The manager mentioned in the article, Clifford Davis, was the manager for the band from 1967 to 1974. He ended his tenure as a manager for the band in 1974 when he started promoting a different band under the name of Fleetwood Mac, after the original band had been forced to cancel or disrupt a number of tours. Fleetwood Mac had fallen apart after an aborted tour in late 1973, leaving Davis with touring commitments to fulfil in the US, and he recruited more musicians, including ex-members of Curved Air, to tour the US as a replacement Fleetwood Mac in early 1974. This resulted in a court case between him and the the members of the real Fleetwood Mac that lasted four years. The dispute was eventually settled out of court in “a reasonable settlement not unfair to either party.” Those most pleased with this case must have been the lawyers. No one lost the case and they had a lot of hours they could charge their clients!
Read on!
Fleetwood Mac talk frankly and exclusively to Nick Logan about…
What made Peter snap. Why group must rest. The next vital album. Bond that holds them.
It is a source of regret when any group still with potential to release finds itself splitting from within; even more regretful when for most of its life-span that group has been as close in intellect and spirit as was Fleetwood Mac.
Just what happened to prise apart such a solidly-bonded union, leaving Peter Green growing apart from the band he founded, can’t be put down to any specific cause. But there must be some causes and some stand up more than others.
“I think if we could have done a month ago what we are doing now, Peter might never have left. I really do,” maintains Mick Fleetwood from the garden of the communal home the group has rented in Hampshire.
What Mick refers to is the relaxation Fleetwood Mac is attempting to achieve in what is a two months break from the road. And the springs they are trying to unwind are, they believe, the same springs that took their erstwhile leader off on a course of his own.
That assertion has to be looked at in the light of what Fleetwood Mac had been through in the 3/3 1/2 months before Peter broke the news to them, in Munich, that he was going. The group had gone almost straight off on that month long tour of Europe after three arduous months trekking across America and, if the split hadn’t come then, they would now be on the road here for a British tour.
Snapped
“If we could have come down here and had this rest a month ago I think Peter wouldn’t have felt the need to go,” Mick reasserts. “But three months in America, then a month on the Continent… living in hotels out of suitcases… it is just too much. It was affecting all of us but Peter was just the first one to snap.”
Not the kind of people to indulge in recriminations, they can see Peter’s side. “A creative person like him needs time to create,” concedes Jeremy Spencer, “and he didn’t have it. I can see that.”
Whatever the cause it has happened and, while Peter Green works on his solo album in London, Fleetwood Mac aim now to find as much rest as is possible when just around the next bush lurk the demands of an all important album and the pressures of keeping the group’s fortunes going.
If atmosphere is of any import, then their home in Hampshire, 2/3 miles from the nearest village and at the end of a dirt track, gives them a good start.
A converted oast house owned by a friend of Mick Fleetwood, it is an incredible “Aladdin’s cave” of a place haphazardly furnished with the group`s possessions and equipment.
The central core of this very old building, interior walls of crumbling white stone, is kitted out as a makeshift recording studio and as an example of the bizarreness of the place the equipment is flanked on one side by a massive antique bedroom suite and on the other by a brass bed.
It’s an amazing place to visit – maybe browse through would be a better term – but probably not one you’d like to live in.
For domestic reasons, the band had wanted out of their flats in London and although the oast house is only a temporary home for the two months — until they go to America — they are after a permanent communal home in this part of the country where members, wives and children can live and work together.
You know instinctively that they are the kind of people who could make that idea work. Mick and Jeremy, however, laugh to themselves at the thought that they’ve “gone to the country to get it all together” and, do an amusing parody of that kind of mentality which goes something like… Mick: “Oh course we realise we have a strong enough name to get the really big money for another couple of years yet” and so forth.
Their manager Clifford Davis drove me out there on one of last week’s hottest days and we arrived to find the Fleetwood girls… Christine Perfect, Fiona Spencer and Jenny Boyd… out in the sun with Jeremy’s two young children and John’s father. Mick was on the phone, making arrangements for his wedding to Jenny, and looking impressively tanned against Jeremy’s whiteness.
“We are just so lucky to have found this place… it is so perfect.” said Mick when we sat in the garden to talk. Obviously it was possible for the band to go on working when Peter left but we would just have been doing the same numbers and we needed a break.”
They also need to produce a new album “Very, very important” to them — and the responsibility here falls heavily on Jeremy and Danny as the songwriters. Both are taking it well.
They had hoped to actually record at the house, not only because of its proximity but the special atmosphere they could have got on record, but costs of hiring and buying equipment in the short time they have seem to have ruled that out and daily treks into town look to be on.
Had they thought of breaking up when Peter quit? “Lots of things flashed through our minds,” answered Mick. “As far as I was concerned I had always been very happy with the people and the band and the best possible thing for me was to stay. If someone leaves it is a pity, but there it is…
“Breaking up isn’t in the wind now whether there is an up or a down as far as success with records. We are keeping going with the band a it is.
“Of course that crosses your mind. Like any upset not planned for you feel a bit strange. Specially through the fact that we were a complete band in every sense and now here we are…” he shrugged. “I don’t think Peter should have done it.”
“But obviously,” broke in Jeremy, “he has done what he feels best.” Mick: “Right… and when you know that you want to help him as a person. Well, not help, but take an interest in seeing that he is all right, hoping that he is doing the same for you.”
Danny arrived from town tired, and went off to sleep. John, who goes through vehicles like the proverbial hot dinners, returned from selling his car in the village and immediately set off to buy a motorbike he’d seen. Clifford Davis went with him.
Apprehensions are obviously there as regards their future but Jeremy comments: “As far as a drop in popularity or status is concerned it depends what you mean by status. If it means hit records I don’t think any of us are really worried. We’ve never worried that much about that side.”
Reactions from foreign bookers offered the four piece Fleetwood have so far been highly encouraging — only one or two refusals from America, with Peter’s leaving having no effect whatsoever on the Continent.
The band bases its belief in its ability to hold followers in the fact that they were widely regarded as a group with three equal front men and, to people who know that, the loss of one isn’t going to make so much difference.
Says Mick: “In that respect we are quite fortunate really because to some bands something like this could be disastrous.”
If there are shouts for Peter Green, it won’t worry Mick who is quite definite in saying: “These are things you always get. John Mayall has had it all along. If you are going to get upset and be destroyed by people shouting out then you might as well give up.”
John had arrived back on his motorbike, an aggressive looking ex-scrambler he’d bought for £45, and came up the drive in best “East Rider” style, hair swept back by the wind. Danny had woken up and before we left Clifford talked business with the band, making arrangement for recording and the American tour.
Rather than lose their bond, Fleetwood Mac seem to have risen to the threat to their resolve and togetherness and — aided by their new communal existence — may well emerge from it all closer than ever.
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