Want to join?

[Villavic]

Here is how Mick tells about inviting L&S to join Fleetwood Mac. It's not how he found them at a studio but (later) the invitation itself. I have some questions that may be answered by guru fans. And of course all comments about this episode are welcome:

Only later did it become apparent that Lindsey was with Stevie. They were together. Their ambitions and hopes were as a unit. They had been working for years, I was told; they were hitting brick walls but were determined to keep writing together. Later Stevie would give me a hard time. "Aaabhh, if I hadn't been with Lindsey you wouldn't have wanted me." And like that. All I can say is that I remembered this guitar player but couldn't remember his name.

Keith Olsen called me back and said that Stevie and Lindsey were interested, and so we set up a dinner meeting at a Mexican restaurant called El Carmen. Lindsey came up to our house on Fernwood, off Laurel Canyon. Judy Wong was there too, and we soon adjourned to the restaurant to meet John and Chris, who were driving in from their house at the beach. Stevie Nicks was waiting for us, still dressed in her flapper's outfit from her waitress job. "I saw Fleetwood Mac drive up in these two old clunky white Cadillacs with big tail fins," she said years later, "and I was in awe."

We settled in at our table, ordered dinner, and then started smiling. There was something magic in the air, and we all felt it. (We also got drunk on the margaritas.) Lindsey offered to play an audition, and we explained we didn't think that would be necessary. We chatted for a bit longer so Chris could suss out the situation. When I first asked her about having another woman in the band, I knew she had some natural reservations, even though she didn't say anything. Being the lady in the band, a lady who first and foremost was a musician~nd one of the lads she just said, "Do me a favor as long as me and Stevie hit it off everything will be fine, 'cause there's nothing worse than having a couple of ladies in the band who don't like each other." But at this dinner I saw that Stevie was extremely sympathetic, and that the two girls were hitting it off real well. Before the dessert came, I simply asked them: "Want to join?"

Stevie and Lindsey looked at each other and said, "Yes. "

I said, "We'd love to have you in the band." And that was it.

1. Is El Carmen restaurant still open? (is there only one El Carmen at LA?) I found this website:
http://www.elcarmenrestaurant.com/index.html

2. When exactly was this dinner? Mick didn't mention the date, but I guess it was probably between november and december 1974 (A bit unfair, I feel. I mean he recalls and mentions the exact date Lindsey left the band, August 7, 1987, the "showdown" date as he said, but he didn't recall the date he (and Stevie) joined)

[chriskisn]

Well isn't the date given for them joining usually 31st Dec 1974? I don't know how accurate that is though, I find it hard to believe that on New Year's Eve, Fleetwood Mac would be having Mexican and working on their personnel...

Or was that date merely "ok so you guys are in, you can officially join us on the 31st"?

Like most memories by Mick and most of the folklore around FM it probably isn't true or has been changed to "romanticise" the story.

[michelej1]

Originally Posted by chriskisn

Well isn't the date given for them joining usually 31st Dec 1974? I don't know how accurate that is though, I find it hard to believe that on New Year's Eve, Fleetwood Mac would be having Mexican and working on their personnel...

Or was that date merely "ok so you guys are in, you can officially join us on the 31st"?

Like most memories by Mick and most of the folklore around FM it probably isn't true or has been changed to "romanticise" the story.

And Stevie said that Mick called them on New Year's Eve. So, did he make the offer official after they met at the restaurant or did he call them on NYE and ask them out to the Mexican dinner, which then must have taken place in 1975.

Michele

[jellyman10]

The New Year's eve phone call is repeated so often that it has to have happened in some shape or form, but it does look unlikely to have been the first out-of-the-blue contact that LB and SN had with FM at that point.

My hunch is that it was a formal offer, on the back of the informal agreement made at that Mexican dinner. Also, if you think about it, Christine had said her one condition was that she wanted to meet Stevie and see if they could on, which implies that there would have to be a point after the dinner at which everyone - including CM - gave their 'official' verdict. And then the formal offer could be made?

Mick's natural sense of drama leads me to think he would definitely not think twice about making that call on New Year's eve, too.

Loz

[CADreaming]

Originally Posted by michelej1

And Stevie said that Mick called them on New Year's Eve. So, did he make the offer official after they met at the restaurant or did he call them on NYE and ask them out to the Mexican dinner, which then must have taken place in 1975.

Michele

According to Keith Olsen, Mick actually called him and then he called or went over to tell Lindsey and Stevie and they had a long discussion:

"Anyway, I was working on some band that I can't remember what it was. Then I met Mick Fleetwood and he wanted to hear… because he was looking for some place he could make an album really cheap. And so I said, well you know there's this studio called Silent City. You can make pretty cheap albums out there, we'll make a deal with them. And he asked me to produce the record. And on New Year's Eve he called me and says, 'Well Keith I got some good news and bad news. The bad news is, Bob Welch has left the band so we won't be starting that album in February'. And I went, 'Here we go.' (laughs). 'But the good news is, you know those two kids, who were they? Lindsey and Stevie? Do you think they'd want to join my band? Could you go and find out?' And I took 12 hours of constant pounding on them to try to convince them to join Fleetwood Mac on a trial basis only. And they joined Fleetwood Mac as a trial basis and they said they'd do it just for 6 weeks. Then they got better, then they found out that they were making money, just because her brother's paying their salary at 500 bucks a week. They said, well this is great. We went into the studio, 3 months later we came out with that album." - Keith Olsen interview


Olsen remembers the phone call from Fleetwood from a Los Angeles airport on New Year's Eve 1974 about locating Buckingham and Nicks, and the duo's initial hesitation about joining: "[Mick said] 'Keith, I've got good news and bad news. Bob Welch just left the band, so I guess the recording in February is off. But do you think those two "kids" you played for me in the studio might want to join my band? Could you go and see if they might want to try it?' I went to Stevie and Lindsey's apartment, the one they shared with Dashut, and spent the whole night trying to convince the two of them to give up Buckingham Nicks and join Fleetwood Mac. Neither one of them really wanted to join. But after hours, they decided to give it a couple of weeks trial." http://www.fleetwoodmac.net/penguin/olsen.htm

So, then they set up the meeting at the Mexican restaurant and their joining was contingent upon Christine liking Stevie. The official offer must have been after Mick & John had a chance to get Christine's opinion...

[jellyman10]

^^^ Great post. Thank you. So it went:

Mick phones Keith
Keith visits BN
BN agree to give FM a whirl
Everyone has dinner

I do like hearing non-FM people's accounts, such as Keith's. And this one is interesting for the emphasis on the how much persuading BOTH of them took to give FM a go. Everything still points to SN being more up for it than LB, though, and in many ways you could almost ask if Lindsey ever stopped artistically dragging his feet a little with the band?

[michelej1]

Originally Posted by CADreaming

"Anyway, I was working on some band that I can't remember what it was. Then I met Mick Fleetwood and he wanted to hear… because he was looking for some place he could make an album really cheap. And so I said, well you know there's this studio called Silent City. You can make pretty cheap albums out there, we'll make a deal with them. And he asked me to produce the record. And on New Year's Eve he called me and says, 'Well Keith I got some good news and bad news. The bad news is, Bob Welch has left the band so we won't be starting that album in February'. And I went, 'Here we go.' (laughs). 'But the good news is, you know those two kids, who were they? Lindsey and Stevie? Do you think they'd want to join my band? Could you go and find out?' And I took 12 hours of constant pounding on them to try to convince them to join Fleetwood Mac on a trial basis only. And they joined Fleetwood Mac as a trial basis and they said they'd do it just for 6 weeks. Then they got better, then they found out that they were making money, just because her brother's paying their salary at 500 bucks a week.

Thanks Dee. Whose brother was paying their salary?

Michele

[CADreaming]

Originally Posted by michelej1

Thanks Dee. Whose brother was paying their salary?

Michele

LOL! You know, after I reread the post I realized it had a couple of typos. It should have read Warner Brothers. I question the studio name too. Someone missed those when they were transcribing, I guess. The perils of copy and paste...

[Villavic]

Originally Posted by CADreaming

LOL! You know, after I reread the post I realized it had a couple of typos. It should have read Warner Brothers. I question the studio name too. Someone missed those when they were transcribing, I guess. The perils of copy and paste...

You know, I'm not typing from the book itself. Though I do have the paperback edition, some ledgie few years ago shared it in a TXT file. It has several typo errors. Humm.. actually I think they are digitalization errors, cause I also see "Pleetwood" (more than once) instead of Fleetwood in some paragraphs. And the photo pages look funny too. I guess somebody ripped all pages and processed them in a digitalization device (that is not perfect)

[chriskisn]

Originally Posted by jellyman10

The New Year's eve phone call is repeated so often that it has to have happened in some shape or form,

Well as discussions in pre-Rumours have shown the oft-repeated story about PG's birthday present of time in the studio where the three FM members recorded three tracks is untrue and Mick's book mentions him recording tracks that were finished before he worked with Mayall. Like I said in my previous post it merely adds to the romance and folklore of the FM story as does the NYE phone call.

[CADreaming]

Originally Posted by Villavic

You know, I'm not typing from the book itself. Though I do have the paperback edition, some ledgie few years ago shared it in a TXT file. It has several typo errors. Humm.. actually I think they are digitalization errors, cause I also see "Pleetwood" (more than once) instead of Fleetwood in some paragraphs. And the photo pages look funny too. I guess somebody ripped all pages and processed them in a digitalization device (that is not perfect)

I was referring to the quote I posted from another website that had typos, not the book excerpt from your post.

[chriskisn]

Originally Posted by jellyman10

Mick's natural sense of drama leads me to think he would definitely not think twice about making that call on New Year's eve, too.

Loz

Given this was the days before mobile phones, internet connections and such, do we then assume that Lindsey and Stevie (poor though they may have been) were sitting around their house with nothing to do on NYE?

[PenguinHead]

Originally Posted by michelej1

Thanks Dee. Whose brother was paying their salary?
o
Michele

That was strange. It must be a typo. There is no context for it.

[PenguinHead]

Originally Posted by chriskisn

Given this was the days before mobile phones, internet connections and such, do we then assume that Lindsey and Stevie (poor though they may have been) were sitting around their house with nothing to do on NYE?

Believe it or not, in those ancient primative times, people were capable of socializing without cell technology and social media. Perhaps they were at a party? Maybe entertaining friends?

[CADreaming]

Originally Posted by chriskisn

Given this was the days before mobile phones, internet connections and such, do we then assume that Lindsey and Stevie (poor though they may have been) were sitting around their house with nothing to do on NYE?

I've read they were having a party.