Let's show some love for Penguin and Heroes!
 

So I know a lot of Mac fans view these as the ugly ducklings/red headed step children of the Mac bloodline... but I've always really enjoyed these two albums. Christine's material in particular is fantastic in my opinion... Did You Ever Love Me, Remember Me, Dissatisfied, Come A Little Bit Closer, Prove Your Love... the list goes on and on. Some of her best material, in my opinion. I think Prove Your Love is perhaps Christine's most underrated song... LOVE that one. Almost charting into Stevie Nicks-style ethereal territory. I adore Bob's contributions to these two albums as well... he was really starting to get far out in his love of mysticism and philosophy... but I think he's just terrific! I think there's a plentitude of very high quality, very intelligent pop music on these two albums. They have their blemishes, yes, but they almost serve as character to me instead of detriment. I can't help it, I just plain enjoy these two albums... how about y'all? :blob2:

Ah yes the Derelict! Best damn song ever from Fleetwood Mac with maybe the exception of Rhiannon.

;)

EDIT: Interesting that you aren't showing any love for Mystery to Me

Mystery To Me is very well respected in the Mac community (especially by myself... on a song by song basis, it's perhaps the strongest Mac album of them all). I thought it'd be nice to show some love to the lesser appreciated chapters of the Mac story. :wavey:

I love the Heroes Are Hard To Find album. Penguin has its good parts and bad. All of Christine's songs on Penguin are good. I think Heroes is the better album. My favorite Christine song of all time is 'Prove Your Love'.

It's not your fault louie..., Fleetwood Mac is a lot like the band Chicago, only more intrenched. While Chicago was slowly drifting towards pop music while supreme guitarist Terry Kath was alive, they really fell off the cliff when Kath accidentally killed himself in 1978. It wasn't long after that Chicago became unlistenable.

Mick Fleetwood would've followed Peter Green into the Sun (except when it came to money), that's how good the original FM band was. Peter Green left at the worst possible time for the band's growth. They would've shared rock stardom with Led Zeppelin, The Who, the Rolling Stones, The Allmans, and The Dead. As long as Danny Kirwan was in the band, FM still had that "it".

While Mick Fleetwood took the money route, and has had financial success beyond his dreams (ala ABBA), he didn't create "The Mick Fleetwood Blues Band" to make more cash. Mick Fleetwood misses Peter Green.

I'm surprised Heroes Are Hard To Find isn't well respected! I mean, that's really surprising to me! :nod: With the exception of "She's Changing Me", this is a very creative album, much like... well, all of the FM albums I've heard so far, actually!
As for Penguin... well, I haven't heard it yet! :laugh: But I ordered it at JB Hi-Fi, so it should arrive soon... anyway, I love "Did You Ever Love Me" (I own SF25YTC)! If most of the other songs on Penguin are of that quality, I'd be hard pressed not to love it! :nod:

Well, Penguin has two major turds on it... perhaps two of the worst Mac songs ever: I'm A Roadrunner and The Derelict. I mean they're really bad... and placed smack in the middle of the running order... so I think that sours the overwhelming majority of people to this album. But I personally still really love Penguin. It captures such a moment in time of the band... such a feeling out/transitional phase. To me, albums like Penguin and Heroes are actually far more interesting listens than the self titled Mac album of '75... which is very middle of the road/adult contemporary. The '73-'74 Mac albums may have their warts, but they're ripe with character and personality in my book! :nod:

I love the Pengun. And I love The Derelict! It's so heartfelt, I don't know why people don't like it. Now, I hate Roadrunner a lot, but I think The Derelict is a really great song.

The Derelict and Roadrunner (great song, fine cover) do not sound like Welch och Rumours-era Mac, that's must be the reason most fans dislike them. I think they're great - but McVie and Welch are responsible for some great turds on this uninspired, very transitional album. Highlight is of course Greeny's playing on Nightwatch :).

The reason I don't like them is that Dave Walker can't sing.......

Sure he can, he has a nice blues voice.

Maybe it's just me:) Not everyone is going to like the same voice.

Saw this thread and just had to get in on it. These are two of my least favourite Mac albums. I would agree that Christine's material stands out above the rest. Bob Welch's stuff is not bad, but as I've said multiple times before (Chriskisn can vouch for me!!), I just cannot stand Roadrunner and The Derelict Those have to be 2 of the worst songs FM ever recorded, bar none!!!! They are just awful!!! Not in keeping with any of FM's previous material and don't really fit in the "transition period" either. Just terrible. I've heard other versions of Roadrunner and those have been good, but this one is just terrible.

I agree wholeheartedly slipkid. Mick is pursuing the MFBB because of a love for that era of the band and a desire to recapture that time. Mick loves Peter and would probably cut off his right arm if he thought it would bring Peter back to play with him. At least that's how I see it. My personal dream is to have Peter play with Rick, and get John to sit in on bass, but that dream I'm afraid will remain so always, just a dream.

