After Donna Summer's death, I didn't think I could be more sad as far as musical favorites. I was wrong. Bob's passing is a bigger blow for me. Fleetwood Mac is my favorite rock band. While people either side with the Peter Green or Buckingham-Nicks era, I've always been impartial to Bob's. I think he and Christine McVie complimented each other amazingly with their vocal styles. Bob will be greatly missed.

I wish there was a way to send a sympathy card to Wendy Welch. Any ideas?

Wendy is posting on Bob's facebook page right now.

She seems really lovely. My heart breaks for her.

I've been listening to Bob's cuts all night. Although I've always favored the New Testament version of FM, I do have all of the Old Testament material too. Seems Bob Welch's contributions could easily have put the "prog rock" label on the band. Of all the pre-B/N era iterations, the Welch era has always been my favorite. He definitely left a legacy... we can be thankful for that. Bless his heart and Wendy too. Dang, I'm still havin' a time with it. :distress:

Swapped messages with Bob through the Q&A and other e-mails over the last 13 years...very stunned and saddened but grateful for the access and the interaction that he gave us during that time. His insights made me look at the music differently and I developed quite an appreciation for the Middle Mac. Timing of his passing was odd as I had just pre-ordered the CD releases of "Bob Welch" and "Eye Contact" on Wounded Bird and was thinking of e-mailing him to see what he thought of these finally seeing the light of day.

Thanks for posting about Eye Contact getting reissued by Wounded Bird, I'm off to order my copy now. :)

John

I was way up in the monuntains on a 4 day hike when my friend saw the new on his I=phone.I could not believe it.I had just bought a CD of Future Games before the trip and played it in the car on the way back.God rest his soul.

Aquarium Drunkard, June 11, 2012
http://www.aquariumdrunkard.com/2012...5-june-7-2012/

“I don’t know if you’ve been to Paris, but this song was written in Paris in the midst of 1970, which was a bad year for just about everything,” Bob Welch said into the microphone, breaking up a dreamy instrumental passage of Fleetwood Mac’s “Future Games.” The band was playing a set for radio broadcast at the Record Plant in Sausalito, and Welch was looking through the glass of the booth at his former bandmate Bob “Boob” Weston, who’d been relieved of guitar duties after an affair with Mick Fleetwood’s wife. Welch and Weston had stayed on good terms, though, and Welch was happy to find a friendly face in the room. Christine McVie was rolling her eyes; she hated it when Welch did these spoken-word interludes, so Welch locked his stare with Weston and continued. “The only thing that was good that year was the Beaujolais…and the kief was pretty out of sight…but everything else was on the downgrade. We were sitting up in an apartment in Paris—I don’t think I knew you then, Boob—we were sitting up in the middle of a blizzard, getting really wasted but getting bummed out at the same time…because everything in the headlines in the paper, and the club owner, everything like that, it was wrong. Everything was wrong; we were trying to put a simple name to what we were doing, the process of analyzing the people that you’re close with what your thing is…trying to figure out what’s going on, and what will be going on and if you wanna leave or not by the front door or the back door. What?”

Two weeks later, on New Year’s Eve 1974, he quit the band.

There’s a lot to say about Bob Welch’s life and music—his opiated-roué persona of the late 1970s, his time as host of the proto-MTV “Hollywood Heartbeat,” his addictions, his lifelong obsessions with the paranormal, his humor. But for now, here’s a sampling of Bob Welch’s stunning contributions (as guitarist, singer, and songwriter) to Fleetwood Mac—the eerie, Marquee Moon-anticipating “Future Games” and the earlier, lonelier version of “Sentimental Lady” among them. Play them loud.

Actually, I think he was talking to Bobby Hunt, the guy playing organ.

I wonder if Chris was thinking that Bob was wearing a ****ing stupid shirt?

BTW, Bob couldn't have quit on NYE 1974 because that is the night Lindsey and Stephanie were asked to join FM.

That makes a lot more sense if this is 1974.

Christine hated these interludes. I have heard this--and Bob even said this himself in his first Q&A. I wonder if this might have been the basis for the minor spat backstage between them that ended with her saying "F*** You" and Bob quitting two weeks later. Mick mentions that spat in his book but says he can't recall the details since it was "nothing heavy."

