Play On: Now, Then, and Fleetwood Mac: The Autobiography

by Mick Fleetwood

  Around that time Peter released The End of the Game, an album of acid-rock guitar excursions on wah-wah pedal that left me bewildered and hurt. He’d talked so much about wanting to go in a new direction, and it was, but it wasn’t so far off from what we’d been doing. The way he spoke about his intentions I expected his next music to sound completely different and it didn’t. He could have done those songs with us and I didn’t understand why he hadn’t even tried to. We would have followed him into whatever uncharted musical terrain he chose to explore, without question.

  We continued to tour and after about five months, we really found our identity as a collective. Christine was a smash, and her playing and voice became a focal point, filling the gap between the two guitarists.

  Our first year of living at Benifold was heaven. Jenny and I lived in what used to be the servants’ quarters, which were large, because a mansion of that size would have demanded a sizeable staff. John and Chris had their own wing with its own kitchen and living room, and Danny and his girlfriend Clare, who was pregnant with their son and whom he later married, lived upstairs in the attic. Jeremy and his wife also lived there for a short time.

  John and Chris’s quarters were the nicest because Chris knew how to make a cosy home. Jenny used to get upset with me because when I was there, I’d spend most of my time over in the McVies’ wing, sitting at their table, talking about the band. This didn’t lessen her alienation in an already large and rambling manor, when she’d wanted time alone with her husband after waiting patiently for his return. She had no friends living close by, but that wasn’t it, she wanted me to be more of a part of her life when I was around, particularly during the last term of her pregnancy.

  We were on tour in Scotland in January 1971 when our first daughter Amelia was born and it was one of the scariest days of my life. When I got the call, I was told that the delivery was going wrong and both the baby and mother might not survive. I fell to pieces; there were no mobile phones then, no way to stay in touch moment to moment, so I boarded the plane to return to Jenny, with no idea what news would greet me when I landed. The doctors performed an emergency Caesarean section and though it was hard on both of them, Amelia and Jenny pulled through. I was there at her bedside when Jenny woke up and I’d never been happier to see her face. Our mutual joy was short-lived however, because I had to catch a train the next day to rejoin the band.

  Talking to Jenny for the book all these years later, her perspective has taught me so much about me, about us and about our marriage. The hardest pill to swallow was just how poorly we communicated, both of us, and just how much of our marriage she spent oblivious of how deeply I loved her. We’re soulmates, always have been, and we’ve remained close through the years, connected not only by the bond of the two beautiful daughters we brought into the world but also by a bond of true friendship. Yet I have to laugh to keep from crying when I grasp the fact that we’re both in our late sixties and only now are we able to speak to each other honestly and openly. I’m so thankful to have had the chance, because life is about understanding who we are and why we are here, and that process continues–if your mind remains open–until the moment you draw your last breath.

  After Amelia was born, life at Benifold was even tougher for Jenny, because she was torn between two different lives; the one she lived when the house was full and we were home, and the one she lived on her own during the long weeks we were away. She’s told me how scary it was for her at first, living there with a newborn baby, all alone in a big old mansion in the woods. Gradually she adjusted, fell into a routine and came to enjoy her privacy and the stunning natural setting. When the band and crew returned, however, the house filled up and was transformed and what Jenny had come to see as her personal space was overrun with a rowdy group of miscreants who had been gone so long, they were virtually strangers to her, myself included.

  A band on the road, even without the type of trauma our circle had come to regard as routine, is a tightly-knit unit. The shared experience of the effort of getting from here to there, of performing, of living in the moment of whatever collection of songs you’re out there delivering to the audience, is an adventure that only those who are a part of the endeavour understand. The inside jokes you make to pass the time, to alleviate the strain and exhaustion, the shared memories both good and bad–to an outsider all of that time spent together becomes a language they can’t decipher or hope to learn. In the same way, those who lived it first-hand can’t explain it to those who weren’t there, because it won’t make sense. I never wanted Jenny to feel like an outsider but it was unavoidable. She didn’t possess the constitution or desire to spend her life on the road. She didn’t want to deny me that life, she just wanted a private life with me that existed apart from all of that. She never got to have that, so our love, deep and true as it was and still is for each other, simply couldn’t survive.

