Mick's Blues Band's Australia Tour

[michelej1]

BY SAMUEL J. FELL | MARCH 16TH, 2016 Rolling Stone (AU)

http://rollingstoneaus.com/music/pos...ew/3396-page-2

There's no denying the impact Mick Fleetwood has had on popular music. As a founding member of the iconic Fleetwood Mac, the tall and gangly drummer has played a part in some of the biggest records of our time.

What many won't know about the Cornwall-born, Maui-based Fleetwood however, is how he and legendary guitarist Peter Green came to form the band, back in 1967. For Fleetwood Mac wasn't always the pop/rock, soft/rock behemoth it was through the 1970s. It actually started out as a straight up blues band.

Both Fleetwood and Green, along with bassist John McVie, were playing in John Mayall's Bluesbreakers – the British blues band of the time, and a veritable guitarist factory, claiming amongst its ranks at one stage or another Green, Eric Clapton, Freddy Robinson, Coco Montoya, Walter Trout and future Rolling Stone Mick Taylor. But they left this comfortable fold to make their own mark on the British blues invasion. Hence, in 1967, Fleetwood Mac came to be.

Almost exactly fifty years later then, Fleetwood himself is coming full circle. Later this month, he'll make his Byron Bay Bluesfest debut, fronting (or, rather, sitting at the back of) The Mick Fleetwood Blues Band. "Getting back into the trenches to play the blues is always a pleasure," he says with a smile. "I never dump on that part of my life."

Featuring incendiary guitarist Rick Vito, the MFBB is essentially a vehicle for its members to delve back into the past, back to that fabled time when Fleetwood Mac were a true blues band, peddling their own version of the British blues that defined a lot of the late '60s and early '70s.

Mick Fleetwood recently chatted with Rolling Stone, about how it feels to be moving forward, all whilst looking back.

So we'll be seeing the Mick Fleetwood Blues Band at the Byron Bay Bluesfest in late March, a place I feel you'll fit right in.

That's right. It's a blues band situation that I've had with Rick Vito, a friend of mine, he also played with Fleetwood Mac for a few years when Lindsay (Buckingham) was on sabbatical. We actually came down [to Australia] about ten years ago (as the Blues Band).

So we're looking forward to rekindling [that relationship], coming down with the music that we love playing – a straight ahead blues band, do what we're doing, and we're happy to be one of what seems to be dozens of really eclectic artists that are appearing at the Byron Bay festival.

I've never played [Bluesfest], but have always been told about it, an iconic landmark. And there are a whole bunch of people that I know who are playing, so I'm hoping to hang out and see a whole cartload of great music.

Aside from you and Rick, who else is featuring in the band these days?
Mark Johnstone (keys) and Lenny Castellanos (bass), it's the same band that came down all those years ago. Most of the boys live in Maui, where I live... we play regularly when I'm off the road with Fleetwood Mac, so we know each other really well. And on a personal note, I've been flown around the world with Fleetwood Mac for the past year and half, but the boys really enjoy getting off the rock, as we say in Maui, so they're really excited.

Lets go back a bit – you and Peter Green, and eventually John McVie, left a good gig with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers to start Fleetwood Mac: this would have been quite the game-changer.

Yeah, that is how the band was formed, although it wasn't a conspiracy or anything, John (McVie) was actually still in The Bluesbreakers, even though Peter and I had called the band Fleetwood Mac (a play on the names of the band's rhythm section).

That whole genre of early Fleetwood Mac was a huge part of my life. But basically, publicly, that period of the band has very often been eclipsed and forgotten about. More so in America, they never got the early band. And we never got to Australia, somewhat unbelievably. I don't know why we never did.

But people love [that old stuff], and that's what this is all about; Fleetwood Mac, back in the day, was a blues band through and through. Peter's guidance as a mentor, and a hugely affective guitar player, really is still spoken about and revered by his peers. Peter's not active anymore, and his life story isn't the happiest of stories… but his music, if you think of "Black Magic Woman", "Albatross"... we do all those songs in the set, and we craft it where Rick Vito is [able to be] his own talent. And he's a huge advocate of Peter's work.

