Tusk is still Lindsey's favorite album
 

Not tons new stuff in this new Parade article but a few juicy parts. Stevie was the most reluctant Tusk member. Christine was easiest Tusk partner. They give the exact date Tusk was recorded at Dodger stadium. Lastly another hint that there could be a Stevie and Lindsey reunion. Here is the kicker. Lindsey says Tusk is his favorite album NOT for the music but the idea behind it.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/news...fa78b80e&ei=22

Yes the article says "Christine McVie was more open to where Buckingham was headed". But according to this other article, she told Rolling Stone " [Stevie and I] didn’t really like [Tusk]. We just kind of went, ‘O-kaaay.‘ Because it was so different from Rumours. Deliberately so. In hindsight, I do like that record, but at the time, me and Stevie would be like, ‘What the hell is [Lindsey] doing?' ".

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/the-fle...couldnt-stand/

So is that "easiest Tusk partner" an assumption by the article author or an actual quote from Lindsey who perhaps "doesn't remember well"... as usual. Because if you don't like what you've gotten yourself into, it's difficult to be open and a good and genuine partner. :confused:

Pardon but that may have been my spin on the article. Yes Chris and the rest of the band are known to have not liked the process but wanted to make Lindsey happy. Perhaps I should have said Chris was the least reluctant?
In a very recent interview Stevie said something like to this day she is still not sure what Tusk was about. Drugs fueled the creativeness of Rumours. But the Tusk era was when drugs was impacting every aspect of their lives. All of them had very toxic relationships with other people and they would go into the studio as filthy rich superstars. Lindsey said he would tell the other band members he was going to use the restroom and then leave for the night because he was tired and not going to stay up again all night. Its been said before but I think Lindsey and the band hoped their stardom was going to carry the oddity of the album. One good point the article made was regardless of what anyone thinks of Tusk it was a ballsy move to make at the peak of their fame and stardom. But I am sure Lindsey would say that was the perfect time to do it. I really like the Tusk album but I hate how it changed the band post-Tusk. The concept of Tusk was being free and almost not caring for commercial single success which irked record executives. However the blowback to Tusk made the band chase commercial single success over their next 2 albums. Its not a coincidence that Mirage and Tango are so light and poppy. It makes you wonder what the band would have sounded like with sticking to their White album/Rumours sound. What Lindsey did not want to do for Tusk, he definitely was doing for Mirage and Tango. Rock stations will still say Fleetwood Mac was a rock band up to Tusk. Then very little of their music was played on rock stations post Rumours even though they were a staple of 70s rock music.

My first thought would be that the least reluctants were Mick and John, since there are not songwriters. But Mick did recognize he had reservations about Tusk.

There was quite a debate within the band on the disparate nature of the record, each writer doing his or her own thing instead of the unified sound of Fleetwood Mac and Rumours. I argued this issue with Lindsey, sometimes bitterly. I kept saying that I didn't want the album to be so segregated that people couldn't hear the band. When we were mixing I'd beg Lindsey to make his songs more recognizable as Fleetwood Mac. His songs were fantastic, but my reservations were that they might be too alien for our fans. Do what you're doing, I'd say, but don't forget the ingredients we worked on for years as part of the band. Don't go too far.

To this day, Lindsey feels I wasn't enthusiastic enough about the album. I know he feels I got it all wrong, but in fact I loved Tusk, I think it's a great album, and probably the only artistic reason Fleetwood Mac is still together today. As a double album, it released a lot of creative frustrations. The extra space let us delve and experiment and hone art. And in the end, I think I was right. Tusk did well when it came out, with its Peter Beard collage and avant-postmodern graphics, but it was mostly Stevie's and Chris's music you heard on the radio.

I guess that last sentence had a lot to do with how Mirage and Tango were later made.

So what about John? Does anyone remember if he said what he thought of Tusk during the recordings? He's the quietest member of the band, so it's easy to think he might have thought, "No problem, I'll play my bass parts anyway." But we also know he's very professional, demanding, and protective of his work. Remember how he argued with Lindsey when he the newcomer first joined the band? But by 1979, John might have been tired of all the conflicts, so perhaps he didn't want to argue about the album's change of direction, or about Lindsey banging on shoeboxes for the thythm tracks? I don't know.

As I've said before, the option of making Rumours II was never on the table.

Give me the track list.

What songs did the band have that correlate, in terms of the style of the song and the quality, with "Dreams" "Go Your Own Way" "The Chain" "Songbird" "Don't Stop" "You Make Loving Fun" and "Gold Dust Woman"?

