MEDiA: Fleetwood Mac’s Songbird

The Welch era: Welch, McVie, Fleetwood and the titular Songbird.

Wow! Happened on this doc’ on BBC2 totally accidentally. This was quite a revelation to me, in parts. I didn’t realise, for example, that Fleetwood Mac had lived out the hippie dream, taking up residence in a communal country house, getting stoned and making music.

So, while it’s available – I don’t know how long this link will work for – here it is: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008k8q.

And what a band Fleetwood Mac have been: the Peter Green blues explosion era, the Bob Welch period, and then the ‘classic’ quintet with the arrival of Buckingham/Nicks.

A while back I got a whole bunch of their albums, concentrating on the earlier years up to and including Rumours. Seeing this makes me realise I need to go back and listen to them a lot more.

As with so many music history tales, I found the most interesting stuff was the early to mid years. The whole thing got less exciting and interesting as the years piled up. This is a bit sad for me, as I’m now 50!

As The Floyd had it: I missed the starting gun, I didn’t know when to run! Hey ho…

The whole core thread, around Christine, was interesting, and she comes across as a very nice person. And talented. But strangely it’s the story of the group as a whole I find most compelling, even when, as here, related through the prism of one particular member.

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