  Jenny has told me that when we did return, she saw how tight we’d all become, how bound together. It was as if we’d re-emerged from a secluded alternate reality, where we’d relied on each other and no one else to get through it. She saw that bond amongst us and longed for that with me, but knew she could never be a part of it. She saw how we all looked out for each other, how if one of the team had strayed from their partner on the road, the others, ever their ally, never uttered a word. She said that she saw us protect each other and how that fortified her alienation. She felt that it was all of us against the world, which included her. I was never unfaithful to Jenny, because she would always find out if I were. There was one rare occasion when all the boys in the crew convinced me to bring some girl, who was up for it, back to my room and I was eventually drunk enough to agree to the idea. We got up there and I had to go to the bathroom, so I told the girl whatever she did not to answer the phone. As I was going to the bathroom, the phone rang and of course the girl answered it, and of course it was Jenny. I told the girl to get lost and I talked to Jenny, who I don’t think believed me when I said there was a party in the hallway. We never spoke of it, so I don’t know if she believed me, but the truth is I was always faithful. In fact, I was the guy on tour reminding the other guys that they had girlfriends whenever temptation crossed our path.

  I saw very little of my newborn daughter in the next few months because our manager Clifford Davis kept us touring non-stop, and though we weren’t fighting him, we were being stretched to our limits. We returned to America in February, this time for three months, and that US tour nearly destroyed us. An English or European tour might have been easier; less travel and less time away from loved ones, but the truth was, our audience and our album sales had shifted to the States. At the time we were on the charts alongside Jenny’s brother-in-law George Harrison’s ‘My Sweet Lord’, which was at number 1, and Santana’s meringue-flavoured tribute to Peter Green, their cover of ‘Black Magic Woman’. We were nowhere close to that anywhere else in the world.

  I should have known that things were not well with us the moment the plane set down in California on our first tour stop. When we arrived in San Francisco, Danny and Jeremy took some mescaline and it really did a number on them, Jeremy in particular. The effects of the drug seemed to last far longer than they should have, and I saw it first-hand because I still roomed with Jeremy, the way I had for years. Something was off and I was concerned. He was consumed with reading his Bible and completely detached from the group. I had to coax him into doing his set that night, which was bizarre because we’d never had to wait for Jeremy to take the stage; usually he was like a racehorse chomping at the bit. For the first time since the day I met him, he was uninterested in playing. He dragged his feet and he wasn’t himself, though when we finally got him out there, he was positively on fire. I found that even stranger. Nonetheless I was transported by him; his performance was stunning. He was possessed, playing at a level I’d never seen from him, just absolutely out of this world. That also turned out to be Jeremy’s last show with Fleetwood Mac.

  Our ne
xt stop was Los Angeles, which had been rocked by an earthquake severe enough that our arrival was delayed. News of the earthquake sent Jeremy into a state of foreboding; he didn’t want to go to LA and insisted that something dreadful was going to happen there. It took all of us to talk him down and assure him that we would be safe. He kept repeating that Los Angeles was full of evil (he had a point there), so we told him that we had each other and we’d be all right. We’d just go down there, do our job, and leave immediately. He eventually came round, though he still wasn’t the Jeremy we knew and loved. I was terrified that the psychedelics he’d taken had done permanent damage to him and that he was going the way of Peter Green. I tried to put that fear aside and focused on keeping him close by. He was all right on the trip to LA but once we got there, he was nervous and jumpy. He grew calm again once we reached the hotel room and I felt like Jeremy was back. We chatted, made a few jokes, and for the first time in days I felt as if he was himself once more.

