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Rolling Stone (12/1979), Tusk Review
At a cost of two years and well over a million dollars, Fleetwood Mac's _Tusk_ represents both the last word in lavish California studio pop and a brave but tentative lurch forward by the one Seventies group that can claim a musical chemistry as mysteriously right -- though not as potent -- as the Beatles'. In its fits and starts and restless changes of pace, _Tusk_ inevitably recalls the Beatles' "White Album" (1968), the quirky rock jigsaw puzzle that showed the Fab Four at their artiest and most indecisive. Like "The White Album", _Tusk_ is less a collection of finished songs than a mosaic of pop-rock fragments by individual performers. _Tusk's_ twenty tunes -- nine by Lindsey Buckingham, six by Christine McVie, five by Stevie Nicks -- constitute a two-record "trip" that covers a lot of ground, from rock & roll basics to a shivery psychedelia reminiscent of the band's earlier _Bare Trees_ and _Future Games_ to the opulent extremes of folk-rock arcana given the full Hollywood treatment. "The White Album" was also a trip, but one that reflected the furious social banging around at the end of the Sixties. _Tusk_ is much vaguer. Semiprogrammatic and nonliterary, it ushers out the Seventies with a long, melancholy high. On a song-by-song basis, _Tusk's_ material lacks the structural concision of the finest cuts on _Fleetwood Mac_ and _Rumours_. Though there are no compositions with the streamlined homogeneity of "Dreams", "You Make Loving Fun" or "Go Your Own Way", there are many fragments as striking as the best moments in any of these numbers. If Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks were the most memorable voices on _Fleetwood Mac_ and _Rumours_, Lindsey Buckingham is _Tusk's_ artistic linchpin. The special thanks to him on the back of the LP indicates that he was more involved with _Tusk's_ production than any other group member. Buckingham's audacious addition of a gleeful and allusive slapstick rock & roll style -- practically the antithesis of Fleetwood Mack's Top Forty image -- holds this mosaic together, because it provides the crucial changes of pace without which _Tusk_ would sound bland. The basic style of _Tusk's_ "produced" cuts is a luxuriant choral folk-rock -- as spacious as it is subltle -- whose misty swirls are organized around incredibly precise yet delicate rhythm tracks. Instead of using the standard pop embellishments (strings, synthesizers, horns, etc.), the bulk of the sweetening consists of hovering instrumentation and background vocals massively layered to approximate strings. This gorgeous, hushed, etheral sound was introduced to pop with 10cc's "I'm Not in Love", and Fleetwood Mac first used in _Rumours'_ "You Make Loving Fun". On _Tusk_, it's the band's signature. Buckingham's most commercial efforts -- the chiming folk ballads, "That's All for Everyone" and "Walk a Thine Line" -- deploy a choir in great dreamy waves. In McVie's "Brown Eyes", the blending of voices, guitars and keyboards into a plaintive "sha-la-la" bridge builds a mere scrap of a song into a magnificent castle in the air. "Brown Eyes" sounds as if it were invented for the production, rather than vice versa. About the only quality that Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie share is a die-hard romanticism. On _Tusk_, Nicks sounds more than ever like a West Coast Patti Smith. Her singing is noticeably hoarser than on _Rumours_, though she makes up some of what she's lost in control with a newfound histrionic urgency: "Angel" is an especially risky flirtation with hard rock. Nicks' finest compositions here are two lovely ballads, "Beautiful Child" and "Storms". Her other contributions, "Sara" and "Sisters of the Moon", weave personal symbolism and offbeat mythology into a near-impenetrable murk. There's a fine line between the exotic and the bizarre, and this would-be hippie sorceress skirts it perilously. McVie is as dour and terse as Nicks is excitable and verbose. Her two best songs -- "Never Forget", a folk-style march, and "Never Make Me Cry", a mournful lullaby -- are lovely little gems of pure romantic ambiance. With a pure, dusky alto that's reminiscent of Sandy Denny, this woeful woman-child who's in perpetual pursuit of "daddy" evokes a timeless sadness. _Tusk_ finds Fleetwood Mac slightly tipsy from jet lag and fine wine, teetering about in the late-afternoon sun and making equisite small talk. Surely, they must all be aware of the evanescence of the golden moment that this album has captured so majestically. -- Stephen Holden, Rolling Stone, 12-13-79. http://bla.fleetwoodmac.net/index.ph...v2&id=531&c=18 121 people have viewed this thread in the last 24 hours! |
Los Angeles Times
Thursday, December 6, 1979 Fleetwood Mac Puts Some Teeth in “Tusk” by Dennis Hunt Can “Tusk” captivate a tough audience? Before Fleetwood Mac’s Tuesday night Inglewood Forum show many didn’t think so. “Tusk” is the pop-rock quintet’s latest album. Its critical reception has been mixed and music fans haven’t been buying this two-record set in record numbers either. “Tusk” has sold just over 2 million but the band’s previous and best album, “Rumours,” has sold 12 million. A solid test of the new album’s concert appeal is having it work on Los Angeles audiences, which are known throughout the industry for being supercritical and somewhat jaded. Well, the “Tusk” material does work in concert. With a show centered around those songs, Fleetwood Mac not only satisfied the Forum crowd but it had it panting for more at the end of the two-hour set. To get the audience in a receptive mood for the less familiar “Tusk” material, the band opened with a string of oldies, including “Don’t Stop” and “Dreams.” The strategy worked. Had Fleetwood Mac begun with the new material the reaction might have been less positive. Most of the songs on “Tusk” sound strained. The band labored over the album and it shows. The fluidity and craftsmanship of “Rumours” just isn’t here this time. “Tusk” isn’t a bad album. It just isn’t as good as “Rumours,” which is no crime considering “Rumours” comes as close to pop-rock perfection as any ‘70s album. The “Tusk” material, though, did sound much better live. The punchier concert accompaniment added a dimension to the songs that is missing on the recorded versions. On the album the songs are softer. In concert they were extended and embellished and turned into powerhouse rock’n’roll pieces. Fleetwood Mac, a 12-year-old band that has been through numerous personnel and stylistic changes, now consists of drummer Mick Fleetwood, bassist John McVie, singer Stevie Nicks, guitarist Lindsey Buckingham and keyboards player Christine McVie. Nicks, Buckingham and Christine McVie write and sing the songs. Democracy governs Fleetwood Mac. No one performer dominates. However, since Nicks and Christine McVie sing more songs than Buckingham, the group does tend to have a feminine tone. Rock’s premier showmen are under no threat from anyone in this band. They perform with exuberance and considerable skill but without flash and flamboyance. Pretty, long-haired Nicks is by far the most intriguing of the three lead singers. Attired in flowing, layered dresses, she looked ethereal, which was in sharp contrast to her rather coarse sound. Though her unusual style, on gloomily romantic songs like “Sara” and “Rhiannon,” had its grating moments, it was quite appealing most of the time. The liveliest number in the show was “Tusk,” a noisy nonsense piece that always seemed to be one step away from chaos. The USC marching band, which played on the single, also backed the band on the concert version, which had the feel of halftime at a football game. The song has no lyrical substance but that didn’t matter. Its essence is a festive, rowdy spirit that came across vividly. Instrumentally, the show was exceptional. Through the mainstream rock accompaniment was neither complicated nor challenging, the four musicians played it superbly. While not in a league with rock’s greats, Buckingham is an underrated guitarist whose dexterous playing can be dramatically effective. The major difference in Fleetwood Mac’s albums and its shows is the dominance of Fleetwood’s drumming. On the records his playing is somewhat subdued and definitely subservient to all the other elements. In concert, however, Fleetwood takes charge. Because of his free reign, there was rhythmic thunder on almost every song. His powerful percussive support radically enhanced the impact of the material. Fleetwood Mac’s last local appearance, a three-day Forum engagement in 1977, sold out but this five-night series hasn’t. On Tuesday night, however, most of the 17,000 seats were filled. Tickets are still available for the shows tonight, Monday and Tuesday. Given that the “Tusk” album hasn’t been a sales blockbuster, a five-night engagement was apparently too ambitious. The opening act is Danny Douma and Night Eyes. http://bla.fleetwoodmac.net/index.ph...v2&id=889&c=18 156 people have viewed this thread in the last 24 hours! http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...haron/9c_3.jpg |
Creem, August, 1979, The Best Seat in Town
LOS ANGELES - Anybody with a living hormone or two can tell you what Stevie Nicks' true appeal is, but if you say so in public, you might get sued. A local punk outfit, The Rotters, released a single called "Sit On My Face, Stevie Nicks," which tore up the charts at KROQ and had sold over 2000 copies when who but Mick Fleetwood himself called up the station, gave them a severe "tongue lashing" (it says so right here, honest) and demanded that they stop playing it. Further verbal lickin's from F. Mac legal busybodies convinced the station to drop the tasty tune from their playlist. C'mon now, Mick. Was it REALLY that offensive to you, or is this just another case of SOUR GRAPES? http://bla.fleetwoodmac.net/index.ph...v2&id=178&c=11 110 people have viewed this thread in the last 24 hours! |
Excerpts from:
Omaha Rainbow, Issue 22 Autumn 1979 The "Bombs Away" Interview John Stewart interviewed by Peter O’Brien September 21, 1979 Montcalm Hotel, London, England **** Speaking about meeting Lindsey and getting him involved in the album - "You know the story about Lindsey learning to play guitar off the Trio albums and me learning to play electric guitar off Lindsey Buckingham albums. So I met Walter Egan at the Union and asked him what it was like working with Lindsey, and he said, ‘you gotta meet him because . . .’ blah, blah, blah. So then I went over and met Lindsey when he was mixing ‘Hot Summer Nights’ and said, ‘Lindsey, I’d really like you to produce this album.’ He said, ‘I’d like to but I’m doing Fleetwood Mac.’ He came out to the house a few times and we worked on tunes and he said, ‘I really want to do this.’" **** Speaking about working with Lindsey on the album - "On my birthday last year he (Lindsey Buckingham) and Joey Carbone and Russ Kunkel came down and played for free on ‘Midnight Wind’ . . . It was the best birthday I ever had, yeah, it was great. Got drunk out of our brains. Then I started doing the rest of them - ‘Somewhere Down the Line" and Lindsey came in and did that live; ‘Spinnin’ of the World’ live; and then just overdubbed the crap out of that. . . . Lindsey would come in for 14 hours at a time and then I wouldn’t see him again for a month. . . . As far as Lindsey went, it was just the way he would point the way to things, show me the direction in which to go, make me a mix that was just mindblowing, and play some guitars or do some vocals." **** Speaking about Lindsey’s willingness to help during John’s desperate times - "Oh the pressure that Al Coury (RSO record company president) was putting me under at that time was really inhuman. I mean, to make anyone go through that and to have the likes of Lindsey Buckingham in the studio, and not say, ‘Hey, go ahead, this is going to be great,’ and to bring in songs like ‘Gold’ and ‘Midnight Wind’ and him saying they’re not hits when you know goddam well they are - or at least as close to a hit as I’m gonna come - and to have no support or encouragement from the record company, I was absolutely against the wall. It got worse . . . . At one point as I went in, I called up Lindsey. I was so off the wall I could hardly talk to him. I said, ‘Lindsey, please, you’ve got to come in and play.’ I just sounded like a madman. I was." **** Chris Whelan, bassist for John Stewart, speaking about the financial difficulties John encountered while making "Bombs Away Dream Babies," and how Lindsey helped - "It got to the point right before ‘Bombs Away’ was finished, he was way over budget, he had no more money, and the album was not finished...like, on 'Living in the Heart of a Dream,' there was still a lot of things he wanted to do with that tune, but there was no more money....he actually had let the band go right before ‘Bombs Away’ was finished. Lindsey put in about 20 grand of his own money to finish the album." **** Speaking about working with Stevie on "Gold" - "Mary Torrey is a friend of Stevie Nicks and when Stevie came down to do ‘Midnight Wind,’ we were going to mix ‘Midnight Wind’ and I really wanted her to sing on ‘Gold.’ Because when she did ‘Midnight Wind,’ she heard ‘Gold’ and said, ‘Oh, I really want to sing on that.’ And I didn’t have the money at that time to put her on. I said, ‘I can’t do it without seeing that amount of money.’ We’d all had a few drinks at that point and what you say at four in the morning half in the bag is not what you might say in the cold light of a sober day. So when she came down to do ‘Midnight Wind’ I had ‘Gold’ out prepared - I had it up ready to go and pretended I was mixing it or whatever. I could tell when she walked in by the look on her face that she was not gonna sing that night. She just had that ‘I ain’t singing’ look on her face. So I said, ‘Stevie, I’m gonna go out do the tag on this song - let’s you and Mary and I go out and sing the end.’ Well, Mary began to cry and I went, ‘Oh, my God, what did I say?’ Stevie said, ‘John, this is Mary’s dream to sing on a record.’ I said, ‘We’ve got to go out and do it.’ So we went out and did the tag and Mary was singing and crying. http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...op_525x600.jpg I had the lyrics to ‘Gold’ written out on enormous cue cards because Stevie really can’t see too well. Mary went back in the booth and I grabbed Stevie and said, ‘Stevie, come on, let’s just do the verses on this song. It’s not gonna take long.’ I said, ‘Turn the tape on,’ so they turned the tape on and held the cue cards out and I put my hand over Stevie’s mouth when she wasn’t supposed to sing and hit her in the back when she was and she did it in one take and I got her on the song." **** Speaking about working with Mary Kay Place and Lindsey on "Over the Hill" - "She was doing an album at Village and I’ve always been a big fan of Mary Kay’s. I think she’s a great singer . . . great attitude. I went down and I said, ‘Mary Kay, I’m gonna do this song. Would you come by and sing background?’ She said, ‘Sure.’ She got to the studio that night and was absolutely petrified with fear. Said, ‘I’ve never sung background before.’ I said, ‘Mary Kay, there’s nothing different with singing background. You’re just singing lead with another melody.’ Lindsey was there and she was absolutely intimidated by Lindsey, because Lindsey’s so confident in the studio that you want to hit him. She started screaming at him, ‘You’re so confident, you’re so damn professional, I can’t do this!’ So Lindsey and I sat her down, said, ‘Mary Kay, don’t be ridiculous. Come on.’ Gave her a couple of drinks and she got it great." **** Speaking about his inspiration for the song "Comin’ Out of Nowhere" - "It was the only time I ever wrote a song about another song. That song is written about a song of Lindsey’s on the ‘Tusk’ album called, ‘That’s Enough For Me.’ When I heard it, it was absolutely devastating, and I wanted to write a song letting people know there was something coming that would knock their ears off their heads." **** Speaking about having to lie to his record company to be able to keep his own material on the album - "You want to know about that song? ‘Hard Time Town’ was a song that Buffy wrote and I doctored it up a bit to make it more commercial. Went in and told Al Coury that Lindsey wrote it and that if we didn’t do it, he’d give it to Walter Egan, and that this was the hit we were looking for. That’s how desperate I got." **** Speaking about having heard the album "Tusk" which was about to be released and the single "Tusk" which had been released to radio - "I don’t think they need any plugs, but I’ll just say it’s a terrific album and not at all like ‘Rumours.’ ‘Tusk’ is great. It’s really a good laxative for the radio constipation of the world. It’s really back to what rock’n’roll started as . . . fun. Where music should be. It is not like anything else on the album. The album sounds nothing like ‘Tusk,’ and that’s the reason they put it out - just let people have no idea what the album is like. They took a real chance with the album and I’m gonna have to hand it to them, they were very courageous. It would have been very easy to go in and do another ‘Rumours’ with the same format and have guaranteed sales. They’re the hardest working people I’ve met in my life and Stevie Nicks is one of our finest songwriters who is never given any credit for the amount of incredible songs she’s written. I think she puts most of the singer/songwriters in the toilet. She’s got a song called ‘Angel’ which is the best one she’s ever written. She’s got a song called ‘Sisters of the Moon’ which is a killer - absolute killer. Lindsey has some really bizarre good songs and Christine came through with some good things. A much different album. I can’t even tell you what it’s like, but it’s nothing like ‘Rumours’ and it’s definitely Fleetwood Mac." ************************************************************************** Excerpts from: Omaha Rainbow, Issue 22 Autumn 1979 Capitol Radio Interview John Stewart interviewed by Roger Scott September 21, 1979 London, England **** Speaking about the pressure from his record company to make a top-ten album and meeting Lindsey Buckingham - "Al (Coury) called me and said, ‘John, let me lay it to you straight. If you don’t get a top ten record you’re off the label. I said, ‘Oh, okay.’ He said, ‘I know it’s tough but I do it every day.’ I’ll never forget that. ‘I know it’s hard but I do it every day.’ He said, ‘You’ve got to tell me what you’re gonna do. You’ve got to bring me demos in.’ I said, ‘Al, I’ve got three songs and . . . at this point, to really make a long story short, I’d met Lindsey Buckingham. I said, ‘There’s no-one in the world I want to produce my album except Lindsey Buckingham. He’s the only one who has any idea of how to make records that I really like. I think he’s got the secret.’ I’d learned to play electric guitar listening to Lindsey Buckingham records and found out that Lindsey learnt to play electric guitar listening to Kingston Trio records, so we’d been talking to each other for eight years before we even met. I said, ‘Lindsey, you’ve got to produce this album. He said, ‘Okay, I’d like to do it, but Fleetwood Mac is recording now and it’s gonna be tough, but I’ll go in and do some songs with you.’ We went in and did ‘Gold,’ ‘Midnight Wind’ and ‘Runaway Fool of Love.’ I brought them in to Al and he said, ‘Nope, not hits.’ At this point Lindsey and I were pounding our heads against the wall saying, ‘What does he want?’ Went in and did three more songs - not right. I said, ‘Oh, Al, please.’ He said, ‘Alright, go in and finish the album.’ Well, at this point, Lindsey said, ‘I can’t continue. I’m just so into the Fleetwood Mac album that I’ve got to do that, but I’ll come in and play guitar whenever I can.’ So I was left alone with the control board for the first time in my life. I’d no idea what to do absolutely no clue on what it was all about - I just started learning. I started fooling with it. Lindsey would come in and make these mindboggling mixes and I’d say, ‘Lindsey, you’ve got to tell me what you’re doing with those knobs,’ because it’s so involved with EQ, with peaking and shelving, low end and DDLs and all that. ‘Lindsey, sometime teach me what you’re doing.’ He said, ‘I’m turning the knobs till it sounds good,’ and that really got me through the album. I went, ‘Right!’ So I just started turning the knobs until it sounded good. I had one engineer walk out on the album. Said, ‘I can’t take any more.’ . . . ." "Then Stevie came in and I said, ‘Stevie, this song is really your kind of song,’ so she heard the track and said, ‘Yeah, I’d like to sing on that.’ She came in and we spent twelve hours one night doing ‘Midnight Wind.’ She said, ‘John, this is a classic. It’s the best record I’ve sung on since ‘Rhiannon’.’ That’s when I started going, ‘Oh yeah? Maybe I’ve got something there.’ She said, ‘John’ - she’s got a great wisdom, she’s got a great clarity - she said, ‘John, let’s make hits. We’ve all made the other kind of record. Let’s make hits. They’re more fun to make.’ I said, ‘Right, let’s make some hits!’ She came in a couple of times and we did ‘Gold’." **** Speaking about the inspiration to the line -"people out there turning music into gold" - from the single "Gold" - " . . . going to Lindsey’s mansion in Hollywood! I said, ‘Lindsey, what does it feel like living in a place like this?’ He said, ‘Well, when I first moved in, I waited for my parents to show up and to take care of it.’ It’s just a song away. I’ve always maintained it’s just a song away. Lindsey was starving before Fleetwood Mac. Just four years earlier he and Stevie were living in a one room apartment, so I said, ‘My God, there’s people out there turning music into gold,’ and I just started playing that riff and built the song on that." ************************************************************* Excerpts from: Omaha Rainbow, Issue 20 Spring 1979 O’Bsessions with John Stewart Interview with Tom De Lisle (John Stewart’s friend and associate) by Peter O'Brien **** Speaking about the first time John met Stevie - "Well, Stevie had been raised on The Kingston Trio. In fact, she told John, ‘If you knew how many hundreds of hours Lindsey made me sit and listen to your albums!’" **** Speaking about Lindsey’s involvement with "Bombs Away Dream Babies" and recording next door to Fleetwood Mac - "Yes, without knowing it, John and Lindsey had been mutually admiring each other’s work, although they had never met. I found that Lindsey was, like many of us, an absolute Kingston Trio freak and a tremendous Stewart fan. He can tell you what guitar John played on a given song. Much of the Fleetwood Mac sound is based on the Trio. They heavy rhythm guitar up front with the lead guitar being played through the melody like a banjo. In fact, Lindsey plays lead guitar the same way you play a banjo, and he based it on John’s Trio playing. And I remember back in 1976, John was listening to Mac’s huge album and telling me he could hear banjo licks being played on a guitar all through the album. He’d say, ‘Listen to that, it’s like the Trio.’" . . . . "Oh yeah. In a sense, he (Lindsey) kind of co-produced it with John. He plays guitar on a lot of the songs and you’ll hear him singing quite a bit. Oh, I must point out that for a while Fleetwood Mac was recording next door to where John was. And one night, we went in to hear part of their new album. They put up a song of Lindsey’s called ‘Down the Road’ or something like that. Anyway, it was absolutely devastating. The first song of the ‘80s. It was like nothing John or I had ever heard. Just an ass-kicker. I felt like I did the first time I heard ‘Satisfaction’ in ’65. Just a tremendous song, something you have to hear." (note: John Stewart’s version of the same story reveals the song Tom misremembers here is actually Lindsey’s "That’s Enough For Me" off the ‘Tusk’ album). Thanks to Lesley Thode for sending this to us. http://bla.fleetwoodmac.net/index.ph...v2&id=179&c=11 |
Circus Weekly, April 10, 1979
"Back Pages" Column by Lou O'Neill, Jr. http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d.../christine.gif SHOCKER FROM THE COAST: It's all true what they're saying about Beach Boy Dennis Wilson and Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac. Almost overnight, the couple has become inseparable. Friends say Christine has never been happier. Our snoop tells us Dennis and Christine are living together for stretches of three and four days at a time. Basically, dashing Denny has been hanging out at Christine's plush apartment in west L.A. http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d.../christine.gif Close friends of the pair got a big laugh recently when Chris and Dennis were assigned separate seats for the American Music Awards. Yet after the show ended, Chris and Dennis managed to find each other very, very quickly at the private soiree following the show. Meantime, Fleetwood Mac continues to work on their double-LP. Mick took a break from the sessions to produce an album for his protege, Denny Douma. Warner's will ship Douma's effort on May 4. The new Bob Welch record has a definite Fleetwood Mac feel to it and every indication points to a runaway hit. http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d.../christine.gif We figure the next Fleetwood Mac album will go one of two ways: Either it will sell an incredible amount of units (15 to 25 million) or else it will sell a very "modest" amount (perhaps 3 or 4 million copies.) With fleetwood Mac, there's just no in-between. By the way, that WAS Christine McVie backstage at Gotham's Radio City Music Hall last month when the Beach Boys came to town for four nights. Christine flew all the way in from the Coast to be with Dennis for one day. Then back to El Lay. She also receives a "special thanks" credit on the new Beach Boys album. Ah, how sweet love it! http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d.../christine.gif http://bla.fleetwoodmac.net/index.ph...x_v2&id=10&c=2 126 people have viewed this thread in the last 24 hours! |
