"The Purple Dancer"

[becca]

I always wondered if that was a Sitar or just slide on Dragonfly, it has a really deep vibration whatever it is. Dust on Bare Trees was another poem set to music, not sure that happened much outside of the folk-rock crowd. I kind of like the live Purple Dancers on the Madison set best myself, kind of a Dead/Airplane thing in there so that live seems the best way to go.

Or maybe that's a dobro...

[sharksfan2000]

Thanks for finding and posting the link to "The Purple Dancer" mp3 file, slipkid! I have the studio version on the German The Best of Fleetwood Mac LP but there are some annoying pops on the vinyl. The studio version has been my favorite - I prefer it to the Madison Blues versions - of course that may be at least partly due to the studio version being the only one I had for many years. But it's still among my favorite of the band's songs from the early '70s.

Great recollection on the writing of the song, Jeremy - thanks!

[becca]

I just reread the insert of Madison Blues and was amazed how much is mentioning the Rumours whatever it was/is to come. Not any info about Purple Dancer so much or if either of the live recordings might predate the studio one. The obsession some have with Rumours! Anyway, I think 'Jet' is pretty much reaching as to the three vocalists setting the stage for Rumours idea. Like some Beatles fans who claim no artists wrote or were allowed to write their own songs before them (Chuck Berry, Bo Diddly, and Fats Domino sure as @#%&! did), some Mac fans are clouded by Buckingham & Nicks' dramatic rise to the heights of mythic immortality. Kiln House and Station Man/Purple Dancer specifically as a warm-up to a full west-coast harmony-pop sound? Nuh-uh! Some of it does remind me of the folk-rock around in England then, in drawing on older musical themes ala Music From Big Pink/The Band a bit. Fairport did some really neat versions of earlier Everlys songs along with the stuff from old English ballads/poems. Like I wrote earlier I wish there had been more of the Jeremy-Danny-Christine line-up and the Madison Blues set is a major reason for changing my mind on that.

[slipkid]

Originally Posted by becca

I just reread the insert of Madison Blues and was amazed how much is mentioning the Rumours whatever it was/is to come. Not any info about Purple Dancer so much or if either of the live recordings might predate the studio one. The obsession some have with Rumours! Anyway, I think 'Jet' is pretty much reaching as to the three vocalists setting the stage for Rumours idea. Like some Beatles fans who claim no artists wrote or were allowed to write their own songs before them (Chuck Berry, Bo Diddly, and Fats Domino sure as @#%&! did), some Mac fans are clouded by Buckingham & Nicks' dramatic rise to the heights of mythic immortality. Kiln House and Station Man/Purple Dancer specifically as a warm-up to a full west-coast harmony-pop sound? Nuh-uh! Some of it does remind me of the folk-rock around in England then, in drawing on older musical themes ala Music From Big Pink/The Band a bit. Fairport did some really neat versions of earlier Everlys songs along with the stuff from old English ballads/poems. Like I wrote earlier I wish there had been more of the Jeremy-Danny-Christine line-up and the Madison Blues set is a major reason for changing my mind on that.

I think the liner notes are for those Mac fans that only know Nicks/Buckingham, and beyond. I agree the songs stand on their own, no need for the sales pitch.

You should read the liner notes for "Boston Blues". Here is the final paragraph:

"Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, of course soldiered on, hiring various American session muso's, eventually re-emerging as the most successful AOR band of the 70's and 80's. But despite their name on the door, they weren't a patch on the REAL Fleetwood Mac, never mind how many platinum records they were awarded!" This CD is of course the 2/70 Boston shows.

After Jeremy left, the band was the interesting Green/Kirwan/C. McVie/J. McVie/Fleetwood (Nigel Watson: congas) line-up for about six weeks. Though I think Green's LONG concert jams drove the group away from him as much as he didn't want to be there at the same time. If all parties allowed it, that would've been the streamlined Fleetwood Mac that would've continued its success, instead of being lost for four years. Yet there's always that 3 ton elephant in the room named mental illness.