So what's it like for you, playing this blues once more these days? The MFBB has been a project of yours for over a decade now, but what's it like revisiting all these old songs?

I love it. I have a duality of sorts, where if someone really forced me to choose, well... my life is Fleetwood Mac, I can't imagine what it'd be like to not [have that]. But the truth is, I'm a blues drummer.

If you listen to "Don't Stop", [it's] a blues shuffle (laughs). And John McVie and Christine (McVie), even though they were playing in a band that was very pop-orientated, of sorts, the reality is, three members of that band are majorly connected from where they come. Christine is a piano player who played with Freddie King, all these players, she was in a band called Chicken Shack, she was a blues goddess who came out of England. And of course, you hear that, you still hear that in her voice, or songs she touches on – "Oh Daddy", that's a blues song! "Don't Stop" is a blues shuffle, and the fact it's an iconic song now, is a pleasant irony, really.

We're blues players.

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- See more at: http://rollingstoneaus.com/music/pos....PrcdIchc.dpuf

[nicole21290]

[michelej1]

Great videos. Thank you.

Rick is looking buff.

Michele

[nicole21290]

[michelej1]

Stuff.co.nz March 29 2016

http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment...coming-to-town

The Mick Fleetwood Blues Band is coming to town

This week New Zealand audiences have the chance to see The Mick Fleetwood Blues Band.

And this chance arrives just a few months after Fleetwood Mac played two shows in Auckland. The stadium-filling pop supergroup has just wrapped a 15-month world tour.

So what does the band's drummer/leader do?

Hits the road with his small combo playing the music he grew up on, the music he loves.

He's expert across so many styles, he plays for the song and there's a great joy expressed when he plays. Here is a guy, a towering presence, who even after all these years of fame and money, looks like he still – and always – wants to be there. On the stage. Playing for an audience.
This version of The Mick Fleetwood Blues Band features Rick Vito, an important component. Vito was a member of Fleetwood Mac in the second run of "lost years" (1987-1991).

He had the unenviable task of replacing Lindsey Buckingham. The band didn't really succeed with anything new at this time – Vito and his friend Billy Burnette (also a hell of a player) were both in Fleetwood Mac for the one studio album (Behind The Mask – it's not great, but I'm a fan so I still like it, there are a couple of great songs hiding on it) and a few tours.

The two of them took the band back towards its original blues sound, paying tribute in the live shows to Peter Green, the leader of the original Fleetwood Mac, one of England's most influential blues guitarists.

So to have Vito touring with Mick Fleetwood, paying tribute to the band's early years and the music that helped to inform that great love and understanding of the blues makes sense. It also means audiences are in for a treat.

I've always understood Mick Fleetwood's solo/side-project focus as being about paying tribute to Peter Green, and to the spirit of what has afforded him one hell of a ride, a life like very few others.

Fleetwood has always been the one holding the olive branch, reconnecting with Peter, aiming to get him back in the band, seeking his blessing, checking in on Green.

At a Mick Fleetwood Blues Band show you just might see exactly why I still consider Mick Fleetwood to be one of the greats too. His passion and enthusiasm, for starters. But also this is nearly the antithesis of what the Fleetwood Mac show has become.

To be clear, I love all facets of that band – I'm a lifelong fan. But this seems to be about the having fun and making music side of things, the Fleetwood Mac World Tour is the money-maker.

Now, for a couple of nights at least, Mick Fleetwood gets to shake that money-maker off his back, and send fans back to the source.

I'm excited at the chance to see Mick Fleetwood a bit closer, and to hear those songs that turned so many of us onto the blues.

[FuzzyPlum]

Just felt the need to say...
I know nothing about guitars but having seen him live the Rick Vito signature guitars are really beautiful works of art. Always thought his Art Deco guitar from the Tango In The Night tour looked a little bit naff but these are more subtle and real beauties.

