rolling stone reviews of kiln house, future games and bare trees

[aleuzzi]

If anyone's interested, I found these old rolling stone reviews of kiln house, future games, and bare trees...Maybe someone could post them into the Blue Letter archive next to the '71 Mick and Jeremy interview.

Rolling Stone Record Review for Heroes are Hard to Find
October 24, 1974, p. 74
by Ken Barnes

After a brief identity crisis (another band usurping their identities), the real Fleetwood Mac is back on record. They've still got the same soft-rock sound they've had for three years, since Jeremy Spencer found religion (or vice-versa). The group's gone a little funkier in places, which turns out both annoying ("Born Enchanter," "Angel") and intriguing ("Heroes are Hard to Find"). Their smoother number alternately mesmerize ("She's Changing Me") or narcotize ("Coming Home"). A major problem remains in Bob Welch's naggingly nasal vocals, although he's usually swathed in protective layers of lush harmonies.
Overall, though, Heroes are Hard to Find stacks up as a very pleasant album, thanks chiefly to a pair of Christine McVie tracks. "Prove Your Love" is exquisitely pretty and "Come a Little Bit Closer" is a gorgeous tune reminiscent of the Beach Boys and especially of the Raspberries' brilliant "Overnight Sensation." Add the ominous "Bermuda Triangle" and an attractive "Bad Loser" and the end results are definitely worth investigating.


"The Real Fleetwood Mac Stands Up"
Rolling Stone article, November 7, 1974
by Cameron Crowe

Los Angeles -- Even amid their legal action against former manager Clifford Davis, Fleetwood Mac maintains a low profile. The group has had few hit singles or magazine cover stories in a quiet seven-year career, yet their concert appearances draw a steady stream of loyal followers and at least seven albums have sold in excess of 200, 000 copies [each].
Sitting in the living room of John and Christine McVie's modest Laurel Canyon home, Fleetwood Mac (current lineup: Bow Welch, guitar and vocals; John McVie, bass; Christine McVie, keyboards and vocals; Mick Fleetwood, drums) is about as visually mild offstage as they are on. There is little about their faded Levi's and J.C. Penney shirts that even hint at rock & roll.
"I guess it's just not our nature to have an image," Welch, the band's only non-Englishman, concedes. "At some point you just have to realize that you may never be Elton John. But then again, the point isn't to sell a record to every man, woman, and child on earth. The point is to have a career, do what you're doing and do it well. Fleetwood Mac has done just that."
For the past year, thought, much of the band's time has been spent in law offices, locking horns with ex-manager Davis. According to Fleetwood, Davis approached the road-weary musicians last year about another nationwide tour. Met with rejection, he assembled a new Fleetwood Mac and -- claiming full rights to the name -- booked a tour.
"We were all on holiday when we found out what had happened," Fleetwood says. "Before the bogus band played too many dates, we had to physically get together and take legal advice. The impression Clifford had given was that he had every legal right to do what he did. We very soon found out, apart from morally having no excuse, there was no legal right."
The band went to court and also to the studio. They emerged from the former with a restraining order that put a halt to the pseudo-Mac, and from the latter with their 12th album, Heroes are Hard to Find. Still outstanding, though, is a final legal determination on ownership of the name.
The band agrees they have already won an important victory. "When things like this have happened," Fleetwood says, "many bands haven't had the stamina to see it through. It's very easy to say, 'God, it's just not worth it.' I'm sure Clifford never felt for one moment that we would stick this out. We manage ourselves now."
So Fleetwood Mac is on the road again, for the first time in a year. "Ironically, this is gonna be our vacation," Fleetwood says, grinning. "It's like we've forgotten what all the hassles were about….We should have a lot of fun."
Mick Fleetwood, along with John McVie, an original member, remembers the early club days when it was Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac and the quartet also included double lead guitarists Green and Jeremy Spencer.
Their first album, Fleetwood Mac, topped the English LP charts, and a string of medium-sized British hit singles followed, including the original "Black Magic Woman," Soon after, Danny Kirwan join the group as third lead, and a month later they cut their only million-selling 45, an instrumental "Albatross."
The band produced four more albums -- English Rose, Mr. Wonderful, Fleetwood Mac in Chicago, and Then Play On, their debut LP for Warner Bros. -- before getting a taste of musical chairs in 1970. Peter Green quit the band and began to work on an instrumental solo album. It was titled, prophetically, The End of the Game; Green subsequently disappeared from the music business. For a replacement, the band added John McVie's wife, the former Christine Perfect of Chicken Shack. Leaderless, they recorded the much acclaimed Kiln House. From there, it was off to America.
Spencer departed in 1971--simply disappeared from hi Los Angeles hotel room, later turning up in the ranks of the Children of God, a religious cult. Welch, a Californian who came from a background of Los Vegas showbands, filled the slot.
Fleetwood Mac's next albums, Future Games and Bare Trees, displayed a brighter style of rock, laced with cooing harmonies and pretty melodies, Not long after Bare Trees, however, Danny Kirwan amicably left to pursue a solo career and was replaced by former John Baldry guitarist Bob Weston. The five piece band lasted for two albums, Mystery to Me and Penguin (with the brief inclusion of ex-Savoy Brown singer Dave "Tell Mama" Walker n the latter). Now with the release of Heroes are Hard to Find, Weston is gone, too.
But the real Fleetwood Mac is accenting the future -- and right now that's the tour, a 43-date swing that ends December 1st -- with yet another addition, Doug Graves on keyboards. "We can't complain," Fleetwood says. "This band has always been able to work when we wanted to."

