Fleetwood Mac The Middle Years (A Playlist), Like Crying - The Songs of Danny Kirwin 2025

 

From 1966 to 1969 Fleetwood Mac was a blues-rock band headed by Peter Green on guitar with Jeremy Spencer on guitar, Mick Fleetwood on drums and John McVie on bass. Danny Kirwin was added to the line-up in 1968. Peter Green left the band he founded in 1969. This playlist covers the “middle period” Fleetwood Mac between Peter Green’s departure in 1969 and Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks’ arrival in 1975. 

From 1970 to 1974, multiple line-up changes occurred. Kiln House was recorded by the remaining four members after Green left in 1969, plus Christine Perfect (McVie) on keyboards (uncredited). After Kiln House Jeremy Spencer left. For Future Games, Bob Welsh on guitar and Christine McVie on keyboards were added to the group. This same line-up recorded Bare Trees, after which Danny Kirwin left the group. On Penguin, Bob Weston on guitar and Dave Walker on vocals were added to replace Kirwin. Walker left after Penguin, leaving the Fleetwood, McVie, McVie, Welsh and Weston line-up to record Mystery To Me. Weston left after Mystery To Me, and the four remaining members recorded Heroes Are Hard To Find. After Heroes Are Hard To Find, Bob Welsh left the group, replaced by Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. This became the line-up that owned rock radio in the late 1970s. But the years between Peter Green and Lindsey Buckingham produced some great music, highlighting the songwriting of Kirwin, Welsh and Christine McVie, all built on the foundation of one of the great rock rhythm sections of John McVie and Mick Fleetwood.

So here's a 1970-1974 playlist I burned to CD from vinyl years ago, and which is now a playlist on my iTunes and on Qobuz. If you're streaming, it's easy to assemble for your very own pleasure:

From Kihn House 1970:

1. This Is The Rock (Spencer)

2. Jewel Eyed Judy (Kirwin, J. McVie, Fleetwood)

3. Tell Me All The Things You Know (Kirwin)

From Future Games 1971:

4. Future Games (Welsh)

5. Lay It All Down (Welsh)

6. Sometimes (Kirwin)

From Bare Trees 1972:

7. The Ghost (Welsh)

8. Homeward Bound (C. McVie)

9. Bare Trees (Kirwin)

From Penguin 1973:

10. Remember Me (C. McVie)

11. Dissatisfied (C. McVie)

From Mystery To Me 1973:

12. Somebody (Welsh)

13. Believe Me (C. McVie)

14. Hypnotized (Welsh)

From Heroes Are Hard To Find 1974:

15. Heroes Are Hard To Find (C. McVie)

16. Silver Heels (Welsh)

17. Come A Little Bit Closer (C. McVie)

Another way to appreciate this period of the band is with the recently released Like Crying - The Songs of Danny Kirwin (digital only release). Danny Kirwin was a fine guitar player and an excellent songwriter and singer. He joined Fleetwood Mac for Then Play On in 1969, Peter Green's last record with the band. Like Crying includes all the songs Kirwin wrote (in chronological order) from Then Play On 1969 through Bare Trees 1972. It also includes three songs that were released on singles, and in the case of Trinity from the Bare Trees sessions, not released at all until 1992 on 25 Years- The Chain box set. Kirwin's songs are very good, and the collection is a cool way to focus on one important songwriter's work.

Best of 2025

 

Galactic and Irma Thomas Audience with the Queen. My #1. (The rest are in no particular order.). Irma Thomas continues to produce one late-career masterpiece after another. After The Rain 2006, Simply Grand 2008, Love Is The Foundation 2020, and now Audience with the Queen. Galactic shines with songs, arrangements and knockout playing.

Sloan Based On The Best Seller. Canadian pop-rockers continue a hot streak. 

Ricky Byrd NYC Made. Veteran rocker and long-time Blackheart makes a great record. It doesn't need to be complicated, it's rock 'n' roll.

Gyasi Here Comes The Good Part. Bowie/Bolan hybrid brings back the 1970s without stealing every riff. Great songs, solid musicianship, right attitude.

London Suede Antidepressants. Since their return in 2013, London Suede has made five well-received records. Glam is not dead. See Gyasi above.

Wet Leg Moisturizer. A big step forward from their solid debut, and a fine record all around.

Haim I Quit. Another big leap forward from their previous work, See Wet Leg above.

Van Morrison Remembering Now. Van returns to greatness. Shockingly good after several years of real junk. Remarkable recovery, and way unexpected.

