Bob Welch: Fleetwood Mac's Unsung Hero

[Street_Dreamer]

I wrote this piece several years back and was relieved to find that I still had it.

Few bands, if any, have survived the test of time as long as Fleetwood Mac has. Through nearly forty years, twenty-seven albums and sixteen different members, this band has seen it all, the best and the worst, the good and the bad. Fleetwood Mac achieved success in its early days with Peter Green, Jeremy Spencer, Danny Kirwan, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood. After the departure of Green (1969,) Spencer (1970) and Kirwan (mid 1972,) and the addition of Christine McVie, Bob Welch, Bob Weston and Dave Walker, Fleetwood Mac “took a break” from success. While their fan base remained strong, the band’s album sales didn’t show it. Fleetwood Mac’s biggest and most notable success came after the departures of Walker (early 1973,) Weston (late 1973) and finally Welch (late 1974) and the addition of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks January 1st, 1975. Buckingham and Nicks along with John and Christine McVie and Mick Fleetwood helped skyrocket Fleetwood Mac into the stratosphere of superstardom. Most likely it is this group of people that allowed Fleetwood Mac to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998. The band’s two most famous lineups were inducted; Green, Spencer and Kirwan; Buckingham, Nicks and Christine McVie along with John McVie and Mick Fleetwood, the band’s two staples.
However, the one glaring omission was that of Bob Welch, who, while not achieving the success of those before and after him, was a major part in Fleetwood Mac. Welch essentially led Fleetwood Mac through a very tumultuous and perhaps its most important period in terms of band survival in the early to mid 1970s. It was Welch who kept Fleetwood Mac going through its absolute worst times; it was Welch who took the lead role in Fleetwood Mac’s musical creative process, it was Welch who convinced the United Kingdom based band to move to America and it was Welch who took the lead in saving Fleetwood Mac’s very name. Mick Fleetwood, one of the band’s namesakes said it himself in his 1990 biography My Life And Adventures In Fleetwood Mac, “Bob Welch saved Fleetwood Mac” (Fleetwood and Davis 99).

Bob Welch joined Fleetwood Mac in mid 1971 after a very difficult period for the band. In 1969, band creator and lead guitarist Peter Green left Fleetwood Mac due to mental health issues. In 1971 while preparing for a live concert in Los Angeles, slide guitarist Jeremy Spencer left the band and joined the Children Of God religious group. Fleetwood Mac was in shambles; one half of the original band was gone, and they were stuck in a rock in a hard place. It was band friend, Judy Wong, who suggested that Mick Fleetwood take a look at Bob Welch as a possible new addition in Fleetwood Mac. After a short meeting with the band’s members, Welch was in. It would be a decision that would be to the advantage of Fleetwood Mac.
The addition of Welch brought Fleetwood Mac from its blues roots to a more rock oriented form of music and immediately the change in their sound was evident. In September 1971, Fleetwood Mac released Future Games to good success. In fact, the album’s title track, which was the b-side to Danny Kirwan’s “Sands Of Time” single ended up receiving more air play on the radio. The “new” Fleetwood Mac seemed to be enjoyed by fans in their subsequent tour of America, opening for acts like Deep Purple and Savoy Brown. In 1972, Fleetwood Mac went back into the studio to record Bare Trees. This album was the beginning of a very good run of success for the Welch group which at this point was being creatively lead by Welch himself. Bare Trees charted as high as seventieth in the United States album charts and stayed on it for twenty-seven weeks. Welch showed what he was made of, particularly with the song “Sentimental Lady” (which later became a solo hit for him.) Unfortunately, it was during the tour in support of this album that Fleetwood Mac suffered with the subtraction of another member, this time Danny Kirwan, who’s time with the band came to an end due to his poor attitude.

Fleetwood Mac came off the road and added two more guitarists to its lineup: Dave Walker and Bob Weston. In early 1973, this group recorded Penguin which charted as high as forty-ninth on the United States album charts staying on it for thirteen weeks. Penguin had some solid Welch tunes such as “Bright Fire” and “Revelation” and the tour in support of the album was quite successful. After the tour, the Mac recorded their second album of 1973, Mystery To Me. Halfway through this album, the band bid adieu to Dave Walker, who had spent most of the recording sessions at the local pub while Welch and Christine McVie worked on writing songs for the album. The band kept going and released Mystery To Me to the most success that Fleetwood Mac had since the days of Peter Green.
Mystery To Me is considered by many to be some of Bob Welch’s best work in Fleetwood Mac. The song “Hypnotized” received a lot of radio air play and became a radio staple in many areas of the United States. Unfortunately, the success of Mystery To Me would not last as long as the band had hoped. During the tour in support of Mystery To Me, Fleetwood discovered that his wife Jenny was having an affair with Bob Weston. On October 26, 1973, Weston was asked to leave the band, and the tour was put on hold. Mystery To Me ended up sixty-seventh on the United States album charts and stayed on it for twenty-six weeks. It is conceivable that the album would have been even more successful than the numbers showed because the tour was going extremely well. “The line up of Mick, John, Chris, Bob West and I was the most powerful one to date,” Welch noted in the linear notes of his album Bob Welch: His Fleetwood Mac Years & Beyond. “If it had stayed together, I have no doubt that the band might have achieved something close to the success they later had with Stevie and Lindsey. But fate, as usual, intervened.”

