Richard Dashut helped on production on all the Fleetwood Mac lps from Rumours through Tango .On Tango Lindsey was not going to produce at all and the band had brought in an outside producer.I think it was maybe Nile Rodgers? This did not work out and Lindsey/Richard Dashut took over.

Yes, an interesting time. Lindsey initially opted not to produce "Tango," & the idea of bringing in Nile was tossed around. Somebody named Jason Casaro was brought in for a brief period, but according to Lindsey, the poor kid was in over his head.

I repeat Chris Goss. I want a friggin' Fleetwood Mac Rock-abum. And lindsey ROCKS live. But in the studio a lot of his guitar antics don't sound like guitar.

Last Analog Reel-to-Reel Tape Company Shuts Down
 

At the very least, it looks like Lindsey will have to come up with a new *way* of recording, even if he ends up producing the new album. Or, until new manufacturers start up, we'll just have to wait. But we're used to that, I guess...

-------------------------

WSJ.com - Tale of the Tape: Audiophiles Bemoan The End of the Reel

(WSJ.com is subscriber-only. I lifted the article from:
http://www.b12partners.net/mt/archiv...f_the_tap.html )

Jeff Tweedy, leader of the rock group Wilco, prefers to record music on reel-to-reel tape rather than on the digital equipment that has overtaken the music industry. Purists like him think it confers a warmth and richness to recordings that a computer cannot.

But last Friday, Mr. Tweedy hit a snag as he prepared for a session in Wilco's Chicago studio space: Nobody could find any of the professional-grade audio tape the band is accustomed to using. "I was under the impression that there was a shortage of tape in Chicago," Mr. Tweedy says.

What he didn't yet realize was that the shortage is global. Quantegy Inc., which may be the last company in the world still manufacturing the high-quality tape, abruptly shut down its Opelika, Ala., plant on Dec. 31, leaving audiophiles in the lurch.

Quantegy filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Monday and hopes a restructuring will eventually revive its operations. But its future is uncertain, inasmuch as demand also is dwindling for its videotape.

The news has set off a frantic scramble in the music industry as producers and studios seek to secure as much Quantegy tape as possible. By the middle of last week, most suppliers around the country had sold out their entire stocks of reel-to-reel audio tape.

The supply that remained came at prices rapidly escalating above the usual $140-per-reel wholesale price of Quantegy 2-inch tape. Walter Sear, a prominent New York studio owner, quickly snapped up 60 or 70 reels, some at prices that had ballooned by as much as 40%. "We'll have to change our approach to life without tape," Mr. Sear says.

The crunch reaches far beyond the recording industry. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration uses Quantegy tape on its space shuttles to record information ranging from pressure to temperature. This week NASA has been trying to buy 20 reels from Quantegy.

Even Hollywood is affected. Some die-hard moviemakers believe voices sound better recorded on analog tape. In making "Spider-Man 2" and the Harry Potter movies, digital recording technology has taken the front seat, but backups of dialogue were recorded on reels of Quantegy tape.

When Wilco's Mr. Tweedy found himself in a bind, he telephoned Steve Albini, a Chicago producer and studio owner who is known for his work with Nirvana and the Pixies. Mr. Albini's Electrical Audio Recording is one of the last major studios in the country to rely exclusively on audiotape.

Mr. Albini had been stockpiling tape for more than a year, worried that the end of manufacturing was near. But when Quantegy closed its doors, he redoubled his efforts to secure as much as possible. Working through normal sources, he tracked down around 65 reels, enough to make about 10 albums.

He also began "looking in the weeds," as he puts it. He tracked down contacts who buy odd lots of electronic equipment on the salvage market. Through one, Mr. Albini hit the mother lode: nearly 2,000 reels of 2-inch magnetic tape, enough to fill a small warehouse. Mr. Albini bought 100 reels and is trying to keep the supplier's name and whereabouts to himself. He says he doesn't want to see a better-funded competitor move in on the remaining stock.

