'It's our tune': How Fleetwood Mac worked with the USC marching band to create 'Tusk'

[WalkAThinLine.]

An article on how Fleetwood Mac coordinated with the USC Marching Band to record "Tusk"


https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/46871615/usc-band-fleetwood-mac-tusk-collaboration

[Villavic]

Nice article. Some differences with Mick’s book (as usual); he didn’t write he got a few drinks and jet-lagged, but a serious hangover, and the village brass band was on a Sunday morning, not at night. I don’t know if in his second book he updated the story with “early morning”, which it would match better with “2 a.m.”. Anyway those are no so significant details, but however it happened, all signs point to Mick being very involved in the song's creation. It's not clear to me whether the drum part was entirely his contribution (“the tribal, hypnotic toms of Fleetwood”, “Fleetwood slapping a leg of lamb with a spatula”), but I've always wondered if his whole involvement wasn't enough for Lindsey to share songwriting credits with him.

Cause comparing both stories, after reading many articles and stories about these two songs, I've always thought that Mick had more importance in the authorship of Tusk than in The Chain.

[David]

Excellent read. Thanks for sharing.

“How are the tenors, Tony?” Now we know who Tony is.

Tony Fox, the assistant director, called back. He was stunned to find it genuinely was Fleetwood on the other end.

So Bartner, the longtime band director, and Fox, his trusted assistant and the arranger for the band, headed to Studio D at Village Recorders. There, the two college band directors worked with Buckingham and Fleetwood, two rock music giants, to arrange the score. Then they went back to USC and fine-tuned it. They got another call from Fleetwood.

Tony Fox arranged the horn parts. The song is really three-fourths his! His horns are the very essence of the song.

A long time ago, on the Usenet “newsgroup” devoted to Mac, one of the original horn players (named Kevin) from 1979 started posting and telling us some of the great stories about doing Dodger Stadium that day (and the Forum six months later). He said that the band bought every Trojan a new uniform.

Also mentioned was when Lindsey, Mick, and Stevie showed up on the infield at halftime for the USC — Arizona State playoff game, a few weeks after the TUSK tour ended. That season, I had season tickets for USC home games and I was there. Total surprise to see Fleetwood Mac (without the Mac) just a month after I had seen Fleetwood Mac (with the Mac) at the Bowl.

To this day, the Trojans and the Mac at the Forum in December 1979 is still unreleased. Perhaps Rhino can be convinced to release a full show from that five-night run. After all, they’ve already done two other full Forum concerts.

[WalkAThinLine.]

Dovetailing off the previous comments, I would agree that Fleetwood played a crucial role in shaping the song. To receive writing credits, an individual generally would have had to contribute to either the melody, chord progression, or the lyrics. I've sometimes seen the song structure cited as another element of the song that is occasionally considered when doling out writing credits. Fleetwood was not really responsible for either of these things, perhaps with the exception of the drum solo, although I'm curious whose decision it was to add a drum solo after the main horn riff.

[Street_Dreamer]

Songwriting credits have changed a lot from 1979 to today. Had Tusk came out recently, Mick would most definitely have received writing credit.

Dovetailing off the previous comments, I would agree that Fleetwood played a crucial role in shaping the song. To receive writing credits, an individual generally would have had to contribute to either the melody, chord progression, or the lyrics. I've sometimes seen the song structure cited as another element of the song that is occasionally considered when doling out writing credits. Fleetwood was not really responsible for either of these things, perhaps with the exception of the drum solo, although I'm curious whose decision it was to add a drum solo after the main horn riff.

[bombaysaffires]

Songwriting credits have changed a lot from 1979 to today. Had Tusk came out recently, Mick would most definitely have received writing credit.

Mick and John, because the basis was the drum/bass riff that they would use to warm up with and then Lindsey started thinking oh this would make a good possible song and you can listen to all the permutations of him working on it on all the Tusk outtakes on the repackages of Tusk. The infamous loop of tape that snaked around the control room of Mick and John playing that part and then Lindsey using that to figure out what guitar chords and melody line to lay over it.

Agree that by today's standards which are far more generous than in the past they would be cowriters, or would have more of a leg to stand on to request being listed.

[Villavic]

My point was why Lindsey didn't decide to include Mick (and John) in the credits. I mean there was already the precedent of The Chain, where I understand that everyone contributed to the song, including John, but I don't recall reading that Mick contributed any part, and yet he was included in the credits. In that case, I think it was a more noticeable exception to the credits standards than it could have been in Tusk.