Then came the darkest days for Fleetwood Mac. The remaining foursome of Welch, Christine McVie, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood took a break from the band for a short time to try to get their bearings back together. However, Fleetwood Mac’s manager Clifford Davies didn’t like what was going on. Davies felt that the band was copping out on him, so he sent Welch a letter stating that he was taking over Fleetwood Mac and that the four could either be or not be a part of the group. The band was unsure of exactly what Davies, meant but they all soon found out. In January 1974, a fake Fleetwood Mac began a very short tour. From Bob’s linar notes, “There the matter sat for about a month, until I offhandedly called a promoter in Pittsburgh that we knew who told me that he was looking forward to seeing me next week at the Fleetwood Mac show at the Syria Mosque Auditorium. I said, ‘WHAT’? I knew we weren’t playing the Syria Mosque, but some ‘Fleetwood Mac’ concoction was. Clifford Davies had hired some musicians and put them on the road...as us!” According to road manager John Courage, “The phony Fleetwood Mac went to work in January 1974, and it was horrendous from the first gig. Fleetwood Mac had well-known personalities, which you couldn’t replace just like that. When the fans saw strange musicians pretending to be Fleetwood Mac, playing their music, they were outraged. People booed, walked out, demanded their money back” (Fleetwood and Davis 131). According to Fleetwood, the fake Mac only played two weeks of a scheduled ten-week tour before disbanding.
Meanwhile, as all of this was happening, Welch was trying to convince the members to permanently move from the United Kingdom to the United States, specifically Los Angeles, California in order to be closer to their record company, Warner Brothers. At the same time, Welch had also hired lawyers for Fleetwood Mac, ready to litigate Davies. With Davies’ lawsuit against them as well as strict United Kingdom labor laws, Fleetwood Mac ended up not working for an entire year. Eventually, all the problems going on in the United Kingdom convinced Fleetwood and the McVies to move to America to more or less get a fresh start. Welch’s intuition to move Fleetwood Mac to the United States would turn out to be the right one over time.

In late April 1974, Fleetwood Mac arrived in America with little more than seventy-two hundred dollars, no gear, no staff and no record company unless a deal could be struck with Warner Brothers. The problems going on overseas weren’t helping the band in its negotiations with Warner Brothers for a new record contract either. Welch yet again took the reigns to help keep Fleetwood Mac going. With the help of Mickey Shapiro, a lawyer who the band met through Welch, Mick Fleetwood was able to strike a deal with Warner Brothers, and Fleetwood Mac began to work on their next album. Heroes Are Hard To Find was released September of 1974 just as the band settled their legal problems with Davies. Even through the mess Fleetwood Mac had been through and the problems Welch had taken care of on behalf of the band, he still produced strong material for this album, most notably the song “Bermuda Triangle”. Heroes Are Hard To Find ended up being the most successful Fleetwood Mac album up to then reaching thirty-forth on the United States album charts and staying on it for twenty-six weeks, a major feat for a band that had endured so much in just one year.
Unfortunately, even though Welch’s material was still strong, physically and emotionally he was not. The legal problems he had taken on, and being in Fleetwood Mac had drained him. The rest of the Fleetwood Mac sensed his feelings as well; Bob Welch would be leaving Fleetwood Mac soon. In late December 1974, at the end of the supporting Heroes Are Hard To Find tour, Welch left Fleetwood Mac after a somewhat minor argument with Christine McVie. Welch’s departure helped usher in a new beginning for Fleetwood Mac, perhaps its most famous lineup of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks along with the McVies and Fleetwood.

