Quote:
Originally Posted by becca
Off the top of my head I remember that Dave Mason was in a beat type group The Hellions about when Mick was in The Cheynes, maybe their paths crossed a fair bit starting then. When he was with Traffic they were famous for going out into the country communally living and working to get their sound together, which example FM followed at Kiln House and then Kinfauns. Dave never quite jelled with Traffic and left, and returned, and left again. Not surprising he didn't fit in Fleetwood Mac really either. Not really a group kind of person it would seem, he wrote alone and just needed others to record, that sort of situation.
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Don't think it was that he didn't jell with Traffic, I think it was more that there was some serious mutual dislike between he & Steve Winwood, which apparently had its roots back when Dave was a roadie for the Spencer Davis Group. Why Steve wanted to include Dave in Traffic in the first place was kind of a mystery in itself.
Even Eric Clapton, when forming Derek & The Dominos, pretty much tossed him to the curb, telling the press in a very graceful way that Dave was "a great songwriter & needed his own band". Dave had played on the two songs of their first single ("Tell The Truth"/"Roll It Over"*) that got recalled the same day it was released for some reason (both were really good songs, I thought). He was in the studio with the rest of the Dominos during the sessions for George Harrison's
All Things Must Pass...also, Dave had been playing along with Clapton in Delaney & Bonnie and Friends...when Eric got the heart of the D&B band to be Dominos, I think Dave kind of assumed he'd be a Domino, too.
That he spent so many months nagging Mick to let him in Fleetwood Mac is kind of odd, considering he's NOT really made to be a sideman or band member. He seems to be made of the cloth that wants to call the shots.
(and considering his history with Steve Winwood, I'm surprised that he was so bent out of shape for not being included in Traffic's 1994 reunion tour; basically since he was already on the road with Fleetwood Mac at the time)
*=(the single versions of those songs can be heard on Eric's first
Crossroads box set and the recent 40th Anniversary deluxe edition of
Layla & OALS)