Bob Welch: The Man Who Saved FM
 

Here's the Mojo piece on Bob Welch:

http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/n...ps6c536f19.jpg

There's a glare on a portion of it you can't see. It says:

"In 1972, the year of Rumours, Welch's re-recording of Sentimental Lady (backing vocals by CM and LB) became a US hit. The accompanying album, French Kiss, went platinum. But by the '80s his career was in freefall and he developed a serious drug habit. He later sued FM for underpayment of royalties (there was a recent rapprochement), and Welch spent his final years writing and recording in Nashville. "In hindsight," he said, "I realized the only thing I could have done was leave FM when I did."

Thanks so much for this! The Welch years are my favorite, and Mystery To Me is my favorite album! I'm in Nashville frequently(I type this from here)...I left Nashville the day Bob committed suicide, and didn't know about it, until that evening, when I was finally home, checking the Ledge. The most surreal moment, in my FM life...just being that close to one of my favorite members, as his life was ending...

Thanks for posting this.

Thank you for posting.
 

It still hurts that we lost Bob this year. :(

French Kiss came out in 1977 and went platinum in 1978.

Probably it's the glare that makes it look like "1972".

Although "Sentimental Lady" was not a favorite, "Hypnotized", "The City" and "Revelation" are three of my favorite non-PG FM songs.

Sad end for a hard working, creative musician.

Thanks for posting the article.

How "Miles Away" wasn't a hit is beyond me. It was years ahead of its time.

Agreed. I'm still amazed the they felt they needed to do something commerical at the last minute and threw For Your Love together since when you listent to it now it sounds more commerical than many other albums they've done.

John

Agreed. I should have put that on my short list.

Mystery to Me is a monster album.

It's every bit as good as Rumours.

I agree, but -as an alternative musicfreak- you know that when you're ahead of time, you normally don't score a hit.

nice article, glad Mick finally gave credit to Bob where it was rightfully due.

thx for posting Michele

Oh, he gave Bob his "due" in his autobiography 20+ years ago...just so sad he had to reiterate it due to Bob's passing.

Not sure how many here are on Wendy Welch's Facebook page, but she's made some comments some may be interested in. She's basically named Christine as the person who kept Bob out of the HOF. I know she's alluded to Chris in the past, but she has now mentioned her by name. She said the lawsuit was only part of the story.

This is never going to seem right to me. If band members had the clout to keep other members from being inducted, there would be a lot fewer people in the HOF.

I think we realized it was her. My feelings are not really charitable towards Bob and Wendy to be quite honest.

But I agree that it should not be the band members who have the power to decide who gets in or not. The RRHOF should not be run like that, considering that every band has politics.

As far as Christine's reasons for acting as she did given the lawsuit, I'm not judging.

Michele

Chapters are closing. We are coming to the end of these stories and I just hope we don't have any more that close as tragically.

Michele

Here's the thing that I find weird. Christine has been praising "Mystery To Me" as her distant third favorite Fleetwood Mac album, behind "Rumours" or FM, and thought that she and Welch sounded good together.

I get that Bob rubbed her the wrong way, and I get that she was especially angry with him after the lawsuit, but if she thought that highly of him as an artist, then I don't see how the other would cloud her judgement of his significance to Fleetwood Mac. Of course, maybe some of that appreciation has only come about after being so far removed from the music business for so long.

Maybe his death has moved her. Maybe she wanted him out of the HOF for reasons having nothing to do with his talent and only because she was angry. Maybe she fully recognized his talent but wanted to hit him where it hurt. Or maybe we don't know the whole story. That's the problem with Wendy. I get that she's grieving. I'm sure if you find your husband like that you never get over it. But I have a problem with accusers who don't tell the whole story. They just HINT at the worst and leave us to fill in the gaps in ways that may not be accurate or fair.

If Christine did something to Bob Welch that his widow wants us to know about, then spell it out with all the details. Don't say he was kept out of the hall of fame and you don't even know the worst of it, leaving that to our imaginations.

Either tell us the worst of it and let us judge and condemn or understand or otherwise stop inferring things.

Michele

Sentimental Lady video
 

Could someone tell me what Christine says in that Sentimental Lady live video that SteveMacD posted? I cannot understand it.

I'm not sure what Steve was pointing out. Maybe I'm missing something. From what I can tell, Bob says that you might know Sentimental Lady and Christine just repeats after him copying his inflection and says, "You might know this one."

I mean, it's like her saying "that is weird" to Lindsey. She may mean, "it's not weird at all. You're an idiot," but one cannot tell.

Michele

Yeah my guess is the sarcastic tone Bob always felt Chris had so I think Steve was referring to Chris possibly taking the piss out of Bob regarding the way he said that (though I have no problem with how he said it but again like you say, we are left to shoot in the dark so this is probably a bad guess on my part).

John

Ahhh.....
 

OK, I finally got to hear it on good speakers. So, she's kinda making fun of him, in the way she says exactly what he said in that mocking voice. Got it.

I always got the impression that Christine was that type of person anyway. She seems like she's permanently going :rolleyes: to everyone.

:shrug: But.....don't know her personally, that's just from what I've seen in interviews and stuff.

I'm glad that Bob is finally getting his due. it stinks that it has to come after his death. :(
I love every FM album he was a part of. Plus his band Paris was pretty good, too.

I finally bought all of the Bob Welch albums last year and they really are fantastic. Mystery to Me, Bare Trees and Heroes Are Hard to Find are probably my favourite three. It's a true shame that the material was so overlooked upon release, especially here in the UK where none of it charted. They should have scored some big hit singles during this period with songs like Why, Spare Me a Little, Come a Little Bit Closer, Did You Ever Love Me and Hypnotized. A true shame.

I recall Bob answering a question similar to this during his Q&A on here. If I remember correctly he felt that it was the right time to leave the band at the point he did and wanted to risk it on his own. He said that "French Kiss" and "Three Hearts" both sold well on their own so it's not like he was without success of his own when FM broke big in the 1970s. I think he offered to rejoin the band when Lindsey left in the 1980s but the band turned him down. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong about that. I did try to find his answer of the Q&A page but couldn't see it.

What I find interesting is that after the Tusk tour, Mick asked Bob if he wanted to go along on The Visitor trip. He turned it down. I wonder if that had something to do with his being turned down later in '87?

I doubt it. Billy was already going to be a second guitarist on the Tango tour even if Lindsey had stayed, and Mick had been doing some work with Rick. My hunch is that the minute Lindsey walked out the door, Mick knew what he was going to do. I doubt there was seriously that level of thought involved in Bob being turned down.

In any event, my understanding is that Bob's involvement would have only been temporary anyway (i.e. Peter Green in 1971).