Rolling Stone, February 22, 1979
Guitars of the Stars Lindsey Buckingham, Fleetwood Mac's lead guitarist, owns about twenty guitars, including Fender Telecasters and Stratocasters, Gibson Les Pauls, a Gretsch Country Gentleman and Gretsch Tennessean, plus an acoustic Martin D-28. Onstage, Buckingham favors a 1974 Gibson Les Paul he found in a West L.A. music store. "Before I joined Fleetwood Mac, I used a Fender Telecaster because it suited by finger-picking style," he said. "I wanted to use a Fender onstage when we first started playing live, but it didn't fit into the texture of the piano sounds Christine [McVie] was getting, so I switched to a Gibson Les Paul. While a Telecaster sounds great from three feet away, the Les Paul sounds beefier to anyone sitting in the back of the hall." Other than a six-string Alembic guitar, Buckingham has not had any of his axes custom designed. "It's all in the player really," he said. "Look at somebody like Hendrix. It didn't matter what guitar he had or even if it was in tune. The thing is, if you can connect, you can get anything you want out of an instrument. There's no dream instrument that could give you everything. You just have to use your imagination." http://bla.fleetwoodmac.net/index.ph...x_v2&id=34&c=9 |
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People Magazine, July 16, 1979
Where Have All The Kingston's Gone? John Stewart went from 'cold as a mackerel' to hot as Fleetwood Mac by Rich Wiseman A star rock guitarist like Fleetwood Mac's Lindsey Buckingham is forever being told by worshipful players that they learned everything by listening to him. John Stewart said just that -- and was astonished, he beams, when "Lindsey told me he had learned to play guitar off my records." The works in question include quiet classics like Reverend Mr. Black, Greenback Dollar and Where Have All the Flowers Gone?, which Stewart sand with the Fleetwood of folk, the Kingston Trio. "It was," says the 39-year-old Stewart, "as if Lindsey and I had been talking to each other for years without knowing it." The communication across the generation gap was more direct - and mutually reverential - when Lindsey, 29, spent 50 hours helping John produce his current "last ditch" album. Since the Trio died in 1967, John had released eight solo LPs but was "cold as a mackerel" and suffering from deep depression. Three records labels had dropped him, and a fourth was threatening to if this new one failed. Stewart whimsically titled it Bombs Away Dream Babies. No way will it be a bomb. Its big single, Gold, bears not only Lindsey's ringing guitar but also the ever-sexy backup voice of his Fleetwood colleague Stevie Nicks. Unsurprisingly, Gold is already a Top-20 smash on its way to gold and possibly platinum. Bombs Away is ticking in the same direction. "Great relief has swept over my body" sighs Stewart. "This is a new breath of life. Lindsey's a genius and there's no price tag to put on that kind of support," he says graciously, adding: "I find it hard to deal with the fact that what I've worked so hard for the last 11 years has finally happened." Stewart, a horse trainer's son, began to impersonating Elvis as a high schooler back in Pomona, Calif., did local gigs with the Furies, then embraced the late-'50s folk boom with the Cumberland Trio. When Dave Guard quit the Kingston Trio in 1961, Stewart stepped in at 21. He got a $500 weekly salary and was hardly wealthy when the Trio split six years later. But he recalls, "I lived a good life. I bought an Austin-Healey, married my high school sweetheart, had three kids and wasn't into drugs." Yet Stewart still had not chased his self-doubts. "I felt I had dropped into a good thing." Even rags-to-rhinestones cowboy - ex-Trio accompanist - Glen Campbell coldly concurred. Stewart says Glen once snapped at him: "You won't get any help from me - you haven't paid your dues." Indeed, John was soon paying something more painful: alimony and child support. (Ex-wife Julie and three teenage kids live in Northern California). To add to his mid-'70s problems, he had developed severe jaw misalignment that cause the grinding down of his teeth. They had to be periodically recapped and left him in constant pain. Along the way Stewart passed up a chance to team with "a kid from Texas who used to hang out backstage with the Trio, telling everybody what a big star he'd be someday - John Denver." Stewart