Prodigal Son
Rocks Off Regular
Offline
That'll be the way to get along...
Posts: 90
Calgary, AB, Canada
Gender:
|
In their big time record sales era, their albums were sometimes good, sometimes not. They've had a million lineups, with only Mick Fleetwood in there the whole time since 1967 (John McVie joined a few months later). They were a good blues-rock band, but not elite like Cream or the Stones. I actually liked them better between 1970-74 than 1967-70. Bare Trees is a solid rock-pop album that is as good, if not more unpolished, than Fleetwood Mac (1975) or Rumours. They had some bad luck there, with Peter Green being a schizo that bailed his own band in 1970, then Jeremy Spencer bolting to join the fucked-up cult Children of God and Danny Kirwan quitting from his own shaky nerves and alcoholism.
Bob Welch replaced Spencer and kind of had this weird adult contemporary, slick top 40 touch to his songs (best of which being "Future Games," "Hypnotized" and "The Ghost"). Christine McVie wrote great even before Buckingham Nicks arrived. Kiln House and Bare Trees were their best in the pre-Buckingham/Nicks days and get unjustly overlooked right to today. That being said, Buckingham was the best writer the band ever had (followed by McVie, Nicks and Kirwan) and the most complete guitarist (could ply blues, rock but also had incredible depth of skill in folk with his fingerpicking brilliance).
Peter Green could really play but only "Albatross" stands as a masterpiece he penned and it's instrumental. Spencer was a better songwriter, but Danny Kirwan was not only a great guitarist, but a talented songwriter so it's too bad. Also a good singer. Check out "Jewel Eyed Judy," "Station Man," "Dragonfly," "Sands of Time," "Woman of 1000 Years," "Bare Trees," "Child of Mine," "Dust" and the great instrumentals "Earl Gray" and "Sunny Side of Heaven"- all are great tunes). I don't think Penguin or Heroes Are Hard to Find are very good, although Mystery to Me was alright. The first of the three Peter Green LPs was the best of the lot. But Bare Trees and Kiln House kick ass. In their big arena days, lots of great songs although some of their 80s stuff is horribly overproduced, especially on Tango in the Night. But "Big Love," "Hold Me," "Gyspy," "Sara," "Tusk" and made their 1979-87 period decent. Afterward, I haven't paid attention to anything non-Buckingham related. Ok, my favourite albums:
1. Rumours: A 2. Bare Trees: A- 3. Kiln House: A- 4. Fleetwood Mac: B+ 5. Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac: B+
|