:distress: Arrrggggh...I can't take all this anti-Dave Walker stuff...I swear that if the boys in his current band can get him on the net I'm going to try to drag him into this forum to defend himself.

The man is brilliant, he oozes talent, raw, rockin' smokin' talent!

now if only there was an emoticon for sitting in the corner crying uncontrollably I'd use it. :(

I'm definitely pro-Walker - he is obviously a fine singer. Can see why he wouldn't appeal to Rumours-era fans though - he's too bluesy, too authentic :).

I started to type that these were both my least favorite Welch forward FM albums. But when I really thought about it, one reason I never listen to these two, is that these are the only ones I have on vinyl only, not on CD. And I just never break out the turntable(it's a POS) anymore. But, now that I really think about it, while I like HAHTF soso, Penguin just never grew on me.

Hence, not everyone being blindly enamoured with Stevie Nicks.

Thanks for the support sjpdg, I thought I was stuck in Bob Welch era-fan purgatory for my blasphemous words :laugh:. I like your idea of Peter Green with Rick Vito, since Rick Vito saw FM in 1968 in Philly at the Electric Factory. I think Mike Dodd is doing wonders to bring back the old Peter Green. I doubt it will happen, but I'm glad that Peter Green today is in a much better place than he was with Splinter Group.

Since Mick Fleetwood took over as de-facto leader after Peter Green left 5/70, he has realized for a very long time what that band lost. I've heard Mick Fleetwood's drumming for Eddie Boyd's sessions with Blue Horizon records. He had blues drumming down to a science. Yet today most of the fans from the '75, and beyond FM see him as the crazy eyed coked out maniac drummer during the late 70's. That's why the MFBB exists.

At the time of its release, Heroes got very good notices in the press. Since then, reviewers have either loved it or thought it the band's worst. I am quite mixed on the record myself. It has all the potential to be amazing--the songs in themselves are very strong. But there's a curious lack of energy in the studio performances and the arrangements are occasionally too thick with simulated strings, that damned arp string ensemble. None of these problems surface on the two 74 bootlegs I've heard of the Heroes tour, where all the Heroes songs performed in the sets sound vital and rocking.

I would kill to hear Bad Loser performed live on a bootleg with a decent sound level (my only bootleg performance of this song is so bad, I can hardly hear it.)

...........

Penguin did not get good notices in the press--and was even often ignored by the press. Rolling Stone failed to review it, despite reviewing all other studio Mac albums from Then Play On to Heroes. I imagine the reason for its initially weak critical reception was NOT David Walker--though he might not have helped. It was the absence of Kirwan, whom many felt finally put the band's glory days to rest.

Despite all of this, Penguin remains for me the most immediately pleasurable of Mac's 71-74-era albums. It's not always consistent, and it's conspicuously short on material (could use two or three more songs), but what is good here is REALLY good. All of Christine's songs sparkle here with a genuine energy she had not yet revealed on either of the two previous Mac albums. And Remember Me is so similar in attitude and style to her later hits. I think Welch's material here is also fine. I love the mellow, Pink Floyd-like dreaminess of Bright Fire, the fiery Revelation and especially the CSNY-influenced Night Watch. Weston's Caught in the Rain is quite lovely in an understated way.

That leaves us with Dave Walker's contributions. I do like (not love) The Derelict, though it sounds as if it should have been recorded in another context. There is no excuse for Road Runner, where the band players can't seem to sound soulful enough to back up Walker's ballsy delivery. Walker is a great singer in his own context. There's no way his approach meshes with the rest of the band's reserved musicianship. Weston is an extroverted guitarist, but his energy sounds right layed over the tight, concise rhythms of Fleetwood and the McVies. Walker's belting, however, is just too big for that kind of trio.

My pleasure!!:nod:

I think you may be on to something here. I honestly had not thought of this in this kind of context before. Perhaps in a different band, Walker's delivery might have come off well, but for me, it just didn't fit FM at this time in it's history. Had the band still been doing straight blues, these tracks might have been recorded differently and Walker's performance might have been more widely accepted, or might have fit better within the context of a straight blues record. His voice isn't bad, it just doesn't fit with the rest of the material on the album, at least in my opinion.

Thanks for putting it in those terms. It gave me something to think about I hadn't before.

Which explains why I'm not blindly enamoured with Stevie Nicks :) I like her, but I am mostly a Buckingham fan (obvious, right?!) As for the other members of FM, My other top 3 are Christine, Bob Welch, and Danny Kirwan.