[michelej1]

Review: Mick Fleetwood's blues band The Dominion Post
SIMON SWEETMAN Last updated 16:00, April 3 2016

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post...ods-blues-band

REVIEW: by Simon Sweetman

The Mick Fleetwood Blues Band Opera House, April 1

Just a few months after Fleetwood Mac wrapped a nearly two-year world tour, the band's leader and spirit-animal, drummer Mick Fleetwood, is back on the road with his side-project dedicated to the original Mac's blues years, the Peter Green-era.

Though Mick Fleetwood is clearly the star of the show – a towering presence in his vaudevillian attire and with those wild eyes and just-behind-the-beat drum fills, he marks his own version of time and marks it so well, it is lead guitarist Rick Vito who truly shines.

Vito, a journeyman blues player, was once a member of Fleetwood Mac (he had the unenviable task of replacing Lindsey Buckingham in the late 1980s) and took the group, somewhat tentatively, back to its blues roots.

Here there's no need to be tentative, and with full relish Vito tears through those vintage Mac numbers like Oh Well, Love That Burns and of course Black Magic Woman. He's also the leading light for blues staples by Otis Rush (Homework) and Sonny Boy Williamson (Eyesight to the Blind).

Bassist Lenny Castellanos and keyboardist Mark Johnstone are competent but largely unexciting. They could be part of any "blues night" house-band. What is palpable though is the love of the music – from both players and audience. It's great to feel part of this show.

Fleetwood takes a spot at centre stage on a cocktail kit during the second half, and somewhat absurdly, kills the mood of the night with a ponderous drum solo – the same one he trots out with his other band in the stadiums. Halfway through the interminable racket he is clearly shown up by his drum-tech, assisting on the smaller kit. But to the fans it is Mick Fleetwood that is the star. It is Mick Fleetwood's band. It is Mick Fleetwood's night. It is Mick Fleetwood's right.

Actually Rick Vito was the reason to get anything from the night – his work a tribute not only to Peter Green but to the slide playing of original Mac member Jeremy Spencer. World Turning (from the Buckingham/Nicks era) was fun until the drum solo, but Stop Messin' Around seemed the right antidote to that bloat – in every way.

And of course Albatross had to be the encore. Again Vito was incredible, playing parts originally layered by three guitarists. He earned his keep for Mick Fleetwood. That's for sure.

[michelej1]

The Maitland Mercury April 3, 2016, 12:35 p.m

Bluesfest 2016, a divine experience By Nick Milligan

http://www.maitlandmercury.com.au/st...ne-experience/

Many humans forget that pop behemoth Fleetwood Mac formed in 1967 as a raw blues band, spearheaded by Peter Green, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie - three members of John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers. Green would leave in the ‘70s and they’d transform into the Stevie Nicks-led pop group that so many Earthlings worship.

So it was a joyous occasion to see drummer Fleetwood behind his sprawling kit as band leader of the Mick Fleetwood Blues Band. With one-time Mac member Rick Vito on vocals and wailing guitar, the group returned to the early blues material with original tunes like Black Magic Woman and Looking for Somebody.

During their set I opened the heavens, a torrential downpour saturating Bluesfest’s dusty grounds. A hole in the roof of the Crossroads tent created a waterfall in the middle of the crowd, with punters immediately running amok in the torrent of fresh rainwater.

[michelej1]

Daily Review MAR 31, 2016 BY JENNIFER WILSON

BLUESFEST 2016 REVIEW (BYRON BAY, MARCH 24-28)

http://dailyreview.com.au/bluesfest-...ch-24-28/39665

Mick Fleetwood (of Fleetwood Mac fame) delivered a self-proclaimed “Fleetwood Boogie” amongst some solid rock n’ roll, a welcome return of the legends to this iconic festival. And then the heavens opened. As the rain pummelled the tents, punters stuck around for 13-piece Tedeschi Trucks Band — but what a turn of luck that was for all the dry music lovers!

[Dodfather]

Brandon (mylittledemon) and I went to the Wellington Opera House show last week - great stuff! Really moving in parts, particularly Albatross.

[michelej1]

Scoop Independent News

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL160...-his-roots.htm

Mick Fleetwood Rediscovers His Roots

Tuesday, 5 April 2016, 3:33 pm Article: Howard Davis
Mick Fleetwood Rediscovers His Roots

Howard Davis
Back in the days before the British blues revival in the 1960s, it's fair to say that one man virtually pioneered the form - Alexis Korner. Korner originally worked for jazz band leader Chris Barber, who was responsible for bringing many American folk and blues performers to the UK, where they discovered they were much better known and paid. The first major artist to cross the pond was Big Bill Broonzy in the mid-50s, playing folk blues to fit in with British expectations of American blues as a form of folk music.

Trad jazz singer and cultural critic George Melly (who supported tours by Broonzy, Jimmy Rushing, and Sister Rosetta Tharp in the 1950s) recalled this period fondly in his memoir 'Owning-Up' - "Barber imported, for admirably altruistic reasons, a series of old and forgotten blues singers. Some of these have since achieved international stature; others, kindly old gentlemen who had been working in obscurity since the early 20s and beyond, enjoyed their temporary share of the limelight and retired again into the shadows."

To this point, British blues was played acoustically, emulating Delta and country blues styles in the emerging British folk revival. Critical in changing this attitude was Muddy Waters' 1958 visit. He initially shocked audiences by playing amplified electric blues, but was soon playing to ecstatic crowds and rave reviews. Korner quickly followed suit, plugged in, and formed Blues Incorporated, the first home-grown group to play high-octane electric blues.

Korner's band had a residency at Soho's Marquee Club and it was from there came the name of the first classic British blues album, 'R&B from the Marquee.' A phalanx of mostly proletarian superstars emerged from under Korner's aegis, as Blues Incorporated became a clearing house not only for The Rolling Stones and Cream, but also a host of other British R&B bands. The culmination of this first movement of blues came with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, which variously included Peter Green, Mick Taylor, Jack Bruce, and Eric Clapton, the latter gaining international attention with the 1966 release of 'Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton,' one of the seminal British blues recordings of the era.


Peter Green began the second great epoch of British blues when he replaced Clapton in the Bluesbreakers, but after cutting just one record with Mayall, Green and the Bluesbreakers' rhythm section of Mick Fleetwood and John McVie formed Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac. Mayall gave them his blessing with a free recording session, which they used to cut five tracks, the fifth being an instrumental that Green dubbed 'Fleetwood Mac.'

Released in 1968, Fleetwood Mac's eponymous first was a no-frills approach to the blues that reached number four in the UK charts, after which they released two classic singles - 'Black Magic Woman' and 'Need Your Love So Bad.' Their second album, 'Mr. Wonderful,' was another all-blues effort, but recorded live in the studio with miked amplifiers and PA system, rather than plugged into the board. They also added a horn section and introduced keyboard player Christine Perfect (who later married McVie), providing an ideal sonic environment that lent the album an authentically vintage ambience. Shortly after 'Mr Wonderful', Fleetwood Mac added another hugely accomplished and self-taught guitarist, eighteen year-old Danny Kirwan, who's signature vibrato and unique style added yet a further dimension to the band sound. They then released their first number one single in Europe, the haunting, tropical-flavoured instrumental classic 'Albatross,' closely followed by their second US album 'English Rose' and their third European LP 'The Pious Bird of Good Omen,' a collection of singles and B-sides.

The band visited America for the first time in 1969, recording many songs at the soon-to-close Chess Records Studio with such Chicago blues legends as Willie Dixon, Buddy Guy, and Otis Spann. These were Fleetwood Mac's last all-blues recordings. Along with their change of style, the band was also going through some label changes. They had been under contract to Blue Horizon, but with Kirwan now in the band, their musical potential was too great for them to stay on a blues-only label. They signed briefly with Immediate Records and released another British and European hit single, the melancholy 'Man of the World,' but the label was in bad shape and the band shopped around for a new deal. Even though The Beatles wanted to sign them to Apple Records (Fleetwood and George Harrison were brothers-in-law), their manager Clifford Davis finally opted for Warner Brothers (through Reprise Records), the label they've stayed with ever since. In 1969, they released their first Reprise LP, the well-regarded, straight rock album 'Then Play On.'

