Timespace era

[SteveMacD]

Originally Posted by Macfan4life

Who knows. But IMHO clearly Mick had the power to release the song to her. There is another Timespace interview that alleges he was avoiding her and had to call Dennis to get him to call her back. When she asked him for the song, he said no.
None of us are aware of the intricate details of such a move. However Stevie was a veteran rock star at that time and knew how the system worked and what she needed to do to accomplish her task. I do think she could have recorded the song her way just like she did with Crystal in 1998. But I think she knew she could never duplicate that magic and wanted the original.
Each band is different the way rights are owned, etc. Unless you were part of Fleetwood Mac, I don't think anyone knows exactly.

I know enough from having a friend who's an indie rock legend who has been directly impacted by this about how labels work. Works only go back to the artist if they've been out of print for ten years (OR if the artist can somehow buy them back). When my friend signed to SCAT Records in the '90s, SCAT offered to release all of GbV's first five albums that were self-financed and released only locally. One of the albums in particular became one of his top albums. Now, he can't get those works back and has minimal input on how they're released.

"Silver Springs" has never gone out of print for more than ten years. Again, Mick couldn't have done anything when Warner still owned the rights to release the song. It wasn't something he could release to her.

Now, maybe she wanted the track tapes from an unreleased take. Mick might have been able to give her something like that. However, looking at what happened between Dave Mason and Blue Thumb Records, even that's not entirely clear if Mick could have done that or if the label owned the track tapes.