Quote:
Originally Posted by FuzzyPlum
Would Lindsey joining Mick, John and Chris (without Stevie) been more successful than Stevie joining Mick, John and Chris (without Lindsey) in 1975 or vice-versa? Obviously that assumes at least somebody else joins with Stevie (perhaps BW stays but LB doesn't join).
Who had the biggest impact?
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“Successful” means “make more money”? It’s hard to say what would have happened in 1975, when Stevie’s only mystique was being a cute babe who sang funny. She only later developed that aura of being a great songwriter and rock Romanticist, as we all know. But I guess Stevie needed to be in the band for it to make the most money. She developed the quality that turns on rock audiences — that makes them want to watch her. She developed that appeal a lot quicker than Lindsey did, and she had more of it. The mass audience didn’t know that he crafted the arrangements; for all they knew, Stevie did that, or they didn’t think about
who at all. By the time Lindsey got a widespread response of any kind from Mac fans, it was almost entirely a specialized, cerebral response: his inventive guitar work, for example, wasn’t going to blow Alvin Lee away, but it was going to add texture and mood to a song so that you could listen to that song a thousand times and a year later you still wouldn’t be sick of it (hugely important to Fleetwood Mac’s commercial success). That’s just not the kind of thing that sells lots of albums or sells out arenas
by itself. It needs to complement something. Naturally, by 1977 (not 1975) Stevie had the crossover appeal.