By this time, Fleetwood Mac had garnered an international reputation, but sadly Green was no longer in good health. A bad LSD trip in Munich apparently contributed to the onset of schizophrenia. His last hit with Fleetwood Mac was 'The Green Manalishi With the Two-Prong Crown,' after which his mental stability deteriorated rapidly. He continued to ingest copious quantities of acid, grew a beard, began to wear robes and a crucifix, and his bandmates began noticing distinct changes in his state of mind. Mick Fleetwood recalls him becoming very concerned about financial issues - "I had conversations with Peter Green around that time and he was obsessive about us not making money, wanting us to give it all away. And I'd say, 'Well you can do it, I don't wanna do that, and that doesn't make me a bad person'." Green left the band in 1970 and immediately produced a stunningly innovative, visionary, and extended instrumental jam session, presciently entitled 'The End of the Game.' Tragically, his illness and drug use became entrenched and he soon faded into professional obscurity. After a brief stint working as a grave-digger, he was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia and underwent electroshock therapy during mid-70s. In 1977, he was arrested for threatening Clifford Davis with a shotgun and institutionalized. After enduring extensive periods of mental illness and destitution throughout the 1980s, he eventually moved into his mother's house in Great Yarmouth, where he began a slow and painful process of recovery.

Green is revered for his idiomatic string-bending, sparse economy of style, swinging shuffle grooves, minor chord modulations, and exquisitely soulful phrasing - all of which evoked the darker implications of the blues. His unique tone derived mainly from a 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard guitar, installed with a neck pick-up magnet in reverse, resulting in the kind of out-of-phase sound he achieved on an instrumental he wrote for Mayall's Bluesbreakers, 'The Super-Natural,' which demonstrates an astonishing control of harmonic feedback, characterized by a shivering vibrato, clean-cutting tones, and a series of ten-second sustained notes. B.B. King said of Green - "He has the sweetest tone I ever heard; he was the only one who gave me the cold sweats." Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page both praised his technique; he was ranked 38th in Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time;" and in 1996 Green was voted 3rd best guitarist of all time in Mojo magazine.
* * *
Somehow surviving the self-indulgent excrescence of the Stevie Nicks/Lindsey Buckingham incarnation of Fleetwood Mac, the massive consumption of container loads of cocaine, several acrimonious divorces, and bankruptcy, Fleetwood finally sobered up. He's been touring with a reformed Fleetwood Mac and his own Blues Band ever since. Now happily ensconced on Maui (where he owns a restaurant), his original enthusiasm for vintage blues from which he launched his prolonged and storied career has never waned. And he clearly has an incisive ear for both recognizing and recruiting tremendous guitar talent. When Buckingham left, he was replaced by Rick Vito - a sublime technician who had worked with Roy Orbison, Bonnie Raitt, John Prine, John Mayall, Jackson Browne, Little Richard, Roger McGuinn, Albert Collins, Dolly Parton, and Maria Muldaur, as well as contributing the famous slide solo to Bob Seger's hit single 'Like A Rock'.

The Mick Fleetwood Blues Band's recent appearance at the Wellington Opera House showcased not only Fleetwood's extraordinary stamina and personal charm, but also Vito's almost miraculous blues and slide guitar stylings. Fleetwood is a veteran survivor who obviously relishes attacking a tight set of traps, while Vito's glissando is as graceful as Green's ever was. Together, they still manage to chop out the changes with seemingly effortless precision and a pervasive sense of glee. The lineage is legendary.