  ‘Mick, I’m going to go out for a bit,’ he said. ‘I want to go down and browse this book store on Hollywood Boulevard that I like. Be back in a bit.’

  I didn’t think anything of it, but clearly I should have, because he never came back. We waited until six o’clock, when we had to cancel the gig, then we set out together to track him down. We went to the bookstore, which was actually a head shop, and learned that the owners hadn’t seen him. We tried to remain calm and did some deductive reasoning. We knew Jeremy–there was no way he’d gone off with some girl, and he wasn’t the type to meet a stranger and hide out doing drugs with them. The remaining possibilities were more sinister. Either he’d been kidnapped or killed or, more logically, he’d run off with one of the hippie Christian sects that fished for converts on Hollywood Boulevard. We’d passed a few of them earlier in the day. I felt so foolish for letting him go out on that walk alone.

  Jeremy didn’t return that night, so the next morning we went to the police. We asked around about those cults, who were known for taking in runaways and others ripe for the picking. They’d sequester them away and brainwash them until they’d renounced their former lives, donated their worldly possessions, and pledged allegiance to the cult. We didn’t wait for the police, we went out and searched on our own for four fevered days among the destroyed buildings and roads of a city recovering from an earthquake. We got Jeremy’s picture on the news and on flyers and with the help of several local Christian churches, we learned where the city’s more radical cults were housed. One of them was out in the San Fernando Valley, close to the epicentre of the earthquake, and driving out there was bleak. Surrounded by fractured highway overpasses and felled buildings, all of us felt desperate that we’d never find Jeremy. When we got to the door of the house, they wouldn’t even open it, nor answer our questions. The expressions of the pale, thin faces peering out through the windows were chilling.

  After four days, we received an anonymous tip at the hotel. We’d find Jeremy if we went to the Children of God’s warehouse in downtown LA. He was staying there under an assumed name. I was so spooked by then that I didn’t go, but our manager Clifford Davis did. He conned his way inside by claiming that Jeremy’s wife was seriously ill and he found a very different Jeremy. His long hair had been shorn to his skull, he was wearing dirty clothes and he would only answer to the name Jonathan.

  As we guessed, he’d been approached by the brethren on the street and been taken with them. He’d seen the earthquake as a portent of the end of the world and had decided then and there that he had to pursue salvation. He didn’t care about the band, the tour, not even his family back home.

  ‘Jeremy, don’t you—’ our manager said.

  ‘My name is Jonathan.’

  ‘Jonathan, don’t you want to see your wife and child? What will become of them if you don’t go home?’

  ‘Jesus will take care of them,’ Jeremy said.

  He’d been completely brainwashed; he was like a child, starstruck. Jeremy Spencer was gone.

  We had six weeks of the tour left; the revenue we’d lose cancelling those dates would cost us our house, Benifold, and probably the band. We were at a loss as to what to do, we really were. Out of desperation we reached out to Peter Green and asked him to fill in. We had little faith that he’d do it; his album had flopped and we’d heard from mutual friends that he’d given away all of his guitars. When our manager got in touch with him he learned that Peter had taken a job doing manual labour on a farm. I’m not sure what Clifford said to him, but he convinced Peter to play with us for the six weeks, though he insisted repeatedly that he had no interest in playing music anymore. He said he’d do the tour in honour of the friendship he’d shared with us for all those years.

  Whatever the reason, Clifford got Peter a flight to California, while Jeremy flew to Texas, where he was joined by his wife Fiona and their son to live with the Children of God, while their youngest child remained behind to be raised by Fiona’s mother. Jeremy became a major recruiter for the sect and the two of them spent the rest of the year visiting branches all over the country.

  Peter showed up looking the worse for wear, but his playing was great, though he had a few demands that we had to honour. He agreed to play ‘Black Magic Woman’, at whatever point in the set he felt inspired to do so, after which we would do ninety minutes of free-form jamming. This made for an interesting six weeks because not once did we take the stage knowing what the set was going to be.