Note: The article is accompanied by a group shot of Fleetwood, C. McVie, J. McVie, and Welch drinking champagne out of one another's glasses.



Rolling Stone Record Review for Bare Trees
June 08, 1972, p. 56
by Bud Scoppa

Fleetwood Mac's last two records, Kiln House and Future Games, have between them provided me with perhaps a hundred hours of enjoyment. And that's the ultimate test of a record's worth. Personally, I was never interested in early Fleetwood Mac, the British blues band; but this Fleetwood Mac has little in common with that group except for the name and rhythm section of Mick Fleetwood and John McVie. The closest thing I can think of to the kind of music the new Mac plays is the moody rock of the middle-period Beatles. Kiln House is similar to Beatles 65 in its dual concerns with vintage rock 'n' roll and muted, romantic pieces. Jeremy Spencer took care of the former, while Danny Kirwan, extended the style best represented by McCartney's "I'll Follow the Sun."
Since Spencer left, the band has been forced to re-orient itself somewhat: Kirwan has become the sole focal figure, and this central role has forced him to deal in the visceral as well as the moody areas. But Kirwan had already shown that he was well-equipped to handle both. His "Jewel Eyed Judy," "Tell Me All the Things You Do," and "Station Man" are among the best examples of the soft-hard rock song, with their lively, silky vocals and smoking guitars. If Kiln House holds up somewhat better than the gentler Future Games, Kirwan's dynamic songs are at least as responsible as Spencer's presence on the former album.
Bare Trees falls somewhere between the last two Fleetwood Macs; that is, it hits harder than Future Games, but its concerns are much more introspective than those of Kiln House. Kirwan has written two melancholic, really elegiac songs based on the bitter sweet poem of an elderly woman, "Thoughts on a Grey day" that closes the album. The first song, "Bare Trees," its title suggested by a line from old Mrs. Scarrot's poem moves along exhilaratingly, even though its lyric is a metaphor of old age and approaching death; perhaps it's the acceptance of the cycle that gives the music a hopeful, almost happy feeling. The second, "Dust," is a great deal more somber, but it retains Kirwan's deft melodic touch, manifesting itself in both the sighing vocals and in the guitar lines that sweep softly alongside it. "Dust" sets the stage for the poem, which is similar in effect to the "Voices of Old People" track on Simon and Garfunkel's Bookends. The group has thoroughly preceded the poem with about fifteen seconds of silence, sufficient time to pick up the tone arm if you're not in the mood.
The rest of Bare Trees isn't nearly so melancholy, nor is it structured to conform to the theme Kirwan has developed. Christine McVie's two songs, "Homeward Bound" and "Spare me a Little of You Love" (which sounds like a hit single to me), make it clear that she's become a fine songwriter and a persuasive vocalist -- she's somewhere between Sandy Denny and Dusty Springfield, and there's no doubt that she could make it on her own. Bob Welch's two contributions, however, don't approach the power of "Future games." His "The Ghost" and "Sentimental Lady," while not unattractive in themselves, are the weakest tracks on the album. Both are trite.
As before, it's Danny Kirwan who makes the difference. There's nothing on Bare Trees to equal "Station Man" or "Jewel Eyed Judy," but, aside from "Dust," Kirwan's songs here rock much more than his Future Games material did. He really lets loose on "Danny's Chant," which features tough-guy electric guitar sounds purely for their own sake. His "Child of Mine" is a lyrically disjointed but musically forthright rock 'n' roll son. Kirwan's instrumental, "Sunny Side of Heaven," shows off his unique electric guitar style to good advantage. Like most outstanding guitarists, Kirwan gets a sound that is more plainly human than mechanical. His guitar tone is piercing but tremulous -- powerful but at the same time plaintive, especially in the upper ranges.
With his multiple skills, Kirwan can't help being the focal point. It is his presence that makes Fleetwood Mac something more than another competent rock group. He gives them a distinctiveness, a sting. He makes you want to hear these songs again.