The success of this era of Fleetwood Mac is well-known. Their 1977 album Rumours sold millions of copies worldwide and is still one of the most popular albums in music today. As previously mentioned, in 1998 Fleetwood Mac was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, sans Bob Welch. The question is why? There seem to be several reasons. One is because of a lawsuit Welch filed against Fleetwood Mac (specifically Fleetwood and the McVies) in 1994 on the issue of not being paid royalties that he was due. According to Welch himself from the February 1998 article “Rock Hall Snubs Welch; Induction Process Called Political and Arbitrary,” he believes that this was one of the major reasons why he wasn’t inducted in 1998. However, this particular issue has since been put to rest and today Welch has a good relationship with Fleetwood and the McVies. Another reason is that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame itself does not recognize Welch’s work in Fleetwood Mac as “hall of fame worthy.” Apparently, in the eyes of the hall of fame committee, Fleetwood Mac’s middle period isn’t as important as its beginning and later ones because they weren’t as successful in terms of album sales and fame. According to the “Rock Hall Snubs Welch” article, “An argument was made that the band that Bob Welch was part of was not hall of fame caliber.” Welch’s response in the same article, “I could understand it if I had been a sideman for a year. But I was an integral part of that band for five years. I put more of myself into that band than anything else I’ve ever done.”
The one thing that seems to be widely agreed on amongst diehard Fleetwood Mac fans is that if Mick Fleetwood had made it a major point to the hall of fame committee to ensure Bob Welch being inducted into the hall of fame, he would have been in it by now. In a personal poll that I took on the message board of the Fleetwood Mac Legacy (www.fmlegacy.com) out of nineteen people, eighteen voted that Bob Welch should be in the hall of fame while one voted against it. As a counterpoint to Mick Fleetwood’s loyalty on Welch’s behalf, or lack thereof, Grateful Dead’s noted leader Jerry Garcia ensured that all members of his band were inducted into the hall of fame, no matter how long they were in the band or how small their role or even if he had problems with any of them. Welch was quoted as saying in the “Rock Hall Snubs Welch” article, “I give Jerry Garcia credit for standing up for those people. I’m really disappointed about being overlooked by Fleetwood Mac. It basically comes down to the fact that they (Fleetwood and the McVies) don’t like me anymore.” Fleetwood did not and still has not stood up for the man whom he claimed “saved Fleetwood Mac.”

If Bob Welch did indeed save Fleetwood Mac, then he most certainly should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It is quite apparent going through this band’s past that without his presence, it is quite likely Fleetwood Mac would merely be a thing of the past, and the success that the band eventually achieved after Welch’s departure would never have happened. In my opinion, and the opinion of many diehard Fleetwood Mac fans, there is absolutely no question. Unfortunately, it seems as if it will take a miracle, or some loyalty on behalf of Mick Fleetwood for this to happen because it is unlikely that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame bigwigs will admit that they are indeed wrong about Bob Welch and his tenure in Fleetwood Mac.

Works Cited
Fleetwood, Mick and Stephen Davis. Fleetwood My Life And Adventures In Fleetwood Mac. New York: William Morrow And Company Inc., 1990.
The Mick Fleetwood Story Two Sticks And A Drum. Dir. Richard Journo and Jason Wright. Narr. Kate Harper. DVD. Image Entertainment, 2000.
Norman, Michael. “Rock Hall Snubs Welch; Induction Process Called Political and Arbitrary.” The Penguin. 15 Feb. 1998 .
Sullivan, Matthew. “Should Bob Welch be in the R&RHoF as a FM member?” Online posting. 22 Mar. 2005. The Fleetwood Mac Legacy Board. 4 Apr. 2005 .
Welch, Bob. “Bob Welch: His Fleetwood Mac Years & Beyond”.

[HomerMcvie]

Very well written, Matt. Thanks for posting that.

[Aussie W/Heart]

Very interesting read, thanks for posting. Such a disgrace that R&R Hall of Fame overlooked Bob Welch.... A true Legendary Member of Fleetwood Mac..
Bob Welch
RIP
Your music will live on forever

[Dreamz19]

Thank you for writing this. I was watching FM videos last week and commented that Bob should have been inducted as well. Such a shame that he wasn't.

[forever]

Some fans are petitioning the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to induct Bob posthumously as a member of Fleetwood Mac:

http://www.petitiononline.com/bobwelch/petition.html

[StandbackStevie]

it sad that Bob Welch was robbed from his entrance in the rock n roll hall of fame as another key member of Fleetwood Mac. Everyone who was in Fleetwood Mac from 1967 thru 1998 when the band was inducted should have been contacted and given the high award like the rest of them. I believe a total of 16 members thru the years. They all should have been honored and inducted.

[Chris H.]

Hello all: I agree with Standback Stevie's comment. All band members up to the time of induction should be in the Hall. Hopefully, this error regarding Bob Welch will be fixed. Best regards, Chris H.