Still liking this discussion. As another one of those aging/old/former/whatever hippies I don't always remember things unfiltered through the fogginess of time but I seem to remember being more upset when DK left than PG. I am Danny's age and somehow always related to him. I also didn't really discover FM until Then Play On; had to work backwards to discover the older stuff. So I knew Danny longer. I remember frequenting the local record stores (remember when you could go in and you knew exactly which ones had just come in? And you could spend a couple hours going through ALL the records?) constantly searching for a new Fleetwood Mac album. I remeber picking up the first one without DK and being crushed. Then discovering it was still a good album (that was Mystery to Me, right?)
I didn't really feel the same way when Peter left. Although I could really FEEL the difference in the direction of the music. I didn't really realize what it meant until later, as I matured and let all the FM music flow into my genes. One memory was finding the bootleg Merely a Portmanteau (think that was the name) and picking up "The Original Fleetwood Mac" vinyl and being happy that, although it wasn't a "new" album but it was stuff I didn't have. I did buy the first album without Bob and remember also being disappointed. Although I can appreciate that era, that was the final "new" FM album I ever bought. By this time my tastes were heading back to the blues and into the new country stuff so I quit buying albums by FM.
Fast forward to now and it is still a little like that. Finding cd releases of material or versions I don't have. My latest acquisition, earlier this year, was Madison Blues. Really liking this album. I always felt that the Kiln House era demonstrated really well the direction the band was headed and had Jeremy not left what direction the band could have gone and just how good they would have been as that 5 piece band. Although, I forget which song it is, but toward the end of Madison Blues, in the live stuff, there is a DK solo that I also think demonstrates the beginning of Danny's decline. Sometimes you can hear a solo and the guitarist might miss or mess up but you get an idea of what he is trying to do. Man, that one song I really have no idea what Danny was trying to do. And yet, Bare Trees and Future games were still to come so he still had a lot of good stuff coming. Make sense?
As a (pretty lame) guitarist myself I find that the only period of FM's music I try to learn and play is Peter Green era music. That is where my new appreciation for what he did comes from as well as my still huge appreciation for DK's guitar playing. I will never even be close to the caliber of either of them but figure I could have worse goals.
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