Break Down of Bare Trees

[Hawkeye]

We somehow skipped this one. But no problem we'll do it now

AMAZING: Homeward Bound, Bare Trees, Spare Me a Little of Your Love

Great: Sunny Side of Heaven, Sentimental Lady, Dust

REALLY Good: Child of Mine and The Ghost

Good: Danny's Chant

HMMMM: Thoughts on a Grey Day

[ontheEdgeof17]

Really Good: Dust, Sentimental Lady, Sunny Side of Heaven, Spare Me A Little, Bare Trees, Homeward Bound

Not Bad: Danny's Chant

I Can Handle It: The Ghost, Child of Mine, Thoughts on a Grey Day


-Curt

[ThePenguin]

Great: Sunny Side of Heaven, Spare Me A Little, Homeward Bound, Child of Mine

Pretty Darn Good: Danny's Chant, Sentimental Lady, Bare Trees, The Ghost

So-So: Dust, Thoughts on a Grey Day

-Lis

[Cristian]

A gift from the Gods: Spare Me A Little Of Your Love, Homeward Bound, Dust, Sentimental Lady

Really good songs: Sunny Side Of Heaven, Child Of Mine, The Ghost, Bare Trees

Good songs: Danny's Chant

I don't get it: Thoughts On A Grey Day

I'd forgotten how much I adored this album actually. :D :thumbsup:

[wondergirl9847]

Freakin' awesome: Child of Mine, Bare Trees, Sunny Side of Heaven, Dust

Good stuff: Spare Me A Little, Sentimental Lady, The Ghost, Danny's Chant

Skipper: Homeward Bound

Cute...once: Thoughts On A Grey Day

Danny bias? Who meeeeeee? ;)

[macfan 57]

Amazing: Sentimental Lady, Spare Me A Little Of Your Love, Dust
Great: Homeward Bound, Sunny Side Of Heaven
Good: Child Of Mine, Bare Trees
OK: The Ghost, Thoughts On A Grey Day
Bad: Danny's Chant

[Hippocampus]

Simply The Best: Spare Me A Little Of Your Love, Dust

Great: Sunny Side Of Heaven, Bare Trees, Sentimental Lady

Good: The Ghost, Danny's Chant

Ok: Child Of Mine, Thoughts On A Grey Day

Below Average: Homeward Bound

[jbrownsjr]

AMAZING: Homeward Bound, Bare Trees, Sentimental Lady, Child of Mine

Great: Sunny Side of Heaven, Dust, Spare Me a Little of Your Love

REALLY Good: Ghost

Good: Danny's Chant, Thoughts on a Grey Day

[chiliD]

:blob2: = Child Of Mine, Sunny Side Of Heaven, Dust, Sentimental Lady, Spare Me A Little Of Your Love

:thumbsup: = Homeward Bound, The Ghost, Danny's Chant, Bare Trees

:shocked: = Thoughts On A Grey Day

[macmar71]

The Best~~Bare Trees, Spare Me A Little, Danny's Chant, Sunny Side Of Heaven,



Fair~~~ Homeward Bound, Sentimental Lady, Dust, Child Of Mine




Not My Cup Of Tea~~ Thoughts On A Grey Day, The Ghost

[SteveMacD]

Awesome: Spare Me A Little, Sentimental Lady, Sunny Side Of Heaven, Dust
Good: Bare Trees, Danny's Chant, The Ghost, Homeward Bound, Child Of Mine
Could Live Without: Thoughts On A Gray Day

[ShamHy89]

Awesome: Spare Me A Little, Sunny Side Of Heaven, Dust, Danny's Chant
Great: Bare Trees, The Ghost, Sentimental Lady
Good: Homeward Bound, Child Of Mine
Strange: Thoughts On A Grey Day

Shamus

[Claudia]

Very Good - Sunny Side Of Heaven, Homeward Bound, Sentimental Lady, Dust, Spare Me A Little, Homeward Bound, The Ghost

Good - Bare Trees, Child Of Mine

Not a favorite: Danny's Chant, Thoughts on a Grey Day

Overall a great album!