Rolling Stone Record Review for Kiln House
November 26, 1970, p. 38
by. J. R. Young.

I was sure that Peter Green's departure from Fleetwood Mac signaled the end of that band. And it did. That band went under. It was, after all, Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac in the beginning, and although never a mere showcase for Green's all too obvious talents, he was still most decidedly the Kingfish of the Kombo.
OK. That band folded, but the band didn't fold. Danny Kirwan and Jeremy Spencer took up the slack and built a new engine for the Fleetwood Mac machine. They didn't try to drive around or hide what most people thought would be a conspicuous hole in the band (Green's place), but rather shifted gears and a made a quick high speed turn off the cosmic trail Green had left them on and headed out the two lane highway of high-class vintage rock & roll.
The road wasn't new to them. Perhaps a year or two ago, Jeremy Spencer made a solo English album (not released in the states), and it was apparently one of those things he had to "get out from under his skin." It, too, was vintage R & R, but it was also a parody of sounds ranging from Buddy Holly to Jan and Dean and even Presley's more maudlin stuff. It wasn't exactly a stellar performance on Spencer's part, but it was a lot of fun. The band that backed him on the album was the band that is today Fleetwood Mac. Peter Green played banjo on one track.
Kiln House, on the other hand, is not a parody, and it is a much more carefully conceived and prepared album, as opposed to the "hey, let's record all this raunchy stuff I have laying around my flat" that the Spencer album indicates. Spencer's album would make both Holly and Vincent blush; Kiln House, on the other hand, is a venture that would make Holly and Vincent unabashedly proud as godparents to the album.
This isn't merely another rock & roll revival album. Fleetwood Mac is only dependent upon the past for certain flavorings, and is not tied to the same Oldie-Goldie trip in the jejune manner that, sat, Cat Mother was, or any of the other hot**** bands attempting to resurrect the past on the past's own lost ground. With Kirwan keeping Spencer's apparent excesses in tow ("Blood on the Floor" could have been terrible had it gotten away from them. It didn't, however, and survived admirably.) and with more time to **** around in the studio, Fleetwood Mac has ferreted out the early subtleties of classic R & R rather than dealing with the early excesses that plague so many of today's Revivalists. The best of the oldie-moldie is met on Fleetwood Mac's own ground and own terms, and the sound is much wiser for it.
The roots aspect ("Let's see, isn't 'Hi Ho Silver' based upon John Lennon's Plastic Ono, which originally was based etc. etc…") eventually goes by the boards, and what emerges is one of those albums that hangs on to your head for a long time, and one which you seek out as relief from all those insipid-and-virtually-unlistenable-after-two-times-through albums making the rounds these days. Pick it up today and you'll find yourself humming "Tell Me All the Things You Do" for the next few months.

[macfan 57]

Thanks for posting. Pretty interesting reviews, although I don't agree with the reviewer about "Sentimental Lady". It's one of my favorite Bob Welch songs. I definitely don't think it's trite.

[dougl]

Heroes Are Hard To Find
Fleetwood Mac
Reprise MS 2196
Released: August 1974
Chart Peak: #34
Weeks Charted: 26

The Mac are back, having escaped the autocratic machinations of their sometime manager, and they're sounding really good. Penguin was poor, Mystery To Me was iffy, but Heroes Are Hard to Find is a solid piece of work. For one thing, they rock more and smoother on this album than they have since Future Games; for another, they've finally settled into a homogenous style of which the last two records had only tastes: Penguin's "Remember Me" and "Revelation," Mystery's "Hypnotized" and "Keep On Going." They've dropped Bob Weston, the competent but unnecessary second guitar; Bob Welch now handles all guitars, and the lyrical spirits of Peter Green and Danny Kirwan aare invoked on Heroes, with success. Those clear, linear guitar leads over busy rhythm figures, and high, simple vocals, have always been the Mac sound, though it's undergone certain shifts in emphasis to accomodate the artistic preferences of first Green, then Jeremy Spencer, then Kirwan, and now Welch and Christine McVie. Their sound is, to use an all-but-dead word, unique: there just ain't no other outfit that sounds remotely like Fleetwood Mac.

The title track roars in with a blast horns -- an uncharacteristic overstatement for this band, a change from their usually subtle mix. But it works well, giving the song a strong punch. Written by Christine McVie, it's built around two chords, like many of her songs, including this album's "Come A Little Bit Closer" and "Bad Loser" (written about that manager); it's to her credit and the band's that the arrangements and musicianship are so artful that you hardly notice how plain the songs are. A number of Welch's songs are, as usual by now, in that shifting, swaying "Hypnotized" bag, halfway between shuffle and samba. The standouts are "Angel," which manages to be diffuse, swinging, and funky all at once; "Bermuda Triangle," a second installment in Welch's catalogue of parascientific phenomena which began with "Hypnotized" (it's got a fierce, almost American Indian backbeat laced with choice acoustic guitar licks); "Born Enchanter," a Crusaders-style jazzer with Welch on vibes; and "Safe Harbour," a brief instrumental full of arpeggios and cymbal washes, which Welch has described as "Albatrossesque, a floater." There's no dreck anywhere on this record. The vocals are as beautifully harmonized and uncloyingly sweet as can be, and the bottom laid down by John McVie and Mick Fleetwood is Gibraltar-steady, hustling along, keeping every song right on the money -- these two guys have propelled their band through nine albums, and for my dough, rock hasn't got a better rhythm section. This is a classy band, and Heroes is a strong, mature, and rewarding effort.

- Gerrit Graham, Phonograph Record, 11/74.


Fleetwood Mac came over in the second wave of the British musical invasion and though the personnel has changed since then, the percussion/bass core of Mick Fleetwood and John McVie remains the same while keyboardist/vocalist Christine McVie and guitarist/vocalist Bob Welch have been members long enough to make them almost "originals." Though the band no longer plays the hard blues they rose to fame with, they remain one of the stronger rock entries in the pop sweepstakes. Ms. McVie is a superb singer with a bluesy voice, Welch is a top-notch guitarist and the band as a unit has learned to mix good blues with more pop oriented rock material. Good use of strings here does not interfere with basic sound, and group gets a bit more commercial each time out without losing the distinctive sound they have reached. Best cuts: "Heroes Are Hard To Find," "Come A Little Bit Closer," "Bermuda Triangle," "She's Changing Me," "Prove Your Love."

- Billboard, 1974.

The proof that their formula has finally trapped them is the pitifulness of their attempts to escape -- with string synthesizer, pedal steel, half-assed horns, and other catch-22s of International Pop Music Community. Bob Welch sounds bored, which is certainly poetic justice, and even Christine McVie is less than perfect this time out. Their worst. B-

- Robert Christgau, Christgau's Record Guide, 1981.

[dougl]

Mystery To Me
Fleetwood Mac
Reprise 2158
Released: October 1973
Chart Peak: #67
Weeks Charted: 26
Certified Gold: 11/9/76

Mystery To Me is an album of low-key English rock performed with great proficiency and occasionally enlightening subtlety. "Miles Away" flat out moves, propelled into the domain of the current Savoy Brown by compelling, solid rhythm work and Bob Weston's enticingly electric musings on lead guitar. And "Somebody" turns out to be compatible with the group's earliest work, a bluesy shuffle with hefty helpings of boogie bite.