Mavis Staples Sad and Beautiful World. Mavis never shies away from politics, protest or faith. A great song selection, lots of reverent guests, and Staples' magnificent, weathered voice. Revel in her very deep and spiritual soul.

Peter Holsapple The Face of 68. Holsapple has been a part of much great music. In the dBs, as a touring pro with REM and Hootie and the Blowfish, in the Continental Drifters, with Chris Stamey as a duo, and on his solo records, Out of My Way in 1997, and Game Day in 2018. He puts it all together on this new one.

Honorable Mention Just Part of the Whole Release: David Bowie Montreux Jazz Festival. This 2002 concert recording was broadcast on radio and unofficial versions have been around. Technically it isn't a new release of its own, but it is two of the CDs in the 13 CD I Can't Give Everything Away (2002-2016) box set. The tour was promoting Heathen, so eight of the twelve songs from Heathen are included, and the live versions beat the studio ones. Well chosen career highlights fill the rest. But wait, there's more, for the final encore, Bowie and the band play all of Low. It is a monster show. The set is available for streaming.

Honorable Mention Reissue/Compilation: Fleetwood Mac Like Crying: The Songs of Danny Kirwin. Every song Kirwin wrote for Fleetwood Mac and released on Then Play On, Kiln House, Future Games, and Bare Trees in chronological order. Kirwin's songwriting, guitar and singing during Fleetwood Mac's most oft-neglected period. Kirwin's songs were balanced with those of Christine McVie and Bob Welsh. Isolating Kirwin's songs is a lovely exercise. Digital only release, at least for now.

Songbird: An Intimate Biography of Christine McVie Lesley-Ann Jones

I'll start right off with the conclusion of this review: don't bother.

Supposedly the author was a friend of Christine McVie. Clearly McVie was a very private person, and if Jones was her friend, she certainly was not an intimate one, regardless of the book's title. Just how revealing was a guarded rock star with a rock journalist "friend"? I would speculate that the answer is "not so much".

And so speculation is what Jones does repeatedly in an attempt to explain McVie's childhood, her relationships with her parents, where her talents came from, and her motivations for many decisions throughout her life. She talks in depth about McVie's phycological background and reasons for her life's pathway with a psychologist that never met Christine McVie. She uses a jealous bass player that wanted but never got John McVie's role in Fleetwood Mac like he is an expert on Christine. 

No family members contributed. No Fleetwood Mac members gave new insights (although they are often quoted from past interviews). No lifelong close friends (real ones) talked to Jones. No neighbors from  Wickhambreaux, the small country town where Christine lived for some fifteen years had anything to say.

There's scant detailed or new information on the Fleetwood Mac records to which Christine famously contributed. In fact, I thought Jones wasn't even going mention Heroes Are Hard To Find, when she went off on a multi-page tangent and discussion of Bob Welsh's departure from the band before she even mentioned Heroes, the last Fleetwood Mac album on which he was featured. She of course spends lots of pages on the famous version of the band, but skims over the 1970-1974 era, when Christine wrote many of the bands best songs during the transitional phase, and helped keep things together before Buckingham and Nicks signed on.

The book covers all the sex, drugs and rock and roll mess and excess that was the famous post 1974 band. There's nothing new here, that story has been told to death. Same with her disastrous love of Dennis Wilson, a brief period of true love for Christine that ended in heartbreak.

If Lesley-Ann Jones was actually a friend of Christine McVie, she would have never written this sham of a biography.

Christine McVie 1943-2022

Christine McVie passed away yesterday. McVie was an excellent songwriter with a feel for a pop/rock melody, a singer with a lovely contralto voice, and a fine rocking piano/keyboard player. 

She wrote many of Fleetwood Mac's biggest hits. On their 1988 Greatest Hits, McVie wrote eight of the sixteen songs. Her songs also helped keep the band afloat in the early seventies during the Danny Kirwin/Bob Welch years, when McVie's songs were frequent album highlights (Show Me A Smile, Spare Me A Little Of Your Love, Remember Me, Believe Me, Heroes Are Hard To Find, Come A Little Bit Closer). 

She retired from Fleetwood Mac in 1999 and mostly lived a quiet life in Kent, although she rejoined the band in 2014 and recorded and toured behind the Lindsey Buckingham Christie McVie album in 2017.

Even when the band was the fuel for personal controversies in the press, she kept her head up, never said bad stuff about anyone, and remained the consummate professional. 

A class act all the way. Godspeed Christine McVie.

Fleetwood Mac 1970-1974

From 1966 to 1969, Fleetwood Mac was a blues-based rock band headed by Peter Green on guitar and vocals with Jeremy Spencer, also guitar and vocals, Mick Fleetwood's drums and John McVie on bass. Danny Kirwin's guitar and vocals were added to the line-up for their third LP Then Play On in 1968. Green left the group he founded in 1969. Between Green's departure and the 1975 arrival of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood Mac went through multiple line-up changes, with different personnel on all but two of the six records they released during this middle period.

Kiln House 1970 was recorded by Kirwin, Spencer, Fleetwood and McVie, with an uncredited Christine Perfect/McVie on keyboards and vocals. Jeremy Spencer left after Kiln House, to be replaced by American Bob Welsh, and Christine McVie became an official member. Future Games 1971 introduced Welsh's spacey, mystical rock songs, and also premiered Christine McVie's romantic balladry, which would become a stable for the band, with Show Me A Smile. The record garnered Fleetwood Mac a fair amount of FM radio play in America, even while the English reaction to their new distance from the blues was not well received .

The same line-up completed Bare Trees 1972, and again the record was neglected in the UK, and made it's way into the top 100 in the US. Strong songs from all three writers (Welsh, Kirwin, McVie) help fortify the record. Future Games and Bare Trees both benefit from the guitar interplay between Kirwin and Welsh, some fine jamming and riffing going on.

1973 saw two relatively unfocused releases from the band in a period of transition. Kirwin was dismissed during the tour in support of Bare Trees, and for Penguin, Bob Weston on guitar and Dave Walker (ex Savoy Brown vocalist) were added to the line-up. Penquin is probably their weakest outing since the band's inception, and is only saved by two of Christine McVie's better love songs, Remember Me and Dissatisfied. After Dave Walker left, the remaining five made Mystery To Me, and it's another weaker one, but not without redeeming moments in Welsh's Somebody and Hypnotized (which got considerable FM radio play) and McVie's Believe Me.

Heroes Are Hard To Find 1974 was made by the quartet of Welsh, McVie, Fleetwood and McVie, and was their first record to break into the top 40 Billboard album charts. The album holds up pretty well even today, and is clearly the precursor to the so-cal rock lite classics that are right around the corner. Welsh and McVie each contribute strong material, and a successful tour helped sell the record more than any before it. The title track and Welsh's Silver Heels are standouts, as is Come A Little Bit Closer by Christine McVie.

We all know what happened next. Welsh quit, and very shortly after, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks were added to the line-up. That band made two classic rock FM radio staples, Fleetwood Mac 1975 and Rumours 1977. The five are back together and touring again in 2015. Other than those classics from 1975 and 1977, their recorded output has been a mixed bag, with Buckingham, McVie, and Nicks each out of the picture at various times. In fact, these records from 1970-1974, especially Kiln House, Future Games, Bare Trees, and Heroes Are Hard To Find, are in my view much more interesting than any of their post 1977 output.

Fleetwood Mac Kiln House 1970

The first record after the departure of founder Peter Green should have been a let down. Instead, Danny Kirwin and Jeremy Spencer say never mind the blues, we're here to rock. Moreover, this version of the band could swing.

They have this casual, easy feel to much of this record, none more than the opener This Is The Rock. Station Man is a hypnotic jam that digs a very deep groove. Blood On The Floor is a straight-ahead country blues that suffers from an weak vocal. Hi Ho Silver is a Fats Waller cover that plays fast and fun, and rocks. Then the beauty of Jewel Eyed Judy winds up side one by displaying a feel for dynamic nuances ahead of their time. It's a great song, with a big Badfinger/Big Star chorus that makes you just want to play it one more time before you flip the record over.

Side two doesn't disappoint. Buddy's Song opens, a Buddy Holley cover that's great fun. Earl Gray and One Together show the loose, spacey sound that will develop more fully on Future Games 1971. There's instrumental prowess and skilled songwriting on display everywhere. Tell Me All The Things You Do just plain rocks, with a great guitar riff, and a jam band's tight instrumental playing. Mission Bell , a folk-rock ballad, rounds things out on a quiet note.

Ten songs, at least six classics, maybe eight.

The LP is just all the things that make vinyl fun. It's warm, with nice separation between instruments. John McVie and Mick Fleetwood's rhythm just push the whole record along. An uncredited Christine McVie plays keyboards for the first time with the band. The guitar interplay is about as good as it gets in rock, but it's always in service to the songs. I haven't met people that love this record more than me, but everyone that hears it finds something to like.

A classic.