[michelej1]

David Bowling continues his Fleetwood Mac series with a review of Bare Trees:

Blog Critics.Org, 10-29-2010
http://blogcritics.org/music/article/music-review-fleetwood-mac-bare-trees/

Bare Trees built upon the sound and style established by Future Games as it continued to steer the group away from their blues roots toward a rock/pop sound.

The Fleetwood Mac line-up would remain guitarist Danny Kirwan, keyboardist Christine McVie, guitarist Bob Welch, bassist John McVie, and drummer Mick Fleetwood. This would be Kirwan’s last album with the band as he would be fired halfway through their tour to support the release, for missing shows.

Kirwan would go out in style as he wrote five of the eleven tracks, and they remain his most consistent group of songs. His ability to create moods with his impeccable guitar virtuosity was some of the best in rock history. “Sunny Side Of Heaven” has a sublime beauty to it. It is an instrumental that allows the listener to form his or her own lyrical images in their minds.

The title track arrived with images intact and matches well with the sparse album cover. “Dust” is a somewhat somber tune that straddles the line between folk and rock. “Danny’s Chant” proves why Kirwan was recognized as one of the leading guitarists of the day. “Child Of Mine,” at just over five minutes, gives him room to improvise.

Future Games would be Kirwan’s true swan song. He would release four solo albums between 1975-1979 but his worsening mental health would finally force him out of the music industry. He has not released any new material in 30 years.

Bob Welch would contribute two songs. “The Ghost” features nice interaction between himself and bassist John McVie. “Sentimental Lady” would be resurrected as a Top Ten solo hit in 1977 with background vocals by Christine McVie and Lindsey Buckingham. I have always liked this early less pop version better.

Christine McVie also contributes two tracks. “Homeward Bound” features her fine keyboard work as she rocks out a little. The songs points ahead to Fleetwood Mac’s and her pop future. “Spare Me A Little Of Your Love” is a gentle song about the last minutes of love.

Bare Trees remains an underrated album by Fleetwood Mac. As the old poem says, two roads were diverging in the woods and their decision to take the road less traveled, at least for them, would make a difference in the lives of Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, and Christine McVie that they could not have begun to imagine during 1972.


Read more: http://blogcritics.org/music/article/music-review-fleetwood-mac-bare-trees/#ixzz13ttuWGjc

[aleuzzi]

What does "the last minutes of love" mean in relation to Spare Me a Little?

That song, quite frankly, is about wanting some and getting some.

[sjpdg]

We somehow skipped this one. But no problem we'll do it now

AMAZING: Homeward Bound, Bare Trees, Spare Me a Little of Your Love

Great: Sunny Side of Heaven, Sentimental Lady, Dust

REALLY Good: Child of Mine and The Ghost

Good: Danny's Chant

HMMMM: Thoughts on a Grey Day

Agreed on all counts!! :nod:

[michelej1]

By Tim Cain for The Herald Review, January 10, 2014

http://herald-review.com/blogs/tim_cain/fleetwood-mac-s-bare-trees/article_19d5b7d8-7a1c-11e3-ab01-001a4bcf887a.html

Fleetwood Mac's Bare Trees

(Blame this and future posts like it on "The Year of Tim." There's no reason for me to write about this, other than that I've been listening to it and thinking about it for a week or so.)

Fleetwood Mac could have been a completely different band when they made their breakthrough to the mainstream.

In this alternate universe, if we've heard of Lindsey Buckingham or Stevie Nicks at all, it's for entirely different reasons.

The 1972 Fleetwood Mac release "Bare Trees" seemed to set them up for a huge mid-1970s breakthrough. They would have at least been some version of Foghat or Blue Oyster Cult or even Aerosmith, a tough little band that rocked its way through package tours especially of the Midwest and rode to extended success with the assistance of hip FM radio stations, and maybe once in a while got some play on an adventurous AM station.

The Fleetwood Mac that made "Bare Trees" had two guitar-playing songwriters, the rocking blues afficiando Danny Kirwan and the complex melodicist Bob Welch. And both were at the height of their game.

If you need further proof, this is the original source of Welch's 1977 hit single "Sentimental Lady." His re-working of it later was merely a shade more polished. It was a great track, but wasn't the standout track on "Bare Trees."

The standout tracks were written and sung by Kirwan. Each side kicks off with a great rocking blues-based piece sung and written by Kirwan, "Child of Mine" and the title track. He also contibuted the beautiful instumental "Sunny Side of Heaven," which caps off the album's powerful first side.

Christine McVie is known to those who came to Fleetwood Mac through their Buckingham-Nicks breakthrough as the woman who wrote the love songs ("Over My Head," "Don't Stop," "You Make Loving Fun," "Little Lies"). Some of those are brilliant - personal favorites are "Say You Love Me," "Hold Me" and "Everywhere." But on "Bare Trees," McVie contributed the rockin "Homeward Bound," arguably the album's best song.

Had she continued in that songwriting direction, and had Kirwan and Welch been able to get along and keep it together, Fleetwood Mac would have had a whole other profile.

That's not to condemn the Buckingham-Nicks version, or to say Kirwan-Welch would have been "better." Kirwan had his share of personality problems with the entirety of the band, and also battled substance abuse. The pressure of being the sole American-based constant during a stunningly traumatic period of the band's history took its toll on Welch, who resigned and was ultimately replaced by Buckingham-Nicks.

And the rest, of course, is history.

But "Bare Trees," in retrospect, holds up as a superb album. It's of its time and above, and right down to the odd little poem read by "Mrs. Scarrott" to conclude the album. It's a terrifically eccentric British touch to an album that was a must when I was in high school and fortunately remains a key touchpoint now.

[SteveMacD]

Odd that "Spare Me A Little..." wasn't mentioned. It nicely fits all of her Big Mac songs.

[moon]

I have no words to describe how much I love these songs: The Ghost, Sunny Side of Heaven (simply a piece of art), Sentimental Lady, Spare Me a Little

I really LOVE these songs: Child of Mine, Homeward Bound (Sorry Mr. Tim, but you are wrong, really), Bare Trees

I like them!!: Danny's Chant, Dust

The WTF of the album: Yes, you know...sorry Mrs Scarrott, it's interesting what you say, but...

[aleuzzi]

I have no words to describe how much I love these songs: The Ghost, Sunny Side of Heaven (simply a piece of art), Sentimental Lady, Spare Me a Little

I really LOVE these songs: Child of Mine, Homeward Bound (Sorry Mr. Tim, but you are wrong, really), Bare Trees

I like them!!: Danny's Chant, Dust

The WTF of the album: Yes, you know...sorry Mrs Scarrott, it's interesting what you say, but...



I have no words to describe how much I love this song: Dust

I really LOVE these songs: Child of Mine, Sunny Side of Heaven, Sentimental Lady

I like them!!: Spare Me a Little (love the live versions in 74 and 75 so much more), Bare Trees, Danny's Chant

Meh: Homeward Bound (great guitar, muddy rhythm sound, weak vocal), The Ghost

The WTF of the album: Isn't it obvious?

[SteveMacD]

"Bare Tress" would have been better if it didn't have "Danny's Chant" and "Thoughts On A Grey Day" on it, but instead had "Trinity" and been a gatefold, with a picture of the band on one side of the inner sleeve and the "Thoughts On A Grey Day" poem written down on the other side.

ETA: New track listing

1. Child Of Mine
2. The Ghost
3. Spare Me A Little Of Your Love
4. Bare Trees

5. Sunny Side Of Heaven
6. Sentimental Lady
7. Homeward Bound
8. Trinity
9. Dust

[PenguinHead]

"Bare Tress" would have been better if it didn't have "Danny's Chant" and "Thoughts On A Grey Day" on it, but instead had "Trinity" and been a gatefold, with a picture of the band on one side of the inner sleeve and the "Thoughts On A Grey Day" poem written down on the other side.

ETA: New track listing

1. Child Of Mine
2. The Ghost
3. Spare Me A Little Of Your Love
4. Bare Trees

5. Sunny Side Of Heaven
6. Sentimental Lady
7. Homeward Bound
8. Trinity
9. Dust

Great format for a re-release. I'll place my order. Clever idea to regulate the spoken poem to paper. I suggest keeping a snippet of Danny's Chant as a secret track that mysteriously fades in and out minutes after Dust ends.

I see the inclusion of Thoughts on a Grey Day as just their quirky way to end the album, and not to be taken to seriously, being that it was plucked out of obscurity and amateurishly recorded. It was just an oddly chosen curio, so it doesn't bother me. It gives the album a small dose of eccentricity.

[TrueFaith77]

Dust for me is the greatest non-SLC track in the history of the mac.


EDIT: OMGosh, paging the Ledgie who organizes all those polls. Greatest Non-SLC track in the history of the mac!

[SteveMacD]

Great format for a re-release. I'll place my order. Clever idea to regulate the spoken poem to paper. I suggest keeping a snippet of Danny's Chant as a secret track that mysteriously fades in and out minutes after Dust ends.
The intro on "Danny's Chant" would have been a perfect intro to "Bare Trees."

[MacShadowsBall]

Dust for me is the greatest non-SLC track in the history of the mac.


EDIT: OMGosh, paging the Ledgie who organizes all those polls. Greatest Non-SLC track in the history of the mac!

I guess that would be me? :wavey:

Interesting idea - Peter, Jeremy, Danny, Welch, Weston, D. Walker, Billy, Rick, Bekka, and D Mason - greatest song. :cool:

[nicepace]

I actually like "Danny's Chant." Not my favorite track by any means, but I don't skip it when I listen to the album.

A question for those of you who want to leave it off the album: would you like it better if it had words?

[Murrow]

The whole album is perfect for the kind of winter day depicted on the cover and in Mrs Scarrot's poem.

My personal favourites here are The Ghost and Dust although it's a shame Rupert Brooke didn't get the credit he deserved on the latter.

Spare Me A Little is a good one but for me suffers rather from the Aretha Franklin rip-off element ("just a little").

And believe it or not I actually really like Thoughts On A Grey Day - it makes me want to go and see the part of Hampshire where Mrs Scarrot lived and wonder if she ever published a little volume. I find the dialogue between her and Mick on the fadeout absolutely heartwarming.

[chiliD]

I actually like "Danny's Chant." Not my favorite track by any means, but I don't skip it when I listen to the album.

A question for those of you who want to leave it off the album: would you like it better if it had words?

I like how in concert they infused the opening wah-wah guitar part as the intro to "Tell Me All The Things You Do". Actually works better in that realm than as the intro to what follows on the record. Still like it though.

[SteveMacD]

I actually like "Danny's Chant." Not my favorite track by any means, but I don't skip it when I listen to the album.

A question for those of you who want to leave it off the album: would you like it better if it had words?

Probably not as much as Trinity. Trinity was Danny's best song from that era, in my opinion.

[Phil]

This is an undeniably great album. My faves are Spare Me A Little, Dust, Sentimental Lady, Thoughts On A Grey Day and Homeward Bound. I also really dig Bare Trees and the remaining tracks are all fine.

[michelej1]

Orlando Weekly by Jason Ferguson

http://www.orlandoweekly.com/orlando/a-case-for-bare-trees-as-one-of-fleetwood-macs-best-records/Content?oid=2372055

A case for 'Bare Trees' as one of Fleetwood Mac's best records

The Rolling Stone Album Guide says, "There are essentially three Fleetwood Macs." Being Rolling Stone, this bit of received knowledge has become the baseline for assessment about the band's 45-year history.

