Fleetwood Mac's "Penguin" was an awesome album

[Taverner]

So good

Yet, not appreciated due to the context

Fleetwood Mac would, in 5 years - change the guitarist, and their style

The newer stuff was more well known, but not as good

Although it WAS good

Marriage of Lindsay Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie

[dembotoz]

1. all down hill from there

[Taverner]

2. I dunno, I quite like "Heroes are Hard to Find"

And I like the Lindsay/Stevie stuff too

Different, not worse, not better, at least to me

[Amerigo Vespucci]

3. The Bob Welch years are grossly underrated

The original Fleetwood Mac had its moments, some good, some repetitive, some "iffy"...it was a real tragedy when Peter Green took off after "Then Play On," the first album that showed how "scary good" this lineup could be.

So the whole Kiln House / Future Games / Bare Trees / Mystery To Me / Penguin / Heroes Are Hard To Find era represents taking the ball started by Green, Fleetwood, McVie, Kirwan & Spencer and running with it. Just like the original lineup, there are diamonds, and there's crap.

After "Mystery To Me" was released, personal dramas led to their manager sending the infamous "fake Fleetwood Mac" on tour. I remember one story about this in which the fake band played their first number and someone in the audience yelled "Who the fuck are YOU" and one of the band members responded "We're Fleetwood Mac...who the fuck are YOU?"

After that, the Welch lineup recorded "Heroes," went on tour, Welch then quit, and the rest is Buckingham-Nicks history.

From Wikipedia:

In what would be one of the most bizarre events in rock history, the band's manager, Clifford Davis, claimed that he owned the name Fleetwood Mac and put out a "fake Mac". Nobody in the "fake Mac" was ever officially in the real band, although some of them later acted as Danny Kirwan's studio band. Fans were told that Bob Welch and John McVie had quit the group, and that Mick Fleetwood and Christine McVie would be joining the band at a later date, after getting some rest. Fleetwood Mac's road manager, John Courage, worked one show before he realised that the line being used was a lie. Courage ended up hiding the real Fleetwood Mac's equipment, which helped shorten the tour by the fake band. But the lawsuit that followed put the real Fleetwood Mac out of commission for almost a year. The issue was who actually owned the name "Fleetwood Mac". While it would seem obvious that the band was named after Fleetwood and McVie, they had signed contracts that showed the band forfeited the rights to the name.

During this period, Welch stayed in Los Angeles and connected with entertainment attorneys. Welch quickly realised that the band was being neglected by Warner Bros., and that if they wanted to change that, they would have to change their base of operation to Los Angeles. The rest of the band agreed immediately. Rock promoter Bill Graham wrote a letter to Warner Bros. to convince them that the "real" Fleetwood Mac were in fact Fleetwood, Welch and the McVies. While this did not end the legal battle, the band was able to record as Fleetwood Mac again. Instead of getting another manager, Fleetwood Mac decided to manage themselves.

The fake Mac consisted of Elmer Gantry (vocals, guitar), Kirby Gregory (guitar), Paul Martinez (bass), John Wilkinson (keyboards) and Craig Collinge (drums). Gantry and Gregory went on to become members of Stretch, Gantry would later join the Alan Parsons Project and Martinez would eventually become a bassist for Robert Plant's solo efforts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleetwood_Mac

:toast: