleetwood Mac on tour to bed.
The Splinter Group dissolved in 2004 when Peter decided to relocate to Sweden. He did some touring as Peter Green and Friends in 2009-10 and seemed in good spirits on a 2011 BBC Four documentary about his life. He's been quiet since then.
Jeremy has remained completely faithful to the Children of God, since re-branded as the Family International and maintains that no brainwashing was involved in his conversion. He released a solo album "Jeremy Spencer and the Children" in 1972 which heavily reflected the organisation's worldview but once sure of his commitment , they let him record what he wanted. Though using other CoG devotees as his backing band 1979's "Flee" is an affectionate parody of the Mac as they now were. Jeremy then spent many years as a writer and illustrator although he did catch up with the Time version of the band in Japan in the nineties. In recent years he 's released a couple of blues albums. He contributed a lot to the Peter Green documentary.
Danny's is often considered the saddest casualty in the Mac saga. Still only 22 when the band cast him adrift, he was already beset by alcohol, marital problems and mental health issues which I guess created a perfect storm. He briefly formed a band called Hungry Fighter with Dave Walker but it didn't work out and made what are almost certainly his last live appearances with the band Tramp in 1974. Clifford Davis then took charge and steered him towards a solo career. He released the country-flavoured infectious pop single "Ram Jam City" produced by a young Martin Rushent in April 1975. This was followed by the album "Second Chapter" in which Danny proved himself able to write melodic pop gems in a variety of styles. It's hard to reconcile such warm music with what we know of the personal demons that were plaguing him at the time. Danny should have been able to push on from there but his career hit the brick wall of his refusal to get back on a stage and the album went unnoticed.
The follow-up album, "Midnight In San Juan" in 1976 still has good tunes but there's a darker edge to them; the exuberance of the first album has gone. Danny starts using synthesisers on the terrific instrumental title track and the single "Misty Rivers" . In the US, his reggaefied cover of "Let It Be" was a single instead.
By the time of his third and final album "Hello There Big Boy" Danny was seriously mentally ill; one look at his face on the cover would tell you that. It had to be made for contractual reasons with Davis at the helm. Danny's paranoia had got so bad that once in the studio he made himself a den with the soundboarding so that no one could see him. He only had four songs ready ;apart from a Randy Edelman cover, the rest were supplied by the musicians Davis brought in to try and complete the album, including Danny's replacement in Fleetwood Mac, Bob Weston. Though it's clearly him singing, it's not thought Danny did much of the guitar work on the album. Despite the adverse circumstances it's not bad album though you do spot the joins on the songs Danny didn't write. Those he did are excellent and wouldn't have been out of place on Rumours particularly the very bitter song about his ex-wife "Caroline" ( fortunately that wasn't her real name ).
Once it was finished, Danny was left to his own devices and went rapidly downhill. Mick Fleeetwood says that the last time they met in 1980, Danny was already sleeping rough although he didn't actually sell his house in Westclif-on-Sea until the mid-eighties. He drifted to London and next surfaced in a hostel for homeless men, a chronic alcoholic. That's where he stayed for the best part of three decades but the picture is not quite as bleak as sometimes painted. He wasn't there long before the Melody Maker journalist Carol Clerk, realising that the hostel was just round the corner from her local, looked him up and brought him into her social circle ( there's a video on YouTube from 1989 showing him looking a bit dishevelled but quite happy in her company ). She also took him to concerts and it may have been her influence that got him playing the guitar for his own amusement again. Sadly she died in 2010; since then Danny has reportedly been semi-reconciled with his ex-wife and is looked after by her family in Essex. It doesn't seem likely that he'll ever perform again.
Billy released one eponymous album with Bramlett as Bekka & Billy in 1997. It was aimed at the country market but didn't make much impression and they broke up the following year. He has since released some rockabilly albums on minor labels and supported his sons' efforts to work in the music industry.
Rick continues to be a guitarist for hire and worked with Mick again on his "Blue Again" album in 2008. He has found a market in Germany for his country blues music and released a string of CDs there in the noughties.
There was a third single in the UK, the breezy opener "Skies The Limit", a typical Christine McVie song co-written with her boyfriend Eddie Quintela, but it didn't chart. In the US , "Hard Feelings" a dreary nondescript AOR song and the passable Stevie/ Rick collaboration "Love Is Dangerous" were sent out as additional singles but didn't make much impression.