And, being Rolling Stone, this bit of received knowledge is superficial and totally wrong.

Really, there are nine discrete Fleetwood Macs, both in terms of lineup but also (and more importantly) in terms of sonic approach.

1 – Peter Green's blues-rock band (all those records on the Blue Horizon label)

2 – Green's mature and sonically inventive blues-rock band (Then Play On)

3 – Jeremy Spencer and Danny Kirwan expanding on Green's later ideas to varying degrees of creative success (Kiln House, Future Games)

4 – Kirwan's unheralded masterpiece (Bare Trees)

5 – The years in the wilderness when Bob Welch tried to remake the band in his image, but ended up running it into the ground instead (Penguin, Mystery to Me, Heroes Are Hard to Find)

6 – The Buckingham/Nicks years (Fleetwood Mac, Rumours)

7– The Buckingham year (Tusk)

8 – The cocaine hangover (Mirage, Tango in the Night)

9 – Perpetual reunion (Say You Will, endless touring)

This may seem like splitting hairs, and perhaps it is, but it's important to note just how different the sound of each of these eras is. It's a difference that's not only attributable to the band's shifting lineup, but also to their willingness to regularly throw out a formula that was (or wasn't) working in pursuit of something else entirely. There are gems within each of these periods, and a couple of legitimately excellent albums that are routinely overlooked (Say You Will being a prime example).

Rumours is a great album, but – and this is a huge but – it's perpetually disappointing to see this era of Fleetwood Mac held up as the only one worth paying attention to. Between the sub-canonical masterpiece of Then Play On and the Buckingham/Nicks era, there are six albums that are well worth exploring, but the most criminally ignored is Bare Trees.

Compared to Rumours, it's short and loose and not nearly as maniacally perfectionist ... but it's one of the most thoughtful, resonant and enjoyable records Fleetwood Mac ever made.

Bare Trees is Kirwan's album. The guitarist joined the band in 1969, and his impact was immediate: His fluid, ethereal and melodic playing debuted on the unlikely instrumental hit "Albatross." That song's approach – a gentle fusion of blues-rock structures and otherworldly pop sensibilities – would define Kirwan's tenure in the band. Of course, fellow lead guitarist Spencer played a substantial role as well, with his passion for classic rock & roll and slide guitar, but by the time of Bare Trees, Spencer was out (he split in the middle of a tour and joined the Children of God cult), Green had been gone for two years, and guitarist Welch (who had appeared on Trees' predecessor, Future Games) had only been in the band for about nine months.

This left Kirwan as the de facto musical leader of the band, a role that, ironically enough, neither Mick Fleetwood nor John McVie ever seemed to have any interest in. And though it's Welch's "Sentimental Lady" that's often the most-remembered song on this album, the sound here is all Kirwan.

On Bare Trees, the guitarist deftly alters the blues-rock formula to create a singular, mutant strain of what could reasonably be called "soft rock," but with none of the anodyne trappings of what that moniker would later imply. In fact, the album kicks off with a fairly rollicking stomper in the form of "Child of Mine," a groove-heavy number that you can almost picture going on for days. Kirwan's flawless guitar work is wondrous here, but it's really the strong melodic sensibility and casual beauty that he brings that makes the song shine so brightly. Conversely, the brooding, dark penultimate track, "Dust," is kept from being overly morose, thanks to the rich harmonic interplay between the guitars and the hopeful-if-resigned vocals. But it's the soaring instrumental beauty of "Sunny Side of Heaven" – which almost directly references "Albatross" – and the heavenly groove of the title track that seal up any arguments that this album ranks among Fleetwood Mac's best.