I'm a bit of an odd bird when it comes to blues and blues singers... but a white dude from England is NOT an authentic blues singer :laugh: :wavey:. About the furthest thing you can get from authentic, in my book. When I hear white English dudes like Walker, Joe Cocker, and others trying to emulate gritty Delta blues men, it just puts a sandy pinecone up my orifice of choice. :p Those type dudes don't know anything about being a black man in the Southern US, where you couldn't drink from the white man's water fountain, and had to go to separate schools, etc. White English dudes who try to sing gritty blues are just a caricature emulating the real thing, in my book. And they always end up profiting from the sound they're aping, while the original folks never get rich off their craft. I think that's why I at least respect Peter Green's approach to the blues a bit more... he made it his own. He didn't try to sing like anybody else. He didn't try to carbon copy his pacing and tone on his guitar.

But alas, that's not the big reason why I don't care for songs like I'm A Roadrunner and The Derelict. To me, they're just sorely, sorely out of place on Penguin. They have nothing to do with the rest of the album. They're a wart. If the entire album had that sound, it'd be a different story. These tunes could have worked on Bare Trees, perhaps... but not Penguin. To me, the '73-'74 Mac albums were starting to get a quite progressive sound to them... and I'm A Roadrunner and The Derelict just seem like two steps back. Just my humble opinion tho, folks! :wavey:

Or to look at it another way, the rest of Penguin is sorely out of place...

Oh and to address the other point of your post that I didn't quote here - remember as Jeremy Spencer says - you don't have to be black to be blue...

You don't have to be of color, and born in the southeast U.S. to experience prejudice, and bigotry. Peter Green was born into a blue-collar family of a Jewish butcher in England. Compare that to Mike Bloomfield, who was Jewish from Chicago, who had a father that made a fortune from his invention patents. Especially living in England, Peter Green suffered more anti-semitic behavior than Mike Bloomfield. Yet both must've experienced that pain of rejection just because of their religion, and appearance. Of course they weren't poor enough to pick cotton for a living, but they experienced the same pain of rejection because of who they were. Is it any wonder why Peter Green, and Mike Bloomfield's work over forty years ago is still appreciated? Personally I hear more pain through Peter Green. It's very real.

As a critical premise, it doesn't work. Dave Walker joined to the band, the band did not join him. So as much as you love his work (and I can see why) and as much as you might think the rest of the album iffy the McVie/Welch material was "in place" given the band's direction at that time.

I think Walker as a singer is as good as any big-voiced hard-rocking front man in any number of 70's power bands. FM just wasn't that kind of band. Deep Purple should have hired him after Ian Gillan (sp?) left.

Stop waving, we're not on live television... Where did I write "authentic blues singer"? I did not, right. As for the rest, slipkid put it nicely. The old argument that a white man can't play/sing blues (look at Eric Clapton in Armani suits) is a kind of inverted racism. All pop music is African in origin anyway.

Yep, Walker would have fit better in Deep Purple, a less wimpy band :).

Perhaps.

I've never managed to see how Fleetwood Mac has ever managed to put together an album that sounds like it all belongs together, perhaps with a couple of exceptions - Heroes are Hard To Find and PG's Fleetwood Mac.

Plus, it wasn't as if Dave Walker changed in any way when he came into FM, he sounded the same as his Idle Race and Savoy Brown work. So, my argument is this:

FM hired Dave to do a particular job, give a particular sound. Then the rest of them went and did an album that wasn't going to fit with Dave. Surely at some point they sat down and said "Oh we want to go in this particular direction, Dave Walker will fit in well with that..." It really was the rest of the bands fault if he didn't.

If the band never intended to go in that direction then they would not have hired him... His introduction was designed to change the FM sound, sadly the rest of them didn't move on until at least Tusk...

The reason they hired Dave was not to change the sound of the band. Recalling comments from band members, they convinced themselves to believe that they needed a front man...at this point in time.

Yet they were very uncomfortable with that prospect -- hence his limited output on the album. They just didn't really know what to do with him - how to assimilate him into the group as the front man. Then it became very obvious to all that the chemistry was off and having an official designated "front man" was not the preferred format of a Fleetwood Mac band.

I have a fond appreciation for odd birds, and agree with your insightful comments. I never understood how so many lily pale white english blokes were able to gain credibility co-opting the blues; a very strange period of time in music for UK/Europe.

I guess a bunch of wimpy white guys singing the blues was much more palatable and less threatening to the masses than a bunch of big black guys. Reference how rock and roll emerged: white guys borrowed and stole many aspects of old blues, modified it and resold it. They got famous and made a lot of money, while the original creators were often left uncredited, and wallowing in obscurity and poverty. That's rock and roll!

But now I diverge...kudos to you for using the word "Alas."

