Quote:
Originally Posted by Penguin Emeritus
Yeah i get a kick out of that story with lindsey. I'd imagine it must have been a bit of a head trip to try and finagle your way into the tight bonds that existed between the 3 brits....they could read each other like books and had been around long enough to prob feel a little possessive of the band and maybe distrustful or skeptical of newcomers and their contributions.
i laughed at bob's description in his Q&A about how it felt w them...can't recall exactly but along the lines of mick being like your weird cousin who spoke by making faces, john was your alcoholic uncle who you had to humor, chris was your crotchety aunt who also made crotch jokes ...  .. i mean i'm sure it was no picnic at times, being in the middle of everyone's moods and idiosyncrasies!
--Lis |
I can imagine the core trio of Brits being difficult to work with. Their communication styles and sensibilities were in stark contrast to Welch's--or Buckingham's. Given their long history together on the British music scene, they might have treated Welch as "new blood," someone who needed to come up with a lot of the musical ideas and yet they felt was low in their pecking order. Weston once called them "kingpins." If that was the case, it would have had to be maddening for Welch. By 1977, Lindsey could at least leverage his role in their huge success to gain power. And by 1980, Stevie pretty much controlled all of them with her celebrity. But Welch didn't have celebrity.
I also suspect part of Bob's frustration with the Brits had to do with how they handled band operations after the canceled tour. Mick left for Africa; John to Hawaii. A postcard from John to Clifford Davis suggests John new about the reforming of the band, which did NOT include Welch, whom Davis did not like. That might have pissed Bob off. He had worked for years with them and they just haphazardly sort of let Davis run over them.