Quote:
Originally posted by sharksfan2000
Just listened to Jeremy's "Mean Old Fireman" from The Original Fleetwood Mac album, for the first time in quite awhile. Now that's a much different vocal style on that track than he uses on his other blues songs - sounds more like the "real" Jeremy.
I'm sure I've heard Jeremy do that song (probably live) under a different title, but I can't think of what it is - anyone know? Seems basically a variation on Otis Rush's "So Many Roads", but I think that "mean old fireman, cruel old engineer" line pops up in other songs too, right? Or maybe I'm just hallucinating again 
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It is not just his singing that's a revelation on that track, it's his guitar skills.
Jeremy's ability on acoustic guitar was never really given any attention. I think that is a shame -
in interviews with various people over the years, and ones that he himself has given, it's been said that he was basically a lazy sod - but you have to wonder, if Vernon had asked him to try a number, would he have refused?
If he had complete carte blanche in the studio, why didn't he ever push to record any of his "rock and roll" numbers?
There was so much more to the first line-up, Danny included, that went untapped - you get to hear a little of it in the BBC
recordings but there was just so much potential that went unused...
Aside from being a "train song", I don't think it really has that much in common with Rush's "So Many Roads, So Many Trains".
The liner notes to the box set credit it to Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, but I don't think that's correct.
I'm not an expert on Crudup (or anything else, for that matter) but the only "train song" I know by him is "Mean Old 'Frisco Blues" -
There are thousands of train blues, and to me, it sounds like Jeremy did what many a bluesman did: take various images, lines, or even whole verses from disparate sources and combine in a new way and call it your own -
If anyone has an vinyl pressing of "Original Fleetwood Mac" I'd be curious if that was the composer credit on there too.