'It's our tune': How Fleetwood Mac worked with the USC marching band to create 'Tusk'

[David]

Excellent read. Thanks for sharing.

“How are the tenors, Tony?” Now we know who Tony is.

Tony Fox, the assistant director, called back. He was stunned to find it genuinely was Fleetwood on the other end.

So Bartner, the longtime band director, and Fox, his trusted assistant and the arranger for the band, headed to Studio D at Village Recorders. There, the two college band directors worked with Buckingham and Fleetwood, two rock music giants, to arrange the score. Then they went back to USC and fine-tuned it. They got another call from Fleetwood.

Tony Fox arranged the horn parts. The song is really three-fourths his! His horns are the very essence of the song.

A long time ago, on the Usenet “newsgroup” devoted to Mac, one of the original horn players (named Kevin) from 1979 started posting and telling us some of the great stories about doing Dodger Stadium that day (and the Forum six months later). He said that the band bought every Trojan a new uniform.

Also mentioned was when Lindsey, Mick, and Stevie showed up on the infield at halftime for the USC — Arizona State playoff game, a few weeks after the TUSK tour ended. That season, I had season tickets for USC home games and I was there. Total surprise to see Fleetwood Mac (without the Mac) just a month after I had seen Fleetwood Mac (with the Mac) at the Bowl.

To this day, the Trojans and the Mac at the Forum in December 1979 is still unreleased. Perhaps Rhino can be convinced to release a full show from that five-night run. After all, they’ve already done two other full Forum concerts.