[SteveMacD]

Originally Posted by David

Between 1971 and 1975, Lindsey and Stevie weren't quite as tied at the hip as you imagine...

So the perfectly plausible scenario is that Lindsey might have decided to take the band's offer to join, even temporarily, just to make some money. You can reject the scenario out of hand, but it's perfectly plausible.

Lindsey was beyond apprehensive about joining Fleetwood Mac and really didn’t want to join the band. Read what Keith Olsen has said. Read what Stevie Nicks has said. Read what Waddy Wachtel has said. Furthermore, Lindsey didn’t enjoy being in the band once he joined. He was moody and could be outright acrimonious towards them. He resented everything he had been working on with Buckingham Nicks getting lost within Fleetwood Mac. Lindsey even had to get a pep talk from Bob Welch of all people when they were making that first album. So, no, I don’t see Lindsey taking their offer on his own.

That flies in the face of everything Mick has ever said about hearing all the guitar work on the BN album.

Except, I was talking about Christine’s hypothetical reaction to hearing the album if the band had somehow hired Lindsey without Stevie. Lindsey’s playing was good, but not something that would have caught her attention. Not after having played with Green and Kirwan. However, the harmonies would have caught her attention at some point.

When they went through “Say You Love Me” for the first time, that changed everything for Christine, and even John. They realized they had something special.

Well, of course LB, especially at that point, was no Peter Green -- as a guitarist OR a songwriter... When Welch finally split, the band was nothing but a rhythm section and a singer-songwriter who preferred hanging back musically. Fleetwood Mac could have gone no further without hiring someone.

This strengthens the case that they would have added Stevie after becoming aware of what Lindsey was coming from. They needed songwriting. Bob Welch had 2/3 of the last two albums.

Green was long gone, as was Kirwan. Welch, Weston, and Walker, and all their respective strengths and weaknesses, were undoubtedly much fresher in the minds of the McVies and Fleetwood.

Peter Green is always fresh in the mind of Mick Fleetwood.

Christine has NEVER said that she wanted Buckingham Nicks in the band BECAUSE of their harmonies on the BN album.

And, I never said she did. I was saying that, at some point after Lindsey hypothetically joined without Stevie, Christine would have listened to the album and that the harmonies, not the guitar playing, would have caught her attention. She was a songwriter who heavily used harmonies, so obviously she would have heard the potential.

You contradict yourself in your fanatical craze to push your own glorified fiction. The scenario of "You buy one, you get both" -- which you say you accept -- probably came from Lindsey (or, by extension, from Keith).

Not at all. It was just the reality. Have you ever been around a band where one of the guys has a girlfriend with ambitious musical aspirations? In this case, that girlfriend made an album with the band’s new guitarist, there’s a woman in the band he joined, and the two groups were stylistically similar. Do you really believe Stevie wouldn’t have been a factor if Lindsey had joined without her? She would have been hanging around the studio and traveling with them on tour…There was no getting just Lindsey.