Thread: Bob Welch era
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Old 01-08-2017, 02:12 PM
FuzzyPlum FuzzyPlum is offline
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Originally Posted by Macfan4life View Post
I was reading old interviews and Stevie mentioned it was Bob Welch's mysticism that really drew her to Fleetwood Mac. After Welch left the band, Mick, John, Christine, and Stevie all helped Bob record his 3 Hearts solo album. There were numerous shows including the Bob Welch and friends concert where the band re-united with Bob.
Then something went wrong. In 1999 Bob stated how hard it was that the band refused to honor and invite him to the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame in 1998. Bob sued the band but it was over royalties which is a common civil action among musicians. Bob thought it was more about how dysfunctional the band was in his era and how they did not get along. If that was true then why did the band help Bob after he left? On the flip side, the Mac sold millions of records and why would they care to fight Bob over royalties for records he was a big part of? Both sides just don't make sense.
The Behind the Music segment on the Mac was created right around the time the band was inducted into the Rock N Roll hall of fame. The show completely ignores Bob Welch. When the show says the group came to America looking for a guitarist....it goes right to Lindsey and pretended Bob did not exist. Even worse the segment shows the back of the "Heroes are hard to find" album cover and cuts Bob Welch out of the picture only focusing on Mick, Chris and John. WTF? Did the band have creative control over the show to remove Bob from their history? Bob was such a crucial member of the band and I don't understand how he can be removed from the band's history.
Van Halen has a similar feud with former bassist Michael Anthony. On the band's website, they removed Michael Anthony from everything as if he never existed even though he was so pivotal in the band's success.
In Mick's latest book, he fawns all over Bob Welch and tells how great he was and how his membership transformed the Mac for Lindsey and Stevie joining.
Well Mick, that is a little too late. Does anyone know why Bob was treated so badly during the later years?

My question is (and I don't know the answer) if it was about royalties why did the feuds only come about in later years? Surely Bob negotiated his deals early on and he would have known how the royalties were panning out from album to album. If you knew you were being dicked over surely you'd leave after the first album not stay for another and then another and then another...
Why did he only decide there was a problem in the late 1980's?

As far as the documentaries... there seem to be so many that airbrush him out. I'm sure that's not down to the band. I get the feeling it's more down to the producers/editors who are thinking about viewers and ratings. Lindsey and Stevie are the big draws and they want to move onto that era as quickly as possible. There was a BBC documentary on the other night called Don't Stop (that I've seen quite a few times. That documentary speeds through even the Peter Green era (even though its a British production) and hardly mentions Bob Welch. Of an hour programme, about 52 minutes are dedicated to 1975 onwards. I don't know roughly when Bob met Wendy. I wonder whether she was the major catalyst for their falling out?

I really hope there will be a well made documentary that will explain everything. I'd love a 5-parter along the lines of The Beatles' anthology series.
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