Lindsey has spent a lifetime patting himself on the back for declining an option that was never available (and it seems the others have blamed him for the same).

I think Chris and Lindsey had one of the best working relationships in rock music. I don't remember anything ever written they had fights about production. I think Chris adored Lindsey for not only his guitar playing but his production knack. Were they not similar in the sense they were self taught? Chris took some piano lessons but it was her discovering Fats Domino that she started exploring those keys. Lindsey may have had a guitar, banjo, or bass lesson but he is mostly self taught from listening to Elvis records. They came from different worlds but they were made with the same cloth. Chris even had Never Going Back Again has her ringtone. They got along great during the Tango sessions. While Stevie was with Bella Donna and Tom Lindsey and Chris were already in France working together. So I think it would be natural that Chris was the least reluctant because of her admiration of Lindsey's craft.

Christine went out and listened to Freddy King records, to learn her piano style.

Chris was not self-taught, she had years of lessons, not just a few lol... started at like 4 or 5 but hated it so her parents let her quit, then took it up again of her own choice at 11. From 11 to 15 she was classically trained (by Amelia Hyrans w the smelly yorkshire terrier w the kidney disease) , and she said by 15 she was actually a very good pianist. (i have an old audio interview when lindsey said that "she was trained and I was not."-- he was self taught.) Once she discovered Fats Domino, blues etc she just sort of left classical behind but her background def helped her in learning those bluesy rhythms/fills.


but yes i agree they seemed to totally get each other and support each other musically. terrific chemistry in the studio.

--Lis

He may have talked about this a bit in his Q&As but i can't recall right now...

I think john and chris both thought lindsey was a little off the wall w his requests to play entire songs himself etc, but i guess they went w it to keep the peace. If Mick saw the need to let LB do his thing to keep him happy and in FM, then i'm sure he talked w J&C about that as well. By 79 they were all quite familiar w each other, drugged up and rich as hell, so maybe it was easier to let some things slide.

--Lis

That’s a great idea. I just checked some answers before the “connection time out” error forced me to throw the towel.

Here are two interesting answers:

However, I've been under the impression that Lindsey's Tusk tracks are mainly himself playing all the instruments, and that the same is true with Tango In The Night. Of course there are occasions where I think you are playing: the official Tusk documentary shows you in the studio laying down the bass track for "Save Me A Place". And on Tango In The Night I think you are playing on "Caroline" as well, not to forget the ending of the title track. But in general, is it just him playing nearly everything on his tracks on the Tusk and Tango In The Night albums? (Gaius, Finland)

Answer:
Hi Gaius,
Thanks for the questions. As far as I know and remember, every bass track on a Mac album was played by me. If you find out they snuck one by me, let me know. All the best! McVie

…
I think of Tusk as the greatest double album ever and an underrated gem. 25 years on, what do you think of Tusk as an album and your playing on it? (Chas, London, , United Kingdom)

Answer:
Hi Chas, Thanks for the questions,
I haven't heard any word about remastering these albums. I'd be surprised if we could find the masters! "Unreleased tracks"? I doubt it. If there were any such things I'm pretty sure someone would have dug them up and released them by now.

I haven't seen Mick Taylor in quite a while. I know he did something with John Mayall recently. An anniversary album, I think. He's a nice guy and a great Player.

The "Tusk" album. I thought that was a very good album 'tho I wasn't sure where it "was going". I think I played O.K. on it. (Have to pull it out and check)!

Thanks again! McVie
….

By the way, it was Tahiti where John was during the Dodger stadium Tusk video. He answered that in another question.

maybe john did play on all the tusk tracks... but there may be a couple details he's not remembering... those were "the days of wine and noses", as he said lol

yes he was def in tahiti... when he says 'he wasn't sure where it was going' he means he didn't really understand the direction of the album, i guess because it was so 'different.'

--Lis

Let's be real....Lindsey basically got FM to let him make a solo album under the guise of a band album. At one point he did actually use his leverage by threatening to leave (however explicit or implicit it was) which they did NOT want at the height of their success. Though kudos to Mick for calling him out at one point by saying "Well maybe you don't want to be in a band". So Tusk was a means of compromising to keep him happy AND keep the band going.

Yes. And under those circumstances, I don't think the chemistry in the band was the same as before, including C&L's. And if we add to that the "Where is this going?" that John mentions, I think it's more likely that the band liked Tusk after a while, in retrospect.

Anyway, however different it may have been, Tusk is part of that wonderful Fleetwood Mac era. Things were very different in the '80s, for many reasons.