ENDS

[michelej1]

Mick Fleetwood makes surprise appearance at intimate Auckland fundraising gig

BEVAN HURLEY, Stuff co.nz Last updated 11:18, April 9 2016

http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment...undraising-gig

REVIEW: His last New Zealand performances attracted more than 100,000 fans over two sold out nights at Mt Smart Stadium.

But last night Mick Fleetwood made a surprise guest appearance at an intimate fundraiser gig before just 700 fans.

The Fleetwood Mac drummer performed two songs with Kiwi musos Liam Finn, Lawrence Arabia and Connan Mockasin during a fundraiser for the Crystal Palace theatre in Auckland's Mt Eden suburb on Friday night.

The announcement by Finn drew gasps and then applause from a crowd as the lanky Fleetwood emerged on stage to perform a bluesy number, with Liam Finn shifting from the drum kit and onto the keyboard, one of many instrument changes during the evening.

Finn, Arabia - real names James Milne - and Mockasin gave the Auckland crowd a rare treat by performing together for the first time in seven years.

The night was billed as the trio "experimenting with new re-imaginings of each other's songs, a night that will no doubt further the mythology of their enigmatic collaborations".

And it most definitely did. The trio moved seamlessly between bass, drums, and guitar, playing classics such as Mockasin's "I'm The Man That Will Find You", and Finn's "Snug as F***".

here were more guest appearances from Bic Runga, as well as Neil Finn, who engaged in some touching onstage banter with his son.

The hits kept coming.

Fleetwood, looking sprightly for his 68 years, reemerged to play a riotous rendition of Finn's "Second Chance".

It was a rare treat of seeing three of New Zealand's top singer-song writers perform together, and with a sprinkling of magic dust from a wily old rocker, would have been worth double the $50 entry fee.

The profits from the gig will go towards starting the process of restoration and developing the Crystal Palace theatre into a regularly used venue.

[michelej1]

MICK FLEETWOOD JOINS THEATRE FUNDRAISER

http://www.pollstarpro.com/NewsConte...ticleID=823954

Posted Thursday, April 14, 2016 at 2:10 am, Pollstar

Mick Fleetwood made an unexpected appearance at an April 8 fundraiser in Auckland, New Zealand.

Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac - NBC's "Today" show, New York City
While his December 2015 show in the city with Fleetwood Mac was in front of 10,000 fans, this time it was before 700 at the Crystal Palace Theatre to raise funds for badly needed renovations for the 1923 building.

Events company Monster Valley took over the Mt. Eden venue to turn it into a hub for musicians, filmmakers, performers and artists.

The main attraction of the night was the team-up of New Zealand cult heroes Liam Finn, Lawrence Arabia and Los Angeles-based Connan Mockasin. They played together for the first time in seven years since meeting up in London and making an album together.

Fleetwood, who stayed on in Auckland after club shows by the Mick Fleetwood Band, walked on to play drums on one song, “Need Your Love So Bad,” and returned for a rendition of Finn’s "Second Chance."

[michelej1]

Under the Radar Monday, 18th April 2016 1:31PM

[click for video]

http://www.undertheradar.co.nz/news/...-Fleetwood.utr

Caught Live: Mockasin, Arabia, Finn - Need Your Love So Bad (Feat. Mick Fleetwood)

Last weekend The Crystal Palace theatre in Auckland hosted the awesome line-up of Connan Mockasin, Lawrence Arabia and Liam Finn for one very special evening of entertainment. Lucky ticket holders knew they were in for a treat, but we're pretty sure they didn't expect the magical appearance of Mick Fleetwood - drummer and co-founder of the iconic English act Fleetwood Mac.

Here's a clip of the foursome working through a wonderful rendition of 'Need Your Love So Bad', a blues song first penned in 1955 by Mertis John Jr., which was also released as a cover by Fleetwood Mac in 1969 on their album The Pious Bird of Good Omen. Watch the video below...




Read more: http://www.undertheradar.co.nz/news/...#ixzz46LB3J2Az

[cactusjack]

TV interview done for the tour that didn't seem to be online yet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koc9jtXnyJU