Fleetwood Mac-Penguin

After Future Games the band recorded Bare Trees with the same line-up .I used to have that album but sold it in 2013. I saw a used copy last week for $15(way too much). There were only two songs on it I liked,the title track and one of Welch’s best songs “Sentimental Lady”.After this record Danny Kirwan was fired from the band. He put out some solo albums but had problems with drugs and alcohol,spending much of the 90’s homeless. He died in 2018. To replace him the band added singer Dave Walker from Savoy Brown and guitarist Bob Weston. This is the line-up that recorded Penguin,one of my favorite Fleetwood Mac albums.The penguin is the bands mascot and an animal loved by John McVie. Side one has two good Christine McVie songs “Remember Me” and “Dissatisfied”,the later one of my favorite songs by her. Bob Welch’s “Bright Fire” is sandwiched in between her two songs and the side closes with a cover of “(I’m A)Road Runner” with Walker singing and playing harmonica. Side two opens with “The Derelict” a Dave Walker song with Bob Weston playing banjo. McVie’s “Did You Ever Love Me”,featuring some steel drums, is between more good Welch songs “Revelation” and “Night Watch” on which Peter Green adds some guitar. “Caught In The Rain” the last song is a instrumental by Bob Weston with acoustic guitar and piano. Another used record bought in the late 80’s, cover and record are in good shape. This record survived the water damage because after moving from Philadelphia to West Reading my “stereo room” was a small back bedroom that had room for only about 350 or so records. At this point I separated my favorite records from my less desirable ones and put them in milk crates in a corner of the dining room under the bathroom.They were kept separate until I bought the house I now live in with a finished family room that had the space to put them all together. I do remember having the inside photo of the gatefold cover hanging on the wall at one time in that room in West Reading.

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