So, although the drama (and drugs) of the Buckingham/Nicks years are what Fleetwood Mac will almost always be known best for, it's worth remembering that this band's extensive discography holds plenty of surprises – and even a few lost moments of perfection

[THD]

[QUOTE=michelej1;1162986]Orlando Weekly by Jason Ferguson

(KIRWAN) debuted on the unlikely instrumental hit "Albatross." That song's approach – a gentle fusion of blues-rock structures and otherworldly pop sensibilities – would define Kirwan's tenure in the band./QUOTE]

In my opinion ,there are no" blues rock structures "in Albatross at all It is totally diatonic and uses a tonic MAJ 7TH chord- not bluesy in any way !(this is why it was so out of character for FM in the middle of a no compromise (n) hard core Chicago blues period


Quote

(Kirwan's ) fluid, ethereal and melodic playing debuted on the unlikely instrumental hit "Albatross."



t Danny's playing is great on this instrumental but he is simply playing what Peter composed .

[aleuzzi]

I hated Bare Trees when I first heard it over 25 years ago. I thought it sounded a bit muddled and anonymous. I couldn't sense a good deal of musical dynamics on it.

How wrong I was! Now I love it, but it was one of the last albums to have won me over. I think the fact Christine's vocals are not yet fully evolved here is a key reason why I underlistened to it for years. (At least Future Games had "Show Me a Smile," which sounds like mature Christine.) But now I love this record. As the writer shows, it's Kirwan's showcase--and what a showcase. The only thing that could have made this album better would have been the inclusion of "Trinity."

What a rich list of songs! I think "Child of Mine" may be one of the greatest opening cuts on a FM record. The instrumentation is layered yet concise, expansive yet restrained.


So, I agree with the writer on this point. But other parts of his breakdown--such as pairing Kiln House and Future Games in one era, and calling 73-74 the wilderness years--are, well, wrong.

[Dr.Brown]

So, I agree with the writer on this point. But other parts of his breakdown--such as pairing Kiln House and Future Games in one era, and calling 73-74 the wilderness years--are, well, wrong.

Yes, especially since Jeremy departed immediately after Kiln House and was replaced by Bob Welch (someone with an entirely different musical aesthetic) before Future Games - an album whose title track was composed and sung by Bob. I also completely disagree with his "wilderness years" assessment. Both Penguin and MTM featured some true gems. HAHTF was relatively disappointing but the band's legal struggle over the fake Mac had obviously taken its toll which played into Bob's departure following that album.

[wetcamelfood]

I like how they go through the trouble of breaking it down to NINE FM's, and they clearly don't like some of them, yet BTM and Time are STILL ignored as not even being one. They could at least call it "wilderness 2", but to not even include it?

John

[wetcamelfood]

Though I also disagree with their obvious dislike for Welch and the KH/FG "era", I will give them credit for having the guts to say that for the BN era it's "perpetually disappointing to see this era of Fleetwood Mac held up as the only one worth paying attention to" as it seems not many would say that.

John

[wondergirl9847]

Though I also disagree with their obvious dislike for Welch and the KH/FG "era", I will give them credit for having the guts to say that for the BN era it's "perpetually disappointing to see this era of Fleetwood Mac held up as the only one worth paying attention to" as it seems not many would say that.

John

Agreed...it's nice to know die-hards aren't the only ones disappointed with the "Rumours is the only album worth anything." BS.

I'm at work right now, but dang...I seriously want to listen to Bare Trees RIGHT NOW!! :blob1:

[FuzzyPlum]

This may seem like splitting hairs, and perhaps it is,

Yes it is splitting hairs.
That said, there's no way I'd group Kiln House with Future Games. Kiln House is a whole separate entity on its own.
At a push I'd group Future Games and Bare Trees together. They don't exactly have the same feel but you can pick up on the development Bare Trees makes on the groundwork started by Future Games.
Penguin is kind of on its own (mainly down to the personnel) and then I'd probably lump Mystery To Me with Heroes Are Hard To Find.

But yes it is splitting hairs as there have been so many line up changes that the albums moved on each time. A case could be made for each of those 6 albums to be separate eras.

...and yes, its absolutely crazy to omit Behind The Mask and Time which were each stand alone periods.