It's actually very simple. The English were receiving the same records sold in the U.S. through shipping ports such as Southhampton, and Liverpool. The difference is the bible belt goons who resided in the deep south prevented the locals from receiving such material, including Little Richard, and Chuck Berry. So England was getting the blues/rnr records that were outlawed in the deep south of the U.S., while the lucky ones such as Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash heard the juke joints in person. So those Sun Record individuals exposed a side a life to the sheltered ones, and the rest is history. You're right, because they were white, they opened the door, we're talking about the United States in the late 1950's !?!? Should I send you the link for Pat Boone's "Tutti Frutti" from Youtube? That was mainstream America. It was free of commies, only to worry about the next Soviet invasion. We call this era; "Commie paranoia"

Fast forward ten years; The Beatles own the top 40 in the US, as do a few British invasion acts. Ten years on, British blues bands emerge. Those bands have albums that were never allowed to be released in the deep white south. Yet a certain band from Macon, GA had connections.


I'm aware of what the likes of Peter Grant, and Jimmy Page did to prevent the royalties to go to the rightful owners of their songs (Willie Dixon). Yet you can't put that stigma on Peter Green.


If it wasn't for the 1960's British Blues movement, many NPR blues' snobs' would be out of a job today.

From all that I've read, it wasn't "the band" that even wanted a front man...it was their manager Clifford Davis. HE convinced the rest of FMac that they needed Dave Walker...or demanded that they take him on is more like it.

Wasn't Dave's fault...he needed work, Fleetwood Mac hired him. Was it a good fit? History shows "no" (and he wasn't a good fit with Black Sabbath either, which is why he didn't stick with them, either). But, Dave DOES have talent...his prior Savoy Brown output, and his recent/current material shows that.

However...

Whether the band or Clifford Davis was behind the hiring of Dave, what was the reason for hiring him in particular? There must have been some belief that his sound was what FM wanted (or what Clifford Davis wanted for FM). Otherwise they could have hired a front man who sang opera. :shrug:

I'm not questioning whether Dave as a personality fitted into the band or whether the band needed a front man - we know from history that they didn't (they needed a front-woman but that is a story for a different day).

I just figure that other than the fact that Dave needed a job and that FM or Davis thought they needed a front man, there must have been a reason for hiring somone with his particular style - hence either the band or Davis wanted to bring a somewhat raw bluesy style to their music.

Personally I can imagine the conversation with Davis telling the band "Guys we really need to capture this harder edged sound, its what is selling out there right now. We need to harden you up a little. I know of a perfect front-man who can really work a crowd, plus he'll blow the rest of you off the stage with his voice. The record buying public will love it"

Ok so maybe that is just my imagination but Dave has said in interviews that what he thought they wanted and what they did want were two very different things. I'd hazard a guess that it wasn't only to be a front-man but also more of a raw bluesy sound.

Disagree if you will :shrug:

I'll just put it the way B.B. King puts in on his XM Radio channel: "There's no black, no white, only the blues baby." The blues has no color, no ethnicity. It helped give birth to rock and roll and is a close relative to country music. In my humble opinion, it is one of the places (not the only one, but at least one of the places) where blacks and white have been able to come together and work on ripping down the walls that have been built between them. So, I say, "God Bless the Blues!!!"

Ok Penguin May not be the strongest album (Roadrunner..um yuck) However it does contain The Derelict Which is one of my fav Mac songs in the history of Macdom. As for Hero's....Awesome album:thumbsup: My 2nd favorite pre-rumors album behind Bare Trees. Silver Heels is love. Adore the title track. Just....I love this whole album. Certainly better then Mystery to Me(Which I never ever....EVER understood the high praise for....and never will:shrug: Ahhhh but I digress)

Oh and Dave Walker gets an unfair wrap:thumbsup:

Mick

So you wanted Fleetwood Mac to mimic the 70's era of "The Band", with Bob Dylan? That's what "The Derelict" sounds to me. I'm now convinced that after "Mystery To Me"'s version of 'Hypnotized", the old band died by firing squad. It fought hard to hold on, but it was just too much. Peter Green was three steps ahead of Fleetwood Mac, that's why he quit 5/70. He wasn't insane (then), he just had enough!

So sue me I like the Derelict ......OH NO!!!!!!!! lol. And no I did Not want them to become like Dylan I just Love the song......and I stand by It.:thumbsup:

Mick

Oh and Mystery to Me Contains Forever......Which is the worst song EVER Recorded...FOREEEVER AND EEEEVER. so there ya go.. I'm not sure how relevant that is....I just really wanted to bash the song...lol

It's a great song. As much as I love Dylan (and by extension of that I like The Band) that does not influence my love of The Derelict. In fact I liked The Derelict before I ever bought a Bob Dylan album.

I'm a big fan of Walker though, sure he's not the most clean cut or cultured of the FM members but he has a raw power and talent that continues to shine though to this day.

*goes off to keep banging head against wall* :)

:shocked: :shocked: :shocked: