45 Years Ago: Fleetwood Mac Play ‘Future Games’
By Dave Swanson September 3, 2016 10:13 AM
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Fleetwood Mac‘s early days were marked by poor sales and seemingly ever-shifting lineup. But their fifth record, Future Games, gave them a bit of temporary stability with the arrival of new guitarist Bob Welch and keyboardist Christine McVie when it was released on Sept. 3, 1971.
For McVie, the transition was easy. She’d been contributing to Fleetwood Mac albums since 1968’s Mr. Wonderful and, after 1970’s Kiln House, whose cover she painted, joined full-time. Plus, she was married to the bass player, John McVie.
On the other hand, Welch replaced Jeremy Spencer, who founded the group with John, Mick Fleetwood and Peter Green, all of whom were alumni of British blues legends John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers. But Welch was an American, and brought with him a different sensibility that was reflected in the material. Gone were the dirty blues-based blocks the band was built on, replaced by a variety of influences ranging from folk and country, to pop and psychedelia. “He was totally different background – R&B, sort of jazzy. He brought his personality,” Mick Fleetwood said of Welch in a 1995 BBC interview. “He was a member of Fleetwood Mac before we’d even played a note.”
Future Games is one of a handful of seemingly forgotten Fleetwood Mac albums, which is too bad as it plays out as one damn fine LP. Danny Kirwan’s “Woman of 1000 Years” is a beautiful opener; its ringing acoustic guitars and dreamy vocals casting a slightly psychedelic haze, not miles away from the likes of Crosby, Stills & Nash or even early Yes. “Morning Rain” is a Christine McVie song that shifts gears into rock and roll terrain, another great “lost” Fleetwood Mac tune.
It is Welch, however, who ignites side one with the ethereal title song. Nearly nine minutes of dreamy rock and roll awash in a bit of a haze falling somewhere between the sky and the horizon. Side two kicks off with two more Kirwan tunes, “Sands of Time” and “Sometimes,” the latter being a straight ahead country tinged number while the latter echoing a more jangly, Byrdsy territory. Welch offers up “Lay It All Down,” the album’s most upfront rocking number, while another great Christine tune, “Show Me a Smile,” ends the album.
All these years on, the album holds up surprisingly well, though at the time, sales or praise was hard to find. Rolling Stone called the album “thoroughly unsatisfactory” and referring to Christine McVie’s voice as “surprisingly weak and emotionless.” They were not any kinder to Bob Welch, saying “his talent appears to be notable only in its lack of distinction.”
Welch’s contributions to the band were, however, very significant during this period. Ultimately, he never felt at home, or so he would later recall. “It was like they were on some sort of mystical quest, by appointment to her majesty,” he said, “as if they had been given this thing, this mission to somehow accomplish and I was never quite clued in to what that mission might have been.”
Fleetwood Mac had yet to make an album that connected with American audiences. Kiln House was their first album to even break into the Billboard Top 100, and Future Games barely edged its way in. Kirwan would stick with the band for one more album, while variations on the Welch, McVie, McVie and Fleetwood lineup would produce four more albums before the band’s fortunes would change forever.
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