The band toured the album. When the tour finished. Rick left the band and, after a disagreement with Mick over the inclusion of her song "Silver Springs" on a box set, so did Stevie who had by far the most viable solo career. The box set "25 Years-The Chain" included one or two out-takes including Rick and Stevie's "Paper Doll" which was released as a single in the US in 1992, a quirky Paul Simon-esque effort with an over strident Stevie vocal and not much of a tune although it was a Top 10 hit in Canada. In the UK, a new Christine song "Love Shines" was released instead and is a decent but not particularly memorable slice of AOR.
The band returned to the headlines in 1992 when Bill Clinton chose "Don't Stop" as his campaign song and persuaded the "Rumours" line up to perform at his Inaugural Ball in 1993. Neither Stevie nor Lynsey wanted to rejoin at this point but Mick , John and Christine started work on another album. Billy wasn't going to be involved but changed his mind when Mick recruited his friend's daughter , Bekka Bramlett and former Traffic guitarist Dave Mason.
This was the least-loved of all incarnations of the band. They toured ( without Christine ) as support to Crosby Stills and Nash but when their album "Time" came out in 1995, the US public, feeling cheated of a proper reunion, resoundingly rejected it. It didn't even make the Top 200. In the UK, it only managed a week at number 47. It's not as bad an album as that would suggest but the identity crisis in the band is very obvious. Christine's contributions are well up to par including the single "I Do" which was a minor hit in Canada but don't sound like they belong on the same album as the country rock efforts of Billy and Bramlett ( whose soulful vocals are noticeable by their absence on any of Christine's songs ) . Mason throws in a couple of self-regarding AOR efforts while the album closes on Mick's spoken word account of his spiritual crisis, no doubt well meant but his ponderous delivery invites ridicule. As an LP, it comes across as a sham marriage and it's not too surprising it was so roundly rejected by the public.
No one had the appetite to tour it. Christine said she didn't want to record another album either and Billy peeled off with Bramlett to form a country duo. Mick and John accepted the game was up and dissolved the band. Within weeks though, Mick was back in the studio with Lindsey, ostensibly working on the latter's solo album. First, John was drawn in and then Chrisine. Then Lindsey got a call from Stevie asking him to produce a song she had written for the film Twister. " The song became a duet between the pair with Mick playing the drums, a typically dark love song behind an amiable veneer. With everybody now talking to each other , the inevitable followed and in March 1997 the "classic" ( to US fans at least ) line up of the band announced it was back in business.
Two months later, they performed live for MTV in California, sprinkling a few new songs into a greatest hits ( for this line up ) set . After a bit of studio tweaking, the bulk of the concert was released as "The Dance" and shot straight to number one in the US ( number 15 here ) . Stevie's gentle ballad "Landslide" , originally from the "Fleetwood Mac" album , was released as a single and reached number 51 in the US. The band spent the rest of 1997 on tour after which Christine announced her retirement.
The other members continued to work on an album at a leisurely pace. "Say You Will" eventually came out in April 2003. The album is a lengthy one at 75 minutes and with the compositions evenly divided between Lindsey and Stevie at nine each, it's tempting to see it as really two solo albums melded together. It's also a demanding listen, without any songs from Christine ( though she's present on a couple of tracks that were completed early on ), there's no let up between the increasingly bleak songs of the ageing, childless Stevie and the expected experimental leanings of Lindsey's contributions. There is a definite gain though in bringing the two writers together, most evident on Stevie's "Running Through The Garden" which is lifted to another plane by Lindsey's scorching guitar work ( what a relief to have him back after the conservative stylings of Billy and Rick ) and if his songs don't require so much input from the others, there's still a genuinely co-operative vibe. Lindsey's mildly political song "Peacekeepers " with its killer chorus was released as a single on the same day and became their last US hit reaching number 80. The album reached number 3 in the US and number 6 here. Stevie's title track, probably the blandest song on the album, made little impression as a follow up.
They toured it around the world in 2004 following which there were fanciful rumours of a reunion of the peter Green line up dismissively scotched by John. Both Lindsey and Stevie have since released solo albums since then with the band doing big tours in 2008,2009 and 2013. There were hints that they were working on a new LP but eventually they settled for a four track EP imaginatively titled "Extended Play" released in digital form only in April 2013. The lead track, released as a single in the UK was Lindsey's "Sad Angel" an upbeat tune driven by Lindsey's guitar work. The EP was his record really; he wrote two of the other tracks and Stevie's contribution "Without You" was a lost demo from before they joined the band in the first place.
Their tour that year was cut short by John's diagnosis with cancer. Less than a month later Christine publicly declared she was ready to return to the band if they wanted her. It's hard not to connect these two events. Of course her hand was bitten off and she rejoined the band for a big tour in 2014-15. Four-fifths of the band were working on a new album but Stevie declined to be involved and eventually the work was released as a duet album between Christine and Lindsey with Mick and John playing on some of the tracks.
The first single under the duo's name was "In My World" in April this year, a madly infectious pop rock tune penned by Lindsey. The album "Lindsey Buckingham / Christine McVie" followed in June and it's very good. Lindsey keeps things simple and concentrates on coming up with killer tunes saving a trademark guitar solo to close out the album on Christine's "Carnival Begin". Her voice is starting to sound a bit ragged but these are some of her best songs with the dreary "Game of Pretend" the only duff track.
The duo's tour has just finished. Fleetwood Mac - presumably with Stevie on board - plan to play a Farewell Tour next year . Given that their rhythm section will have a combined age of 143 when it finishes, you suspect that will be the band's last act but you never know with this lot.
So what happened to those who got lost on the way ? After leaving the group Peter first became a sort of star guitarist for hire playing with Peter Bardens, John Mayall, Gass and others. He had a long jam session with Zoot Money and others, the edited "highlights" of which were opportunistically packaged as hi first solo album "The End of the Game" which needs to be approached with extreme caution, His first real release was the single "Heavy Heart" in 1971 which he got to perform on Top of the Pops. The director missed a trick in not catching the audience reaction to what is basically a deathly slow and quiet guitar solo over a minimal percussion track. Needless to say it wasn't a hit. His second solo single "Beasts of Burden" co-credited his long term friend Nigel Watson and it's a matter of conjecture who does what on this heavy, wordy and uncommercial diatribe on animal cruelty ( if it's not allegorical ).
After those singles, Peter's illness progressed to the point that he became dysfunctional and he had spells in psychiatric hospitals . In 1977, he was arrested for threatening manager Clifford Davies with a shotgun. There's been much lurid speculation about this incident but it appears that Davies's accountant merely over-reacted to something Peter said to him on the telephone. The following year he released a single, a lovely little guitar instrumental "The Apostle" but it was almost immediately withdrawn for reasons unknown.
In May 1979, he released his first proper solo album "In The Skies". It was a somewhat gingerly return to recording with his wife Jane helping him out with the lyrics on the vocal tracks and Snowy White on hand as a second guitarist. It's a very low key underproduced album of quiet blues rock. Apart from the aforementioned "The Apostle " the instrumental tracks, particularly "Funky Chunk" , are terminally boring and the actual songs aren't much more interesting. The title track was released as a single, a simple expression of Christian millennial expectation set to a bossa nova rhythm which didn't stand a chance in those post-punk times. To say Peter wasn't up for promoting it, the album did OK in the charts, reaching number 32 and hanging round for three months.
Peter wasn't able to come up with any songs for his next album so his older brother Mike stepped into the breach writing most of the songs on 1980's "Little Dreamer" , Peter being credited on just the title track. There were two singles, the standard blues rock of "Walkin The Road" and "Loser Two Times" which incorporates some disco influences. The album is desperately uninspired throughout. It made number 34 and hung around for 4 weeks. It would be another 17 years before he'd trouble the chart compilers again. He recorded two more albums of his brother's songs. "Whatcha Gonna Do ? " ( 1981 ) included the singles "Give Me Back Me Freedom" , a reggae number complete with cod-Jamaican accent and "Promised Land" a wretched AOR number with embarrassing lyrics like "The chosen people have climbed the steeple" "White Sky". ( 1982 ) had his final single "The Clown " and to be honest that's what recording his brother's awful songs was making him .He then cobbled together another album "Kolors" from outtakes in 1983. He contributed to an album by a sort of blues supergroup Katmandu ( also featuring Mungo Jerry's Ray Dorset and Vincent Crane ) "A Case for the Blues" in 1985 and then disappeared again.
In 1988, a Fleetwood Mac documentary featured a small contribution from Peter talking over still photos of him balding and bloated and wearing a rough smock. Most shockingly he'd grown his fingernails to a ridiculous length , presumably to stymie requests to return to the fray. He was eventually coaxed back by Watson and the pair formed The Peter Green Splinter Group which initially featured Cozy Powell as drummer. There was another documentary about Peter's return to the fray but he cut a diminished figure ( in ability not in size ). There was footage of Powell as producer trying and failing to get a recordable performance of Walk Don't Run from him. Goodwill gave their first couple of albums a week in the charts each but, in reality, the Splinter Group were little more than a pub covers band. Lindsey, politely but publicly put suggestions that they might support Fleetwood Mac on tour to bed.
The Splinter Group dissolved in 2004 when Peter decided to relocate to Sweden. He did some touring as Peter Green and Friends in 2009-10 and seemed in good spirits on a 2011 BBC Four documentary about his life. He's been quiet since then.
Jeremy has remained completely faithful to the Children of God, since re-branded as the Family International and maintains that no brainwashing was involved in his conversion. He released a solo album "Jeremy Spencer and the Children" in 1972 which heavily reflected the organisation's worldview but once sure of his commitment , they let him record what he wanted. Though using other CoG devotees as his backing band 1979's "Flee" is an affectionate parody of the Mac as they now were. Jeremy then spent many years as a writer and illustrator although he did catch up with the Time version of the band in Japan in the nineties. In recent years he 's released a couple of blues albums. He contributed a lot to the Peter Green documentary.
Danny's is often considered the saddest casualty in the Mac saga. Still only 22 when the band cast him adrift, he was already beset by alcohol, marital problems and mental health issues which I guess created a perfect storm. He briefly formed a band called Hungry Fighter with Dave Walker but it didn't work out and made what are almost certainly his last live appearances with the band Tramp in 1974. Clifford Davis then took charge and steered him towards a solo career. He released the country-flavoured infectious pop single "Ram Jam City" produced by a young Martin Rushent in April 1975. This was followed by the album "Second Chapter" in which Danny proved himself able to write melodic pop gems in a variety of styles. It's hard to reconcile such warm music with what we know of the personal demons that were plaguing him at the time. Danny should have been able to push on from there but his career hit the brick wall of his refusal to get back on a stage and the album went unnoticed.
The follow-up album, "Midnight In San Juan" in 1976 still has good tunes but there's a darker edge to them; the exuberance of the first album has gone. Danny starts using synthesisers on the terrific instrumental title track and the single "Misty Rivers" . In the US, his reggaefied cover of "Let It Be" was a single instead.
By the time of his third and final album "Hello There Big Boy" Danny was seriously mentally ill; one look at his face on the cover would tell you that. It had to be made for contractual reasons with Davis at the helm. Danny's paranoia had got so bad that once in the studio he made himself a den with the soundboarding so that no one could see him. He only had four songs ready ;apart from a Randy Edelman cover, the rest were supplied by the musicians Davis brought in to try and complete the album, including Danny's replacement in Fleetwood Mac, Bob Weston. Though it's clearly him singing, it's not thought Danny did much of the guitar work on the album. Despite the adverse circumstances it's not bad album though you do spot the joins on the songs Danny didn't write. Those he did are excellent and wouldn't have been out of place on Rumours particularly the very bitter song about his ex-wife "Caroline" ( fortunately that wasn't her real name ).
Once it was finished, Danny was left to his own devices and went rapidly downhill. Mick Fleeetwood says that the last time they met in 1980, Danny was already sleeping rough although he didn't actually sell his house in Westclif-on-Sea until the mid-eighties. He drifted to London and next surfaced in a hostel for homeless men, a chronic alcoholic. That's where he stayed for the best part of three decades but the picture is not quite as bleak as sometimes painted. He wasn't there long before the Melody Maker journalist Carol Clerk, realising that the hostel was just round the corner from her local, looked him up and brought him into her social circle ( there's a video on YouTube from 1989 showing him looking a bit dishevelled but quite happy in her company ). She also took him to concerts and it may have been her influence that got him playing the guitar for his own amusement again. Sadly she died in 2010; since then Danny has reportedly been semi-reconciled with his ex-wife and is looked after by her family in Essex. It doesn't seem likely that he'll ever perform again.
Billy released one eponymous album with Bramlett as Bekka & Billy in 1997. It was aimed at the country market but didn't make much impression and they broke up the following year. He has since released some rockabilly albums on minor labels and supported his sons' efforts to work in the music industry.
Rick continues to be a guitarist for hire and worked with Mick again on his "Blue Again" album in 2008. He has found a market in Germany for his country blues music and released a string of CDs there in the noughties.
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