Page 29 - aruba-today-20171007

PEOPLE/ARTS Saturday 7 OctOber 2017
A29

British blues: New book heralds early

days of Fleetwood Mac

By GREGORY KATZ Buckingham for a new out sounding foolish.
Associated Press lineup that hit the jackpot “These are major, major
LONDON (AP) — Mick Fleet- with “Rumours,” one of the players for anyone who
wood was 16 when he left best-selling albums of all knows anything about
school, told his parents he time. blues,” Fleetwood says.
wanted to pursue a career Fleetwood said the band’s “Having that take place, I
in rock ‘n’ roll, and went to very name reflects Green’s don’t know what they must
London in search of gigs. self-effacing approach. have really thought with us
A common tale, true, but “Peter was asked why did funny little English kids walk-
this one has a happy end- he call the band Fleet- ing into their world ... I feel Mick Fleetwood, the drummer and co-founder of the band
ing. Fleetwood fell in with wood Mac. good about it to this day Fleetwood Mac poses for photographs with a copy of his book
“Love That Burns - A Chronicle of Fleetwood Mac, Volume One:
some talented blues en- He said, ‘Well, you know I that we held our own dig- 1967-1974” after an interview at a hotel in London, Thursday,
thusiasts, paid (barely) his thought maybe I’d move nity even with these guys.” Sept. 28, 2017.
dues, and soared to star- on at some point and I He said the whole experi- Associated Press
dom with the first incarna- wanted Mick and John to ence was “like going to
tion of Fleetwood Mac — have a band.’ End of story, their church and not just
and then into the rock ‘n’ explaining how generous being in the congrega-
roll stratosphere with the he was.” tion but actually doing our
second, more pop-orient- The photos and text of version of preaching with
ed version of the band. “Love That Burns” are really them.”
“School was not a good the celebration of an era, While some fans swear
thing for me,” said Fleet- capturing the explosion of the early Fleetwood Mac
wood, dressed in clas- British music at a time when was better than the later,
sic British style, complete bands like The Who and far more commercial ver-
with a pocket watch on a The Beatles were vying for sion, Fleetwood knows the
chain. the top spots on the charts group is identified more
“I had a learning disability, — and competing with with its string of hits, includ-
no doubt, and no one un- semi-forgotten bands like ing Bill Clinton’s favorite
derstood what those things Freddie and the Dreamers, song, “Don’t Stop,” which
were. I was sort of drown- who actually got top billing earned the band a head-
ing at school academi- over the Rolling Stones on lining gig at his inaugural
cally. My parents were like, a least one concert poster. celebration.
‘Go and do it.’ Once Fleetwood Mac This is one reason the book
They were picking up on made its name as a blues focuses on the first band.
the fact that I had found band, the group was able Fleetwood doesn’t want it
something. They saw the to go to Chicago’s famous to be forgotten.
one thing that I loved with Chess Studios to record “Even as we were doing
a passion was teaching with some of the great it (the book), we realized
myself how to play drums American bluesmen, in- that the band was 50 years
at home,” he said. “So cluding a few of the pio- old,” he said.
they sent me off with a little neers who had helped per- “So it’s really about draw-
drum kit to London and the fect the driving Chicago ing a line in the sand to say
whole thing unfolded.” sound. that this happened and
Fleetwood didn’t really Fleetwood remembers — what caused this. And it’s
have to rebel, though re- with relief — that the long- generally fair to say, espe-
bellion was in the air, and haired crew of young Brits cially in the United States,
he had the good fortune was able to at least play in this section of the forma-
to make friends early with the same room as Buddy tion of Fleetwood Mac is
Peter Green, the supreme- Guy and Willie Dixon with- not really known about.”q
ly talented guitarist whose
blues sound shaped the
band’s early years.
Green receives the lion’s
share of the credit, and the
dedication, in Fleetwood’s
memoir of the band’s for-
mative period “Love That
Burns: A Chronicle of Fleet-
wood Mac, Volume One:
1967-1974.”
It has been published in a
limited signed edition by
Genesis Publications.
At 70, Fleetwood is anxious
to acknowledge his debt
to Green, who left the
band in 1970.
Fleetwood and bassist
John McVie were later
joined by Christine McVie,
Stevie Nicks and Lindsey