Record Plant Broadcast

[MacMan]

Not sure if this has been posted or not:

Record Plant
Sausalito, CA
09/19/1974
Tracks: 13
Total Time: 1:11:28

Wolfgangs Vault

Mick Fleetwood - drums
John McVie - bass
Christine McVie - piano, vocals
Doug Graves - organ, keyboards
Bob Welch - guitar, vocals

1. Intro/Coming Home
2. Sentimental Lady
3. Future Games
4. Bermuda Triangle
5. The Green Manalishi
6. Why
7. Homeward Bound
8. Angel
9. I Loved Another Woman
10. Spare Me A Little Of Your Love
11. Oh Well
12. Rattle Snake Shake
13. Spare Me A Little Of Your Love (OT)

There is a curious fact behind the radio introduction at the beginning of this classic Fleetwood Mac concert. Originally part of KMET’s Live At The Record Plant series in San Francisco, (which would later move over to KSAN-FM, in 1975), the show begins with legendary disc jockey B. Mitchell Reed introducing the group with: "Tonight we’re very happy to present Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Christine McVie, Bob Welch, Doug Graves - in other words, the real Fleetwood Mac."

If it seems odd that they would be called “the real” Fleetwood Mac, it is because at the same time there was a group of imposters touring the U.S. as Fleetwood Mac, a result of a nasty legal dispute between the band and their former manager, Clifford Davis, who claimed he owned the name. The ex-manager decided to tour a group of musicians as Fleetwood Mac, in spite of legal sparing that continued between the real members and himself. In the end, the real members won the suit, and by then had moved to Southern California, where they had made the transition from hard-edged blues-rock band to a bona fide pop-rock band.

This recording represents the very end of the Bare Trees-era Fleetwood Mac. The band had formed in 1967 after the demise of the classic John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers band, which included drummer Mick Fleetwood, bassist John McVie, ex-Yardbirds/future-Cream guitarist Eric Clapton, and of course, Mayall. Fleetwood Mac evolved when Mick and John left the Bluesbreakers and joined up with guitarist Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer. The initial studio albums would yield many great songs, including the original version of “Black Magic Woman” and “Green Manalishi,” which would later become huge hits for Santana and Judas Priest, respectively. By the early 1970s, the band would add a keyboardist named Christine Perfect, who had been with the Spencer Davis Group and Chicken Shack.

By 1971, both Green and Spencer would decline into drug use and mental illness (Spencer joined a religious cult called the Children of God and was barely heard from after 1972); and Perfect was now Mrs. John McVie. Bob Welch jumped on board, and he, along with Danny Kirwin and Christine McVie, would take a greater role in shaping the music of the band. It was in 1972, with the release of Bare Trees (and the 1973 follow-up Mystery To Me – both on Warner Brothers Records), that Fleetwood Mac would lay the groundwork for the pop phenomenon they would soon become.

The group was unable to tour in 1974 because of the court case with Davies, but they did record Heroes Are Hard To Find, and this radio broadcast done to promote the album was one of the few live performances the band did that year. Shortly after this show was recorded for KMET, Bob Welch left Fleetwood Mac to form the short-lived trio Paris. This forced the band to re-group once again in 1975, when they decided to change musical gears completely and recruit a struggling pop duo named Buckingham-Nicks. And the rest, as they say, is rock ‘n’ roll history.