As much as I loved Bob's speeches and storytelling before, after, and sometimes in the middle of songs, I can see why someone might not like them. It's an acquired taste. I adore moody spoken bits. Some rock-n-rollers in the audience might have just wanted party and get down to business.

I read this news with great sadness. Bob created some great songs. I always felt the band missed the boat with him. Hypnotized is one of the greatest songs - up on the level of Baker Street in terms of defining the 70's for me. I always felt there was a great unrealized potential with him. I wish he had stayed on with the group. He had a vibe with the band that rivaled Lindsey and Stevie's. His work afterwards seemed to have been missing the undefinable quality that John, Mick, and Christine could add to it. Nonetheless, his music was magical, and I am glad I was able to enjoy it. He left a mark.
And there is simply nothing like that work he did with them.

This is the extract from Mick's book. I just think the "f*** you" incident was probably the result of accumulated stress. Fortunately they remained friends and we enjoyed Chris voice in his Sentimental Lady version of French Kiss.

Shopping for a studio in the Valley, I saw this girl through a window. But I didn't meet her just then. While I was stomping away to the rhythm of "Frozen Love," appreciating the impressive guitar on the track, the guy who wrote the song and played the guitar was working in the next studio. He came in, we were introduced, and that was that. I went on my merry way, which was along the back end of the Heroes Are Hard to Find tour in late December 1974. About a week later, Bob Welch announced he was quitting Fleetwood Mac.

It happened after a minor incident. We were playing in Las Vegas and things were strained. It didn't seem that serious, but I could sense that something was in the air. In the kitchen after a gig, Bob sort of snapped and Chris said "**** you" either then or later; my memories of this are hazy because it was nothing heavy. Unfortunately, it happened at the end of the tour, as we were about to make a new album. Bob simply said that he was leaving, and it wasn't a massive surprise.

"I felt like we were just going around in circles," Bob says. "Fleetwood Mac was floundering then, and the essential creative freshness had faded. I thought I needed to strike out on my own and find another context. They felt all they had to do was to add new blood. I could've stayed, but I felt that if I didn't test myself now, I'd never do it. I remember John McVie said, 'Bob, it's rough out there; you don't realize what you're throwing away for some possibility that doesn't exist.' I knew what he meant. Fleetwood Mac is a marriage you don't give it up easily. Mick tried to convince me to stay, but. . ."

It was almost New Year's Eve when Bob left the band. There was some upset over the latest defection John Courage destroyed an amp when he was told, emblematic of the crew's frustration with the foibles of musicians but I just said not to worry, that all would turn out well. I rang up Keith Olsen over at Sound City and asked the name of the chap whose music and guitar-playing I had liked when I visited the studio. Lindsey Buckingham, Olsen said.

It's always said that way in articles but I think Bob said in his 1st Q&A here that he was actually still there when S/L joined and Mick tried to get him to stay on as well but he chose not to or something along those lines.

John

You know, what is really sad to me, is the way this band treated Bob Welch. Bob Welch was the reason the band came to L.A. in the first place. And they were able to hook up with Stevie, and Lindsey. His idea alone. Otherwise they would have stayed a British Blues band. And then on top of that, Out of Fleetwoods mouth himself, he credited Bob Welch for saving Fleetwood Mac. He got them through the transition years, when they had no clue what to do. For them to shun him like they did, when it came down to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, is just plain F'd up. Fleetwood totally screwed him over. And if it wasn't for bob's songwriting, moving them to L.A., making them into a whole different kind of band, they would not have gone on to have the success they had. Simple as that. Over money. When bob had to sue the band over royalties that were due to him, he should not have had to do all that. He should have already been paid the money he was owed. He SAVED Fleetwood mac from themselves, and made that band do something different, something cool. He should have been right there with them, all the others that quit the band was. he quit over the legal bull crap, the drama of the divorces, i would have too. Fleetwood is gonna have to live with this one. He need to make it right, get him to be inducted to the Hall of Fame with him, it is the right thing to do. Period.