Bob Welch played the bass on Keep on going according to his Q & A

In an interview from 1979, you stated that your earlier involvement in a 60's R&B outfit called "The Seven Souls" may have evolved into similar musical styling of Earth, Wind, & Fire. Have you ever had the desire to make a dance-able 70's style jazz-funk album?

I understand that your early musical training was on clarinet, which I recall that you accidentally broken onto pieces on purpose when you were young. Did you ever play the flute/clarinet parts for that wonderful song called, "The Ghost" from the Fleetwood Mac LP "Bare Trees?" Besides playing guitar, did you ever play bass on any Fleetwood Mac LP's?

I don't mean to get too personal, but how many times were you married and do you have any children? (K.E. Gil, Los Angeles, California, USA)

The Seven Souls were actually part of a large group of players in LA, that were all in different bands, but sort of trying to do the same thing. There was the 'Souls, there were the guys, Bobby Watson and Tony Maiden, who later, with Chaka Kahn, turned into "Rufus",. Up north, there was the disc jockey on KYA, Sylvester Stuart, who later was "Sly" of "Sly and The Family Stone".. CBS records was going to sign either the Seven Souls, or Sly Stone to a recording deal. They picked Sly...good choice, much more original than our band was.You even had bands like "The 5th Dimension", actually they were a singing group, who the Seven Souls used to back up when they were still called "The Versatiles". Then you had all the Ike and Tina Turner review alumni, like "Nose", and David T Walker of "The Kinfolks", who later became a much recorded session player. All of us sort of knew each other, from the clubs, we had the same friends etc. The Seven Souls even played at Jordan High School in LA for Motowns debut of The Jackson 5. And Larry Williams, he of "Bony Marony" fame produced one of the Seven Souls two singles. It was a "tight" scene"!
I took Clarinet lessons for about 6 years, and played in the school orchestra, when I suddenly realized that the girls didn't think guys with clarinets were 'cool".

The flute parts on The Ghost, were played by Christine McVie on a "Mellotron". I played bass on quite a few Mac songs ;"Revalation", and "Keep On Going" come to mind.

I've been married 3 times, and never had any kids, just 2 dogs ! ;-)

http://www.fleetwoodmac.net/penguin/qa/bobwelch_qa2.htm


This surprised me - I had known about Revealation but not KOG. I wonder what the others were?

basically ALL of Stevie's song with the Mac have benefitted tremendously from John's contributions. Dreams immediately comes to mind, with the bass line being a signature feature... just that bass and Mick's drums and you know what song it is. She could sing just over those bits alone and it would be amazing. Rhiannon for sure. Sara. Thrown Down. Straight Back. Angel. the list goes on and on.

His work all over SYW is underrated.

I knew about Revelation, too. KOG is a surprise. I doubt he played bass on more than three or four, tops.

Someone needs to do an interview with John, we always hear very little from his mouth. He's always been a very soft spoken guy. I would love to hear the story from his point of view, we've heard everyone else's countless times.

John used to do more interviews etc but in more recent years has left that to the others. It seems to be his preference. If you haven't done so, I suggest you have a read of the Q&A sessions he did for this site. Some good stuff there-

http://fleetwoodmac.net/penguin/qa/

I smiled as I read this as it took me back to that Best Buy interview with John chuckling about Molly performing Rhiannon, the looooong version, at a school event.

It's funny, I never really paid attention to the bass line in GYOW until Mick mentioned it in the Rumours documentary (wish they would do a Tusk analysis like that). Same thing with Rhiannon; I first noticed it when John played it separately in the 2009 (I think) documentary. I generally listen to the overall song, or guitar parts, but it can be fun to focus on another instrument.

And thanks for that article! I hadn't seen it before.

And I would love to see a book from John. You don't know what you'd get, since he's said so little.

Yes, I enjoyed that. Also, I loved when Stevie was on Chris Isaak's special and the band played the opening notes of Rhiannon, just to tease.

Michele

That Rumours commentary where they all talk about what they remember from each song was priceless. Michele

I agree- one of the irreplaceable treasures of this website is it's Q&As. The website is still called "The Penquin" isn't it? Who better to invite back than John- if he had time.

You Make Loving Fun!

I forgot to mention that one, great bass line in that song.

I volunteer

[Interview Comment from Mike Mills of R.E.M.]

By MARC MYERS Updated April 12, 2016 Wall Street Journal


http://www.wsj.com/articles/behind-r...ion-1460479898

Mike Mills (bassist): Typically, we’d rehearse a song three or four times until each of us figured out what we were going to do on the recording. In this case, though, we had to rehearse the song more times than usual. I had a lot of trouble figuring out what I wanted to do with the bass line. There was a lot of sound to fill at the bottom since the mandolin was in the upper register, but my line couldn’t overcome the mandolin.

Eventually, I asked myself, “What would bassist John McVie do?” I super-admired Fleetwood Mac, and John’s lines were always simple but melodic. They lift songs rather than hold them down. Thinking about John inspired me to come up with a line that locked down the bass part. Once the three of us finished the demo, we gave the cassette to Michael [Stipe].

I would not disagree with anything that has been said already. Will just add a few more.

Everybody finds out blows you away.

And one that may surprise you and even surprised me. During this last tour, the cameras would focus in on John during Gold Dust Woman parts. Very cool bass parts that you mostly pick up live.

Oh Daddy is pretty cool too.

But seriously we could go on forever