Lindsey, Chris & Stevie....harmonies & other ??

[David]

Originally Posted by AliP

3) Stevie wasn't around so they didn't include her - I don't think this is a good excuse because besides Tango, I think Stevie was pretty much always around or readily available.

You sound very sure, Ali, but I'm not so sure. I think the extent of Stevie's participation in albums like "Rumours," "Tusk" & "Mirage" hasn't really been settled. Have you ever been in a recording studio while anal-retentives worked on songs? It's enough to make you want to chew glass. If I were Stevie & I didn't play an instrument well enough to lay down any tracks in the studio, there's no way in hell I would stick around in a studio all day for weeks & months on end. That goes beyond boredom into the realm of masochism.

There's a revealing comment Lindsey made to BAM magazine in the January 30, 1981, issue about the making of "Tusk":

Did you see that article in US that quoted Stevie as saying that doing the album was like being held hostage in Iran with Lindsey as the Ayatollah? That wasn’t the feeling there at all! I mean, she wasn’t even there most of the time. She’d come in to do her song once a week and that would be it.

4) Lindsey did this to punish Stevie - Simply put, he was jealous of all the attention she was receiving so being the producer he tried to exclude her as much as possible.

I can believe that something like this might have happened once or twice over the years, but to suggest that it was a regular occurrence album after album is to utterly demolish any credibility & professionalism that Lindsey or Fleetwood Mac ever might have had. I have no doubt that some fans do believe this to be the case, but I think it speaks more about them than about the working conditions of the band.

But, I can honestly say I can't think of a single Lindsey song where I can noticeably hear Stevie or Christine.

"Second Hand News"?

I'm just curious as to what everyone thinks about this because it is something that I've always wondered about?

Most of the time, it may have just boiled down to what I call After-Hours Syndrome. Lindsey probably spent quite a bit more time navel-gazing in studios than any of the others. My hunch is that a lot of tracking -- both vocal & instrumental -- not to mention sound editing was done by him when the others weren't around.