  Stranger still, that six-week tour ended up being the most lucrative American run we’d ever had. Peter never once engaged with the audience, he’d come to the mike occasionally to murmur something or just laugh. He took none of it seriously, yet at times his playing was so beautiful that it raised gooseflesh on my arms. Those moments made it all the sadder; this was the long goodbye.

  At the end of the tour, Peter went back to his life on the farm and we retreated to Benifold. We were exhausted and at our wits’ end, which made Jenny all the more self-conscious about the presence of a crying baby, knowing the state of everyone’s nerves. We’d been through a lot, but to be fair, she’d been on her own raising a baby. Once Jeremy’s wife and child had departed, she was quite literally all by herself. She began to resent the band for taking me away from her and I began to feel it, although I dismissed it, blaming it on the stress of caring for the baby. Neither of us ever talked about how we felt, so things between us would work themselves out slowly, non-verbally. After a tour it would take a few weeks for us to feel connected again and to resume our normal life together. But as soon as we’d re-connected, it was usually time for the band to set out on another tour.

  Now that I look back on it, the best times we shared in those days were spent away from Benifold. We used to get away, at Jenny’s urging, and go to Salisbury to visit my parents, Mike and Biddy. They lived in a long white house with a river running past the bottom of their garden called Bridge House. My mother would make delicious meals and we’d sit at their dining table for hours telling stories and laughing. The atmosphere was warm and inviting, the evenings filled with as much serious discussion as with crude jokes and silliness. Jenny loved my family as they did her; our family dynamic was quite a departure for her, as she had come from a broken home. She treasured my parents, regarding my mother as her role model when it came to raising our children, and my father as the wise, gentle influence he was to everyone who knew him. She saw the value of family from my own family and wanted to emulate that environment with me.

  CHAPTER 8

  A SERIES OF BEGINNINGS

  After Jeremy’s departure, once again we were a band in need of a guitarist and yet another fresh start. Through Judy Wong, a long-time friend of ours, we ended up hiring Bob Welch, an LA native. Bob had grown up on the Beach Boys and rock and rollers like Little Richard, before moving to Paris where he cut his chops as a sideman backing expatriate American jazz greats such as Bud Powell and Eric Dolphy. After a few years he returned to LA and played in an R&B group called the Seven
Souls for a number of years. They never quite made it and neither did his next outfit, Head West. Bob had just about sold his last guitar and given up his dream of playing music when Judy put him in touch with us.

  We tried out a few others but Bob was the perfect fit. He was a California dude, brought up in the Valley, who had fallen in love with R&B and jazz. Although he lived abroad, he still had that innate California sunshine in his style. Bob brought vocal harmonies to the band and he wrote with Chris, designing songs around their shared tunefulness. We’d done none of that in Fleetwood Mac before him and it was his idea to integrate the male and female vocals in the band. It became the blueprint for the sound that Fleetwood Mac is best known for and the origins of it started with Bob Welch.

  Bob was seasoned and well-trained, he could talk-sing and he had a precise sense of phrasing and timing. He’d brought us tapes of originals he’d never recorded, so we could see the scope of his abilities as a writer and the potential there. But most of all we all loved his personality. Bands are about the players as people, not just the people who play the parts together. I’ve met many musical geniuses who I would love to have played with, but they’d never have fit within Fleetwood Mac, because they didn’t possess the personality that informs this band’s spirit. There’s a rapport in Fleetwood Mac that has been there from the start, all of which comes through in the music, no matter which era you listen to. A band is the sum of its parts, not an assembly of individuals. That kind of chemistry is priceless and often overlooked as the key to the success or failure of a band.

  Bob’s songwriting drove the next phase of our music, elevating us from what seemed like the gritty end into a new beginning. He was a prophet of what was to come, because if we hadn’t begun to experiment with the intermingling of male and female vocal harmonies, we might not have been capable of bringing Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks into our midst so quickly and easily once Bob had moved on.