On one of my first CDs ever, Roy Orbison's "Mystery Girl" album, there was a good song by a guy named Billy Burnette, which I liked a lot. So I tried to find out if he had recorded some music by himself.
Today, you just type a string into a search engine, but that wasn't possible for a 12 year old in rural Germany in the early 90s. I guess I only could type by 14, but what I did find out with the help of other measures like press and a collector's price catalogue for used LPs, was that Billy Burnette played in Fleetwood Mac.
I didn't want old stuff of any band then, but I guess that's how kids are, so I looked around in record stores for the newest available Fleetwood Mac product.
I knew I would eventually find a recent album of the band, but here was something that was even fresher off the record plant: a solo album from a fellow Fleetwood Mac member: Lindsey Buckingham's "Out Of the Cradle".
And when I first listened to it, I knew immediately that it is a good album and that these Fleetwood Mac guys and gals are mightily talented. "Don't Look Down", "Soul Drifter" and "Turn It On" were instant favourites.
So I kept my eyes open and the next thing that appeared in a mailorder catalogue was "Coming Home" by Billy Burnette. I got this one then and I guess that's when my love for country music broke out. It's such a strong set of songs. All it is missing is "Nothin To Do (And All Night To Do It)".
Another while later, lucky me found a cut-out CD of "Behind the Mask", the album I had been searching for.
And only then did I get to know the ladies.
My favourites from the album are "When the Sun Goes Down" (for obvious reasons), "Do You Know" (a song I actually was in love to), "In the Back Of My Mind" and "Affairs Of the Heart".
I would have been the right target audience for "The Chain" Boxed Set, but that one didn't quite fit my budget, so I had to skip that and only got the singles much later.
The next FM related release that I got was Stevie's "Street Angel", because I thought she didn't get to sing enough songs on "Behind the Mask".
"Gretta" is awesome.
Somewhat surprisingly, I went to the record store one day and there they had a pile of "Time" CDs, and a small info sheet announcing it as the new Fleetwood Mac. I found there was Billy on it and I was happy. The disappearance of Rick Vito and Stevie Nicks did surprise me, though. I got it anway, but I have to admit that it took me a while to get into Bekka's songs, even though I had known her from her duet on Joe Cocker's album the year before, which I liked. But I didn't associate her with Fleetwook Mac then.
Dave Mason's songs are the least played from "Time" in my household.
So that's a short journey of how I discovered the Mac. I must say that I mostly prefer the solo / late era Mac over the classic rock era Mac.
|