"For Your Love" is a patent example of a successful exercise in extrapolation, with the band turning the Graham Gouldman/Yardbirds original around and doing it their own way. Weston's lead guitar is again the star, punctuating vocal phrases, leading the rest of the band through updated instrumental changes. A true lead guitarist at work. "Why" also proves to be on the interesting side -- showing that he, too, has listened to Blind Willie Johnston's "Dark Was the Night."

- Gordon Fletcher, Rolling Stone, 1/3/74.

Bonus Reviews!

The band that started as a pure blues outfit has matured into one of the most melodic groups around, shifting material perfectly to match the shifting of personnel. Vocals of Christine McVie on cuts such as "Just Crazy Love" and Bob Welch's guitar on tunes such as "The City" are superb. A band that can rock or keep it soft.

- Billboard, 1973.

This album epitomizes what Fleetwood Mac has come to be, setting a gentle but ever more technological spaceyness over a bottom that, while never explosive, does drive the music with a flair and economy, the least you can expect of a band named after its rhythm section. Even Bob Welch does himself proud. B+

- Robert Christgau, Christgau's Record Guide, 1981.

At this point, Fleetwood Mac is a mainstream rock band whose songs alternate between guitarist/singer Robert Welch and keyboard player/singer Christine McVie. * * *

- William Ruhlmann, The All-Music Guide to Rock, 1995.

And more...

Future Games
Fleetwood Mac
Reprise 6465
Released: October 1971
Chart Peak: #91
Weeks Charted: 12

Back in the Bar-Mitzvah days of the drug culture the British music scene was shaken by what came to be known as The Blues Boom. Beginning with a small corps of dedicated musicians in the early Sixties, blues bands proliferated at a fervish pace until by 1968 nearly every person in the British Isles between the ages of 16 and 35 was in a blues band. But by its very popularity the blues boom insured its own destruction. After all with so many people in unsuccessful blues bands how could anyone afford to buy anyone else's records? So the boom subsided as the less accomplished musicians in the lot went on to find some measure of economic stability as light bulb designers, pop artists, members of hard rock groups, or what have you.

Of the many second generation British blues musicians who remained active Peter Green was among the most promising. During his tenure with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, Green had distinguished himself as a fine singer and guitarist -- a worthy successor to Eric Clapton. Indeed, on much of Mayall's second American album, A Hard Road, Green was the dominant personality. It came as no surprise when in 1967 Green left the Bluesbreakers to form his own band, Fleetwood Mac.

The other band members were Mick Fleetwood, a comically attenuated drummer; John McVie, Mayall's longest lasting bass player; and Jeremy Spencer, a fanatical admirer of Buddy Holly and Elmore James, whom Mike Vernon had discovered playing piano at a seedy blues bar in a seedy British town. Not long after releasing their first album the band was augmented by Danny Kirwan, a mere slip of a lad, who if he progressed at the expected rate seemed well on his way to becoming God Jr. The band's second album, English Rose, most certainly rates as one of the best British blues albums, handily fulfilling everyone's expectations. One of the album cuts, "Albatross," was released as a single and rose to the top of the world charts.

It was not long before the band left Columbia and the tutelage of Mike Vernon and after nearly signing with Andrew Oldham's Immediate Label found a home with Reprise. This event was marked by the release of a single, "Oh Well," which had been quite successful in Europe, but flopped in the US, followed shortly by an album entitled Then Play On.

With Then Play On and increasingly in their live performances the band began to show rather disintegrative tendencies, torn between Green's hard-driving intense style, Spencer's imitations of old rock stars, and Kirwan's growing predilection for mush-mouthed balladry.

Green quit and the happy balance of English Rose was lamentably short-lived. Kiln House was released and Christine Perfect (Mrs. John McVie) formerly of Chicken Shack joined the band. While Fleetwood Mac was often very good at this stage, with Green's departure they had suffered a discomforting loss of intensity. Last year while on tour in California Jeremy Spencer quit, defecting to one of the many strange religious cults so popular in Southern California. (I have some sympathy with Spencer. If I had to go to Los Angeles again I might join some strange religious cult). Spencer's place was filled, more or less, by American singer-guitarist Bob Welch.