Mr. Albini estimates he now has a year's worth of tape, or about 500 reels, on hand. So when Mr. Tweedy called last Friday, Mr. Albini volunteered two reels of tape -- as "a professional courtesy." But, he says, "I don't want to go into business supplying tape to people."

Looking ahead to a tape-starved future, Mr. Tweedy has a fallback: The band has an archive of around 100 reels of tape it has used in recording its various albums. By splicing out and saving the final version of each song, he figures they can maintain the archive and also generate a supply of tapes that can be recycled for future recording sessions.

Still, Mr. Tweedy jokes, if the tape scarcity continues, even some of the archived recordings might become expendable. "I'm just fearful that all the master tapes at the loft would be worth more if they were blank," he says.

Well, too bad he's passed away (a couple of years ago), but I would've suggested Tom Dowd.

He's produced/engineered most of the legends. Thelonious Monk, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, Bobby Darin, Cher, Booker T & MG's, Otis Redding, Cream, Allman Bros Band, Delaney & Bonnie and Friends, Derek & The Dominoes, Rod Stewart, Dusty Springfield, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Coasters, Lavern Baker, Herbie Mann, Bee Gees, Jackie DeShannon, The Drifters...well, look at the list yourself:

Tom Dowd Discography

uh...yeah.


I was thinking of a producer who could shed some new light on the band, not someone mainstream/tired,etc.

Ethan Johns and Rick Rubin are about as mainstream as i would go.
John Shanks and the rest of the above suggestions....snooze.

and one more thing....

I think Daniel Lanois would be fantastic. He would make a gorgeous Stevie Nicks album and would be great for a whole band album as well.

Think what Wrecking Ball did for Emmylou.

I think it would be great if Lindsey accepted to produce the new FM album with someone like Brian Eno, but only of he was completely comfortable with idea, otherwise I'll stick to Mr. Buckingham.
About Stevie I still say Jack White (Van Lear Rose has been simply amazing), Jon Brion (great musician and producer for Fiona Apple, Brad Mehldau, Aimee Mann, Rufus Wainwright, and the soundtracks of Paul Thomas Anderson movies, among others) and Rollo Armstrong (Dido ad Faithless). If not them, John Shanks :)

Romy

the idea of Jon Brion working w/ Lindsey is amazing.

For those of you who aren't familiar w/ Jon, check out Rufus Wainwright's first (self-titled album). Aimee Mann's "I'm With Stupid" and Fiona Apple's "When The Pawn" are other great examples.

His producing is really beautiful - very rich layered sounds that would be pretty spectacular on a Fleetwood Mac record...

I think so, too, Sharon.
With John Shanks at the helm again, I can virtually predict, down to the last measure, just what her next solo album would sound like.

'Tain't my idea of a good time . . . .

I've said this before, I think it was a while back on the Lindsey forum. A Buckingham/O'Rourke collaboration would be amazing. I think Jim O'Rourke is a damn genius. And those two with their similarities in production and musicianship...I drool over the thought of such an album.

I have to agree that Richard Dashut has always done good things to those FM albums he was on, so he would be a good choice. Rob Cavallo, who appears on Say You Will should be a good choice too. Let me pick a producer out of a hat who has not yet been mentioned in this thread: Greg Penny, who worked with K.D. Lang, Paul Young and Elton John amongst others before. He's always putting the artist's tone first on his productions.
I agree that John Shanks wouldn't be a good choice, because he tends to overpolish things with ProTools. Just listen to the Joe Cocker album he produced to hear what I mean.
And I also agree that Don Was would be a great producer for Stevie, as he has been previously, on that duet with Ringo Starr on the Harry Nilsson tribute album from the mid-90s.
I must say I cannot imagine Stevie's voice harmonizing so well with Daniel Lanois' textures as Emmylou's did. Pidgeonholing a producer for one great thing he did can lead to so-so results: an example that springs to my mind is Charlie Sexton, first on Lucinda Williams' Essence and then a few years later on the equally slow-tempoed Volcano by Edie Brickell.
After all, maybe David Kahne can help FM, too?