Stevie said meeting Lindsey was her destiny. Christine and Mick are both in print saying that Lindsey knew the best what to do with Stevie's songs. But here the sentiment seems to be Lindsey added nothing to Fleetwood Mac that another guitarist couldn't, like Rick Vito could have done everything Lindsey did and better.

I wasn’t really going to dignify that with a response, but since Tony responded…

So, Keith Olsen tells them Mick Fleetwood wants them to join Fleetwood Mac and Lindsey declines. Does anyone believe that Stevie wouldn’t have still elbowed her way into Fleetwood Mac, dragging along Waddy and possibly Warren Zevon?

Better? No. But still compelling.

I love Lindsey, but he gets gets a little too much credit. Keith scouted Fritz when Lindsey played bass and neither Stevie nor Lindsey were singing their own songs. Buckingham Nicks got signed because of their harmonies. Keith told them to ditch their band, start writing their own songs, and move to Los Angeles. Lindsey got mono and learned the crafts of guitar playing and producing, but Stevie honed her craft in songwriting. Who dominated the Coffeehouse Demos?

Stevie was the driving force for them moving to Los Angeles and, later, joining Fleetwood Mac.

For me, it all comes down to “Rhiannon,” because Christine had a solid body of work prior to 1975. It’s easy to hear Lindsey’s contributions to her songs, which were largely cosmetic. But the Buckingham Nicks “Rhiannon” from January, 1975 was comically amateurish compared to the legendary version we know. I could hear any bar band do something akin to the Buckingham Nicks version in any town across the country.

The Fleetwood Mac version several months later, by comparison, had elements that are steeped in the blues and numerous tours with bands like Deep Purple and Rainbow. There’s a dynamic and edge Fleetwood Mac developed with Peter, Danny, and especially Bob that went well beyond Lindsey’s vocabulary prior to 1975. They deserve great credit, too, and I think Lindsey has been all to happy to take the credit without acknowledging he couldn’t have gotten there without his bandmates.

He’s the proverbial was born on third and acts like he got a triple.

Mick, John (who has improved soooo many of Stevie's songs) and Christine made Rhiannon into something it would never, ever have been as just BN.

Well, apparently you're not the authority, here. YOU NEED TO BACK TF DOWN.

Did John not? I think John’s contributions, especially on Rhiannon, Dreams, Gold Dust Woman, Sara, Angel, Sisters of the Moon, and Smile At You, were especially critical to the songs.

Yeah, I don’t buy that argument. Lindsey isn’t the most technically fluid guitarist the band had, nor is he a session musician who can execute other peoples’ idioms. But that’s the point. What he knew and knows made his attack on Chris and Stevie’s songs so special. Energy, too. He possesses a musical personality and has a unique charisma. All of this he brought to the band and to Stevie’s songs.

Naturally, the core trio of Fleetwood-McVie-McVie also made a mark.

Thank you very much for your respectful and civil response that was not supercilious. God love you!

A bit of a pivot of topic, but Look what the brits do with Crystal. It goes from a good song at best to sonically and warmly incredible.

Whilst also insulting the versions and personnel, prior and after him.

And just listen to her some of her solo demos. Some of them are so boring.

Perfect example. As mentioned earlier, Rhiannon is another song where the core trio provided the right setting.

GYOW, Dreams, and Sara are as good as they are because of Fleetwood and the McVies.

As Christine herself pointed out about Dreams. She is the one who described how Lindsey transformed it. He gave the band something to work with that they might not have discovered in her songs without his involvement. In that respect I would call him a translator. I don’t discount everyone else’s involvement, but I don’t think that they would deny that the structure he created gave them something to sink f their teeth in on SN songs.

I would put that in the context of his competitve relationship with Stevie and how Stevie was getting all the attention since joining Fleetwood Mac.
It's not like he's a Brit like John and Christine who doesn't need to talk himself up; he's cut from the same self-promoting cultural cloth as Stevie and, holy Rhiannon, can you imagine how suffocated your ego would feel when Stevie Nicks is sucking up all the air around you. By doing some self-promotion about his contribution to arrangement and production, or making some jabs at his replacements, I picture him merely clinging to a lifebuoy while the shimmering SS Stevie ploughs past through the waters of public opinion and recognition.

Regarding his predecessors, I don't feel like he ever went around 'dissing' them per se, as he light-heartedly did with his replacements, but rather, in the context of his having agreed to join FM not as a beholden jukebox player but as a new and independent creative force in the band, and having secured immense success with and for that band, he was simply pointing out the inarguable facts regarding the success of the band under its respective iterations and his own personal tastes for the musical direction he envisioned for the band.

Said very well. The first part is spot on. As is the second, except I would say LB occasionally dismissed Bob Welch’s work with the band.

Mid-seventies interviews show him saying things like: I stopped listening to Fleetwood Mac after Bare Trees because I wasn’t thrilled with the direction Bob Welch took the band. And, with the exception of Green, he has never acknowledged the accomplishments of their previous guitarists. Many critics and general listeners have noted his stylistic affinities with Danny Kirwan, but he never admits to them. It’s part of his manner to underplay others in the band. Heck, even when he was being interviewed for the BuckVie record, he told the journalist he’s not really a fan of, or inclined to listen to, Christine’s work, that what he admires about her is her commitment to craft in songwriting—but even when the journalist pressed, he still did but concede that he’s terribly interested in her voice or her instrumental prowess. Strange man indeed.

Love ya, Homie :xoxo: