Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Fort Worth), July 4, 1994
Section: A&E
SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW FLEETWOOD MAC MAY BE RECONFIGURED, BUT ITS SOUND HARKENS BACK TO A PREVIOUS TIME
Dave Ferman, Credits, Star-Telegram Writer
What does the new Fleetwood Mac sound like?
The question absolutely stymied the band's new guitarist, veteran solo musician and onetime Traffic member Dave Mason. On a car phone, weaving in and out of Los Angeles traffic on the way to a rehearsal, he tried gamely to answer. But all he could come up with was that the newest incarnation of Fleetwood Mac doesn't sound like anything so much as, well, the new Fleetwood Mac.
"To try to describe it is hard," said Mason, who joined the
reconstituted Mac - now minus Stevie Nicks and, on the road, longtime
keyboardist/songwriter/vocalist Christie McVie - last fall at Mick
Fleetwood's request. "You can't give it a label. I've always objected
to that, when people would say, `What's your new record sound like? '
Well, it sounds like new Dave Mason.
"It's gonna be different, but the only thing I can say is the
emphasis is the same as the Peter Green era - it's very
song-oriented, melody and words and that great rhythm section. It
doesn't sound like the Buckingham/Nicks era at all. "
The band, which founders Fleetwood and bassist John McVie decided
to re-form last fall, is working on a studio album that will probably
not be out until next summer. Which puts the members of the current
band (the McVies, Fleetwood, Mason and vocalist Bekka Bramlett,
daughter of Bonnie Bramlett of Delaney and Bonnie fame) in the odd
position of recording together without having played much live.
The band's summer tour dates are the only opportunity they will
have before finishing the record. That tour stops in Dallas today as
the band plays with Foreigner and the Doobie Brothers as part of
Freedomfest '94. For the tour, Steve Toma takes Christine McVie's
place, and Mac vet Billy Burnett adds second guitar.
The new band's material, Mason said, is a mixture of the familiar
and the unexpected, some blues and some of his own solo numbers.
"Billy does some of the Lindsey songs, and we've worked up a great
version of Gold Dust Woman, and we're doing The Chain, Don't Stop, We
Just Disagree, Mr. Fantasy, All Along the Watchtower, a new song of
mine called Blow By Blow, which if anything is a bit more hard-edged,
and Only You Know and I Know, which I wrote and which Delaney and
Bonnie had a hit with when Bekka was 1 year old! "
Speaking of Bekka: "She's got a hell of a voice, sort of like her
mom but not quite as raw," Mason said.
Bramlett is a vet of one of Fleetwood's solo bands, collectively
called the Zoo but constantly changing in membership. Mason, on the
other hand, has known Fleetwood for about a decade. The call to join
the band, he said, came out of the blue.
"I'd moved back to LA and we had a meeting, and he was saying he
was getting tired of looking for guitar players. `All these kids want
to do is play solos all over the place. ' And that's how it happened.
"I knew he'd been looking to re-form Fleetwood Mac and all he was
lacking was a guitar player. There was nothing happening for me - no
interest from the record business at all, and it was just a matter of
being in the right place at the right time. It certainly wasn't
something I'd planned on. "
Freedomfest '94
Featuring: Fleetwood Mac, Foreigner, the Doobie Brothers
Today: Gates open at 2 p.m. at Starplex Amphitheatre, Fair Park,
Dallas. Fleetwood Mac is scheduled to play first, beginning around
4:45 p.m.
Tickets: $15
Information: Ticketmaster, (214) 373-8000 or metro (214) 647-5700
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