had only one commercial success as a songwriter (the single Daydream Believer for the Monkees) and one critically admired LP. California Bloodlines, that wouldn't sell. "I was low," admits Stewart. "Suicide is too strong a word - I didn't have the pills at bedside - but I didn't know what to do." The turnaround came in 1977 after Stewart, rather shrewdly, asked his cult fans at an L.A. club to write in requesting that RSO Records President Al Coury sign him. His first record died, and John had to go $9,000 in personal hock to put out Bombs. Now John and second wife, a singer Buffy Ford, live modestly in a two-bedroom Malibu cottage shared with a dog and two cats. (Of the Kingston boys, the Stewarts see predecessor Dave Guard, now a San Francisco songwriter, who sang backup on one cut of Bombs. They also are in touch with Nick Reynolds, and Oregon rancher. Bob Shane is again touring with a new Kingston Trio group). A teetotaller at home, John keeps his 6'2" frame lean on yogurt, juices, light foods and jogging. John met Buffy when she was singing at a Bay Area club. They cut a duet LP in 1968 and married in 1976. "We don't put a great deal of stock in tomorrows," he says. "We live for the todays . . . but not in a hedonistic way." To say the least. After learning the necessary dental skills, Stewart meticulously - and painfully - recapped his own ground-down teeth monthly for the past year to avoid costly dental bills. But Gold royalties last month allowed him corrective oral surgery. Through he plans to buy "a car that works" to replace a '72 junker, the Malibu tennis scene is still out. "It's too expensive around here," says Stewart, who has a different personal measure for success. "It's the Rocky syndrome," he says. "I want to prove that I can go the distance." Article cover photo has John leaning against his car wearing a shirt that says, "Personal Friend of Richard Dashut." Picture of John next to Lindsey who is playing and singing. Caption: John and pal Lindsey Buckingham may form a group called Codpiece "to have fun and cut an album with no pressure." http://bla.fleetwoodmac.net/index.ph...x_v2&id=35&c=9 101 people have viewed this thread in the last 24 hours! |
Can someone explain this thread to me?
Why are we reposting old articles that can already be found on this site then boasting about how many views this thread is getting? |
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I found the Tusk packaging the most annoying on earth. Once opened, it could never fit neatly back together. I tore the inner sleeves. It was maddening.
Michele |
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...n/3990_1_b.jpg
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/d...dge1751mac.jpg http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h8...3eeb30e4wl.jpg http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h8...Stevie/111.jpg At this point in time the song SARA was a single and getting lots of radio airplay. |
I am loving all the pictures here ... and I just looked at the ones on this last page of the thread only.
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While Fleetwood Mac is on the holiday break from The Tusk Tour I will be posting some live shots from their past tours for Rumours and the White Album.
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Maybe you California Ledgies can enlighten me.... |
1st two photos are from the Grammy's, January 1978
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why the hell are we getting updates on how many page views this thread is getting? anyone who wants to know can look on the main page, just like for every other thread.
at this point, i really don't get the point of this thread at all. |
Why is virtually every picture of Stevie Nicks?
are there no other members of the band??? :mad: Gail |
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...but we aren't talking about the tour. :confused: it's just random pictures and articles that are already in the BLA. a day-by-day, stop-by-stop breakdown of the tour is the idea, but this looks like it's just turned into one more opportunity to spam the fleetwood mac board with stevie pictures, "break" or not.
where's the discussion? where're mick, john, chris, and lindsey? i'm sorry, i'm really not trying to be rude, but this just looks like attention whoring with the post view count and what not. if nothing was going on with the tour worth talking about, why all the uselessness? why not just skip ahead to the next thing? i guess i just don't understand the need to follow it in real time. for all the shows that didn't have articles or bootlegs, what's the point in waiting for that day to pop up just to read what venue it was? :confused: |
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http://i182.photobucket.com/albums/x...bels/c-l-s.jpg http://i182.photobucket.com/albums/x...s/scan0007.jpg I can't tell what John's wearing.... And check out how close that cigarette is to Lindsey's Head/Hair. It reminds me of the Michael Jackson Pepsi accident. |
Blimey there are other members of Fleetwood Mac and not just Stevie!
