Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveMacD
The margarita night was later, not NYE, 1974.
On NYE, 1974, Fleetwood Mac had some type of get together/band meeting where Bob snapped at Christine, she told him to eff himself, and he announced he was leaving the band. After that, Mick called Keith Olsen and asked him if he thought Lindsey would join the band, Keith explained the equation, and Mick asked him to convince THEM to join. So, Keith went over to their place and spent all night trying to convince them (Lindsey) to join.
I don’t dispute the initial interest was in Lindsey, but within the span of a short phone call shortly after Bob quit, Stevie was part of the equation. Lindsey was never offered the Fleetwood Mac gig without Stevie. He was never actually in a position where he had to say “I won’t join without Stevie.”
The notion that he wouldn’t have joined without Stevie because he was noble or whatever is laughable. He wouldn’t have joined had Stevie not been there twisting his arm. Lindsey didn’t want to be in Peter Green’s old band. He didn’t want to play the old Fleetwood Mac songs. He had a chip on his shoulder that their music was going to get lost in Fleetwood Mac, that they were going to lose their identities within the band. And, by all accounts, he wasn’t easy to work with in the early years. Lindsey oozed resentment, which is something I doubt he’d disagree with.
Bob was playing with them up until mid-December, close to the time Mick went to Sound City. So Mick had only known of Lindsey for a couple of weeks at most, but wasn’t immediately thinking about augmenting the band with him or anything.
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Lindsey was never offered the gig without Stevie because the people who were doing the asking were told that it would not be worth their time to offer him the FM gig if it didn't also include Stevie. Thus, to get him they said sure we're willing to ask both of them.
Had Olsen indicated that Lindsey would have been responsive to an offer for just him, that's the offer they would have made. Indeed that was the proposal Mick initially made to Keith. Keith was the one who first told Mick that to get what he wanted (LB) he needed to include SN.
So your comment is a red herring. They didn't ask him to join alone because before they could, or when they let it be known that is what they were interested in at the beginning, they were put off that by parties who knew him.
ETA: And Mick HAD heard the duo prior to wanting to ask LB to join. So he would have been aware of their harmonies and songwriting and all that. He still had planned to just ask LB to join until Keith Olsen advised him.