AUSTIN, TX — To a large degree, one attends SXSW for celebrity watching. On Wednesday, a packed audience squeezed into expanded ballroom space at the Austin Convention Center for such an opportunity, the object of their visual quest the larger-than-life figure of Mick Fleetwood: Living legend, icon, rock god.
David Fricke of Rolling Stone moderated a thoughtful discussion with Fleetwood, who with John McVie founded Fleetwood Mac — a portmanteau of both men's names — that remains one of the most successful bands in music history.
Looking tanned and relaxed in a tan outfit, Fleetwood discussed the early iterations of the band that began as a quartet in 1967.
There was only passing reference to Christine McVie, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks — part of the later lineup of the 1970s that gained global recognition and huge success — during the conversation. The emphasis of the conversation was the band's blues period, well before it would find immense commercial success with radio-friendly songs starting in the 1970s.
The reason for the focus on the early years was Fleetwood's promotion of the book "Love That Burns: A Chronicle of Fleetwood Mac Volume One 1967-1975," a book comprising archival materials, photographs and memorabilia produced by Genesis Publications UK featuring a publishing run of just 2,000 autographed copies. It's the first of a multi-volume series exploring the history of the band.
With his questions during an engrossing conversation that was meant to last an hour but went on an extra 15 minutes, Fricke displayed an encyclopedic knowledge of the band's early history, prompting Fleetwood to register surprise at some of the writer's obscure references to early, seminal performances.
Much of the discussion revolved around the time Peter Green, a minimalist blues guitarist (and also a legend) auditioned for the band. Fleetwood acknowledged that, at the time, he didn't know what to make of Green and mistook his minimalist playing to lack of skill.
"He walks in with his guitar and stand there like a 'Gangs of New York' vibe," Fleetwood recalled. "After he played I thought he doesn't play more than two notes."
Fellow band mate Peter Barton disabused him of that initial belief, he recalled: "He said 'you're not hearing the tone, the vibrato, less is more.' Peter became known as one of the magnificent feel guitar players of the world."
Among his musical contributions, Green is known for having written the song "Black Magic Woman" that first appeared as a Fleetwood Mac single in 1968, later included in the 1969 compilation albums "English Rose," "The Pious Bird of Good Omen" and "Vintage Years." The song became a huge hit for Santana, reaching No. 4 on the U.S. charts.
"'No, no no, you're not hearing it,'" Fleetwood recalled Barton telling him of Green. "And he was right."
Green would emerge as the leader of the band, but one that was more friend and collaborator than taskmaster. The two men couldn't be more different, Green born into a Jewish family who endured a troubled childhood and Fleetwood the son of a Royal Air Force fighter pilot who received an early education in Norway where his father was stationed during a NATO deployment.
"Part of our friendship was bringing the duality of different worlds together," Fleetwood said. "Looking back at a bit of the band's history, his childhood did affect him."
As he learned more about his bandmate's past, it dawned on Fleetwood that Green's early challenges informed his playing: "He was perfectly aligned to that. He certainly identified with that encasement of emotions. He really knew so much."
In retrospect, there likely wouldn't be a Fleetwood Mac band today were it not for Green, Fleetwood acknowledged: "There certainly wouldn't be a Fleetwood Mac without this wonderful person. I owe a lot of gratitude to Peter Green."
Today, Fleetwood — the one constant element in an ever-changing musical lineup — runs the hugely successful Fleetwood's on Front Street restaurant and bar in his home base of Maui, Hawaai. Green's personal narrative would go in a different direction, marked with periods of mental illness and destitution starting in the 1970s and continuing through the '80s.
Fleetwood spoke ruefully when discussing his friend's deterioration and his own inability to see the signs.
"I wish I had known those early signs," he recalled. "I did not get it, and did not see. It was a very painful state of affairs."
Green would retreat to his family's home to begin his recovery from mental illness, leaving a band on the precipice of major success without a leader and with an uncertain future.
"We didn't have a boss," Fleetwood recalled. "We were petrified, all of us. Imagine if you were a platoon on the front line, and things weren't going well. Then half the platoon leaves. You turn around, and think we better f-----g do something or we're not going to survive."
It's hard to imagine such uncertainty for a band that produced "Rumors," an album selling more than 40 million units worldwide that remains one of the best-selling albums of all time. But there were moments of darkness, uncertainty and regret.
Yet Fleetwood perked up when recalling long telephone conversations he's had with the now-reclusive Green in the intervening years. He also grew palpably joyful in recalling the band's 1998 induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame when — not wanting to push him to hard — he urged Green to play something for the occasion.
"We were damn lucky he was going to be there and do anything," Fleetwood recalled. Also on hand to help celebrate their induction was their old friend Carlos Santana, who urged Fleetwood to coax Green to play something and to pick up the energy level for full dramatic effect.
" 'Why would I want to do that?'" Fleetwood recalled Green saying in response. "'I've already done that.' I told Carlos, I've totally failed."
But in the end, it all worked out, much like both their lives have and the implausibly continuing success of Fleetwood Mac so many years and iterations later. And during the Hall of Fame induction, it all came full circle for Green, who chose to play "Black Magic Woman" alongside Santana.
>>> Photo above courtesy of SXSW
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