Gail |
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I took Baton Rouge 1978 MP3s with me to the gym the other day. The playing (the attack, the licks, the riffs, the vamps, the tramps & the champs), the mixing & the generally dry signals on all the mics (maybe that's just because of the soundboard) all remind me of the first leg of the tusk tour -- shows like St. Louis, Rochester, Providence, the Garden. Makes sense, because only a smidgin over one year separated these tour legs. In fact, in many ways specific to sonics & performance, the 1978 tour is closer to the tusk tour than to the rumours tour proper (1977). Even Stevie's & Lindsey's voices are indistinguishable from August 1978 to October 1979. The big difference is -- as you all know by now -- that Christine's chunky, legato-free Hohner was replaced by the sustain-heavy Yamaha CP, which brought an entirely different ambience to songs like Rhiannon & Dreams. In fact, this is one of the rare examples where the keyboardist's actual riffs are dictated by the type of instrument: Chris played Dreams verses with a different riff in 1978 (on the Hohner) & in 1979 (on the Yamaha). I also believe that Christine's personality changed around this time. She grew harsher, more anxiety-ridden, more prone to sudden fits of violence & disquietude. |
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I think this is a great thread! Brings back wonderful memories. True, I have most all of these articles in their orig. form tucked away in a trunk someplace, but I love rereading them here. I wish ppl would post more pics from the Tusk era - imo the best of the Mac eras. If ppl don't like or appreicate this thread, don't read it.
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Fleetwood Mac wasnt onstage in Jan 1980, so there's nothing specific to post right now. After all, many a thread has gone page after page when a few people decided to hijack it by bickering. So if someone feels like the other band members are being ignored, why not start threads on those who are left out. I dont mind Stevie being the focus of attention, and as someone pointed out- there she was center stage and pretty much the visual focus of the band since 1975. IMO. |
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Pretty much any article you could ever want to read about FM or any of its "components" can be found in the ridiculously extensive Blue Letter Archives. http://bla.fleetwoodmac.net/ |
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Do you agree with me that the style of playing in the band was most similar from the 1978 tour to the 1979 tour? |
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And yes, Tusk is the whole group. That's my point. If you'll look above, you'll notice that we're just getting Stevie pictures and info. I probably do have a reputation for being at least slightly anti-Stevie. It's not so much that I'm anti-Stevie... I do like her. I'm anti-Stevie-getting-all-the-attention. It rubs me the wrong way a little harder when it comes to Tusk, too, because that is really Lindsey's brainchild. That's not to say that the whole group isn't magnificent on it, because they are and it wouldn't be what it is without all of them. But if Stevie's going to get all the attention on one album-era, it sure as heck doesn't need to be Tusk. Tusk is sacred to me. <3 |
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Here are a couple of Tusk article comments that aren't already on the site:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...gewanted=print Following the ups and downs of Fleetwood Mac through the years has been a little like following a particularly convoluted soap opera. The band's original lead guitarist left to take religious vows, and at one point a manager with whom the group was quarreling sent an ersatz Fleetwood Mac out on the road. Musicians have come and gone. When the band's latest configuration prospered, with platinum albums and successful world tours, the musicians' personal relationships began to suffer. John and Christine McVie dissolved their marriage, and the romance between Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood Mac's most recent recruits, turned sour. But along with Mick Fleetwood, the band's drummer and manager, they managed to keep Fleetwood Mac together. A happy ending? Not quite. After working in recording studios for two years, Fleetwood Mac released ''Tusk,'' an ambitious, eccentric double album. Fans and critics who had admired the group for its lush pop-rock found the new record puzzling, and the tour that followed it was uneven. There were several problems, the most serious of which was that Stevie Nicks seemed to be losing her voice. Will Fleetwood Mac retain its immense popularity, and if so, will its five members continue to put aside their personal differences and function as a unit? Will Stevie Nicks overcome her vocal problems? The soap opera continues. The latest episode, a double album called ''Fleetwood Mac Live,'' (Warner Brothers) which was recorded on the ''Tusk'' tour, isn't very revealing. On ''Tusk,'' Lindsey Buckingham emerged as Fleetwood Mac's unofficial musical director, and his inventive guitar work and quirky vocals are responsible for the new album's liveliest and most interesting moments. Miss McVie is a fine songwriter and an appealing, atmospheric vocalist, but her live performances tend to be sober and professional, and Miss Nicks, who's normally more outgoing, sounds distant and restrained here. Too much of the music sounds like five individuals contributing letter-perfect parts to someone else's project. Obviously, ''Fleetwood Mac Live'' is a holding action. What trials and tribulations await the band around the next curve in the road? Stay tuned. |
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