Just wanted to share how Mick told in his book about the first days of Bob in the band.
...more important, we all got along well and decided that he was gonna be in the band. The auditions went on anyway for a while, but one night we went downstairs and started playing and that was it. It was unanimous. We loved his personality. His musical roots were in R&B instead of blues, and that was refreshing. We thought it would be an interesting blend. We knew he could sing; it was sort of talk-sing, with astute phrasing and timing. Plus he was well trained, as opposed to us who had just wandered into it. He was one of those guys who really sat down and played for hours and hours, an artistic chameleon who fit in with our colors and somehow inherited a bit of our history as well. To this day, I think personality is the most important thing in keeping a band together. I've seen too many impossible geniuses.
Once in the band, Bob really developed. He meshed well in every situation, and his songwriting and style became a big part of Fleetwood Mac in America. Which we badly needed, because without Peter Green ourcareer nosedived in Europe.
We also loved having an American in Fleetwood Mac. "They asked me to join and I said yeah," Bob Welch says. "I moved to Benifols, got an advance from Clifford Davies, which I used to buy a guitar. Immediately I began to discover Fleetwood Mac's unusual organisational methods. I was expecting they'd tell me to learn these songs and sing this way, but it was nothing like that. We just jammed for a long time, and played some blues on the side. I was waiting for them to tell me what kind of band they were, but instead I realized they expected me to be the band. I was expected to pull as much weight as anyone else. "
__________________
|