THE STORY SO FAR: Fleetwood Mac have been jolted again as Bob Weston is unceremoniously sacked mid-tour. They all go to their own separate haciendas to collect their thoughts. But is Fleetwood Mac really…
MICK FLEETWOOD: drums, percussion
JOHN MCVIE: bass
CHRISTINE MCVIE: keyboards, vocals
BOB WELCH: guitar, vocals
Not if manager Clifford Davis had anything to do with it. He insisted that as the owner of the name Fleetwood Mac, he had the right to assemble another group of musicians and send them on tour under the Fleetwood Mac banner to finish the remaining dates. He made a statement that Mick Fleetwood and Christine McVie would shortly be joining the line-up and that John McVie and Bob Welch had left but whether any of this was true seems open to conjecture. At any rate no previous members wished to be involved. The incident finished Davis’s career in music. Fleetwood, Welch and the McVies sued him and at Fleetwood’s suggestion they made the decision to move to America (because “all we ever do here is wash our cars”). This gave them closer contact with Warner Brothers who owned all of their catalogue from Then Play On (1969) onwards. A letter from Fillmore mogul Bill Graham convinced Warners that this was the real Fleetwood Mac and they were teamed up with producer Bob Hughes. There had been no replacement for Bob Weston so Bob Welch was handling all the guitars himself for Heroes are Hard to Find (1974).
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As with Mystery to Me (see previous entry) we have a 7:4 ratio of Bob:Christine on the songs front. Christine opens with the title track featuring Stax influenced horns and also contributes Bad Loser, an attack on Clifford Davis with rattling tom-toms, Come a Little Bit Closer with steel guitar from the man who was doing it for everybody back then, Sneaky Pete Kleinow and the gorgeous Prove Your Love.
With the lion’s share of tracks, Welch lends the album his usual mystical tone with Bermuda Triangle, Born Enchanter and the mostly instrumental Coming Home but makes a somewhat incongruous sidestep into country with She’s Changing Me. He closes the album with another mostly instrumental, Safe Harbour, which ends with the petition to just find a safe harbour and talk with a friend.
This proved to be prophetic as after a short tour, Bob Welch decided he’d had enough of all the touring and legal wrangles and quit the band.
It wasn’t a hard decision to understand. Welch had joined what was ostensibly already the other three members’ band so it is more than understandable that while the namesake members (and Christine McVie had been involved long before she joined officially) may have been undaunted by it all, Bob wanted and needed to break free. And more power to him for doing so for he produced an excellent body of solo work and maintained good relations with the band including his successors.
But there was no turning back for Mick Fleetwood and John and Christine McVie now. Especially not when Keith Olsen, a local sound engineer played Fleetwood a track called Frozen Love by the struggling duo Buckingham Nicks. The rest, as they say, is history.
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO… the fake Fleetwood Mac: The bogus Mac stayed together and changed their name to Stretch. Their sole hit Why Did You Do It (UK #16 1975) was either an attack on Clifford Davis for arranging the whole debacle in the first place or on Mick Fleetwood for not coming to join the tour, depending whether you believe Fleetwood Mac’s biographer Bob Brunning or dead links on Wikipedia respectively.
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO… Bob Welch: Ironically, Bob Welch’s departure from Fleetwood Mac caused both him and them to start having hits. After a short-lived power trio, Paris, with original Jethro Tull bassist Glenn Cornick had disbanded, he recorded the album French Kiss (1977) which gave him a hit with a rerecording of Sentimental Lady (from Bare Trees, see part 2) which Mick Fleetwood, Christine McVie and Lindsey Buckingham played on. A few further hits followed in Ebony Eyes, Hot Love Cold World and, from Three Hearts (1979), Precious Love and Church. Members of Fleetwood Mac played on tracks on both albums and also for a few reunion tracks at Welch’s legendary Roxy concert in 1981, not released on CD till 2004. Four more albums saw success decline for Welch and he spent most of the 80s and 90s working on movie soundtracks and writing for other artists. He returned with Bob Welch Looks at Bop in 1999 and two albums of rerecorded songs followed as well as an EP and another album of covers. But after neck surgery left him in terrible pain, the medication he was prescribed proved depressive and he shot himself in 2012*. This series of entries is dedicated to him as he got Mac through such a difficult period and if it weren’t for him they wouldn’t have moved to America and met the people who would catapult them to global success.
*Special thanks to Wendy Welch, Bob’s widow, for additional information on this painful topic for her.
Bart the Anorak's Blog 
This is not exactly correct. Bob had corrective surgery that did correct his neck injuries, which were NOT congenital, due to falling off stages and guitar straps, etc. He had a titanium plate put in his neck and fixed 3 discs in the spine in his neck. It much improved, but he was left with nerve damage that caused him terrible pain. That was about March 15, 2012. They gave him Lyrica, (Neurontin and gambopentin) which causes suicidal thoughts and actions. He, nor I, were warned of this although the FDA had 3 class action suits against Pfizer and Lyrica until a month before he died. He had been taking it for just under 6 weeks, which is about the time it takes for it to take effect.
Within two weeks he became depressed and strange. I took him to the doctor the day before and within 12 hours of our talking about going to a pain clinic for pain medication he shot himself. No warning and he had never been suicidal before. All of his friends and I knew that. We had been married 27 years and he never had problems with depression or showed a suicidal tendency. His life was happy until, I believe the drug lyrica murdered him with his own hand.
Also be aware that in the autopsy he had no pain pills in his system. Lyrica is not a pain pill and this should be corrected. It takes six weeks to take effect and only made him lethargic and depressed and did nothing to help him with pain in anyway. It is given for fibromyalgia and other nerve disorders, but never relieves pain. Please do research on this drug. It is a KILLER! I posted this on my facebook page, Wendy welch.1232 and received over 56 responses from people that had relatives committ suicide from Lyrica. It is a very dangerous drug, that had 3 class actiiion lawsuits one month prior to Bob’s taking it, and then the FDA decided each one had to be done individually. They now say in all the ads that Lyrica may cause suicidal thoughs and actions. IT is not a PAIN PILL!
Thanks for clarifying Wendy. I have changed ‘painkillers’ (which I now realise they weren’t) to the more general ‘medication’.