So, it is with a lineup of Kirwan, McVie, Welch, Fleetwood, & McVie that Fleetwood Mac is heard on Future Games. For my taste, the album has little to commend. Danny Kirwan is out front on most of the cuts and sadly his singing and playing appear to have lost their edge. His voice drones, innocuously, he plays almost aimlessly, and the songs he writes are just too long. One of them, "Sometimes," might have been good but it lingers on purposelessly and painfully for six and a half minutes. Only once, on "Morning Rain" does his playing briefly equal his past performance and his tough, rather disjointed style almost re-emerges. Christine McVie puts in far and away the best performance of the album, but this too is disappointing in the light of her past achievements and potential. Her voice sounds surprisingly weak and emotionless here. Her piano playing too is not up to her know capabilities. Still one of her songs, "Morning Rain" does have its moments. While Fleetwood and McVie handle their rhythm chores competently they have usually been heard to be much better. As for Bob Welch his talent appears to be notable only for its lack of distinction, but perhaps he too has the ability to do better.

Future Games is a thoroughly unsatisfactory album. It is thin and anemic-sounding and I get the impression that no one involved really put very much into it. If Fleetwood Mac have tried to make the transition from an energetic rocking British blues band to a softer more "contemporary" rock group, they have failed. If they have simply lost interest, I hope they regain it in time to salvage what was once a very promising band.

- Loyd Grossman, Rolling Stone, 12/9/71.

Bonus Reviews!

The British art-rock group comes through personnel changes with consistent quality. Excellent harmonies on the title track. Heavier underground stations will prefer "Lay It All Down" and the instrumental "What a Shame." Good musicianship, well produced by the group.

- Billboard, 1971.

These white blues (and hippie rockabilly) veterans shouldn't have to depend on new recruit Bob Welch's deftly metallized r&b extrapolation for rock and roll, but unless you count the studio jam, they do. And if the best song on the album isn't the slowest, that's only because Welch also has mystagogic tendencies. It's the simplest in any case: Christine Perfect's "Show Me a Smile." B

- Robert Christgau, Christgau's Record Guide, 1981.

By the time of this album's release, Jeremy Spencer had been replaced by Bob Welch and Christine McVie had begun to assert herself more as a singer and songwriter. The result is a distinct move toward folk-rock and pop; this album sounds almost nothing like "Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac." Welch's eight-minute title track has one of his characteristic haunting melodies, and with pruning and better editing could have been a hit. Christine McVie's "Show Me a Smile" is one of her loveliest ballads. Initial popular reaction was mixed: the album didn't sell as well as Kiln House, but it sold better than any of the band's first three albums in the U.S. In the U.K., where the original lineup had been more successful, Future Games didn't chart at all, the same fate that would befall the rest of its albums until the Lindsey Buckingham-Stevie Nicks era. * * *

- William Ruhlmann, The All-Music Guide to Rock, 1995.

With both Bob Welch and Danny Kirwan, Future Games has an appealingly spacy sound, plus Christine McVie's pretty "Show Me a Smile." * * * 1/2

- Steve Holtje, Musichound Rock: The Essential Album Guide, 1996.

[macfan 57]

Thanks for posting all of these reviews. I LOVE reading these old reviews, even if I don't necessarily agree with them. Mystery To Me iffy?

[Les]

Originally Posted by aleuzzi

Maybe someone could post them into the Blue Letter archive

You got it. I'll add them now. Thanks for posting these. Thanks to dougl too for posting the others.

[HomerMcvie]

Mystery To Me was iffy

Yeah, only one of the best albums of all time, you dolt!

[SteveMacD]

In some ways, I can sympathize with some of the bad reviews. I'm sure "Future Games" was WAY out of left field for many reviewers in 1971. Same goes for MTM in 1974. There are elements that may have appealed to some reviewer in 1974 that, thirty years later, I can't stand and vice versa. I'd take MTM over HAHTF any day. But, I can see where, in 1974, a reviewer would prefer HAHTF. It's not as risky.