I first met John briefly at a couple of his gigs with John Mayall in mid 1967, and he was always pleasant, unassuming and friendly. After I joined Fleetwood Mac, I became more acquainted with him as he would drop by to visit friends in a flat where I was temporarily staying. He was not in our band at the time, and I well remember standing in the hallway of that flat trying to persuade him to join us, as he was becoming dissatisfied with Mayall’s jazzy direction and wanted to play our style of more down home Chicago blues. His gigs with Mayall were providing him with good steady income and we (Fleetwood Mac) were only just starting, but a foray into free-form jazz at one of Mayall’s gigs gave him the impetus to follow his musical convictions and fortunately join us!

It was always a pleasure to play and record with such a master of bass guitar and I have fond memories of our experiences and interesting conversations together while on the road, and we shared an interest in reading, which continues to this day. (He recently told me that he has made it a project to read all of Charles Dickens’ books! Phew!) A few years ago, I had the pleasure to renew my friendship with John after almost thirty years while visiting the Hawaiian island of Maui, where he, Mick and I were filmed for a documentary on Peter Green. 

Mick Fleetwood and I became good friends on the road, sharing many hotel rooms and him often driving me home as I didn’t drive and he ended up living nearby. The following is a comic-style depiction of an experience together after a gig in Wales.

Over the years, through thick and thin, Mick Fleetwood has always been a supportive friend. I first met him at Peter Green’s Putney flat, where Peter was living with his parents and had arranged for us to meet. The band had not yet been formed, but Peter had worked and recorded with Mick before in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and had liked his drumming style.

Of course, what was most striking about him was his height, and I wondered how that was going to fit into the band’s image! I recognised him from some early Big Beat music magazines, as having been a member of the Cheynes, except that I remembered him having had very straight hair, and now he was sitting with it in a flouncy curled perm. For me, living in the midlands for the last few years, that struck me as being rather ‘poofter’, and I was a little uncomfortable with that and his rather dandified ways! To this day, we still laugh together about my concerns and how Mick played on them to freak me out.

At the beginning of 2012, I thought it appropriate to give credit to the team of musicians (and the female vocalist) that accompanied me on my forthcoming ‘Bend in the Road’ CD, due for release in spring of this year. The following entry is an excerpt from the CD’s liner notes:

Being an ‘elder statesman’ in the music field, I have been asked if I had considered working with younger, like-minded musicians and performers to produce contemporary material. The question usually included a referral to Carlos Santana’s multi-platinum ‘Supernatural’ album of about a decade ago.

Yes, I had considered it.

A positive example of such a like-minded experience for me began with an encounter with Brett Lucas, a respected guitarist from Detroit, who has been working the musical scene there since he was fifteen.

I heard about Brett through my friend and slide-guitar aficionado, Mark Grigorian, who told me that Brett Lucas was a guitarist for a Fleetwood Mac cover band called ‘Rattlesnake Shake’. I said that I would consider working with Brett if Mark would send me a clip of the young man playing a slow, sensitive blues solo. He sent me a live video clip of Brett playing just that on a soul number performed by Betty Lavette. I was impressed and told Mark that I’m on, and at the beginning of 2010, we endeavoured to realise a recording venture together. We decided on Dave Feeny’s Tempermill studio because of its warm and welcoming vibe, and a team of Brett Lucas, James Simonson and Todd Glass to back me. The three of them have formed a band called St. Cecilia.

 It’s a team of wonderful people! I’ll start with Todd Glass on drums and I must say it’s a pleasure to experience a drummer so tuned in to what I play on the slide. For instance, I would attack a certain way on a lick, and he would precede it and boost it with an uncanny sense of what I was about to do next. I commented on this, and he said that he was actually more a lover of guitar than drums, being a guitar player himself. On top of that, although he is quite a bit younger than me, he is a fifties music fan and enjoys playing Buddy Holly songs amongst others. Music to my ears!

James Simonson is featured on acoustic and electric stand-up, and regular electric bass. Listening back to the tracks in their various stages, I have found myself discovering new things in James’s bass runs. They’re simple but subtle and in the right places. Check them out. He’s an excellent player.

Brett Lucas plays electric lead and rhythm, and acoustic guitars. He is accomplished and confident, but has respect and gentlemanly humility; virtues that may not be in vogue, but I think are in demand more than ever. He has soul in his playing and, possibly due to his classical training, a broad understanding and love of music. Some beautiful interchange of guitars occurred between us in the instrumentals, somewhat like what Peter Green and Danny Kirwan performed together in the early days of Fleetwood Mac. Brett and I also had some fun downtimes chatting, drinking Jack Daniels and enjoying music from Duane Eddy and Hank Williams and other old-time ‘greats’!

Appearing throughout the session in a ghostly, angelic form that defied her punk-style exterior is Rachel May on background and duet vocals. Rachel may and does deliver the goods with sweet soul, and it seemed to me that her voice had a built-in reverb plate. I loved working with her.

Happy New Year 2012 to family, friends and fans!
Here’s the opening verse of my favorite New Year’s poem, written by Minnie
Louise Harkins (1875-1957)

I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year
       ’Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’
And he replied,
       ’Go into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God
       That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way!’

Wishing fans and friends a lovely Christmas as you enjoy the festivities,
and the peace and meaning of this time.

After having given a lot of acclaim for musical ‘greats’ I have had the pleasure  to meet and/or play with, I felt it important to spotlight some lesser-known, but in my opinion equally talented musicians.

I will start with the team of not-so-little, but dedicated Norwegian blues players who accompanied me on the ‘Precious Little’ CD back in 2005 and on some gigs in the ensuing couple of years. They towered above me in stature, and we often joked about calling our troupe, ‘Jeremy and the Giants’.

The giants are:

Trond Ytterbo on harmonica, mandolin and vocals. A disciple of Little Walter.

Espen Liland on guitar. A disciple of Albert Collins.

Rune Endal on bass. A disciple of Willie Dixon and John McVie.

Runar Boysen on keyboards. A disciple of … well, greats in many genres.

Last but not least, Anders Viken on drums and percussion. A disciple of
S.P.Leary, Odie Payne, those backbones of Chicago blues drummers.

So, with a line-up like that, the project was guaranteed to work, and it did. I have said many times that playing with such a well-knit and sympathetic team of musicians was akin to putting on a tailor-made suit. When entering our first rehearsal, it was like stepping into a 1950’s Chicago blues studio! A precious experience. Thank you, Trond and team.

The last time I met Eric was in 1989 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where Dorothea and I were living at the time. He was on a tour of Brazil and staying at a hotel in Copacabana, where we met him. We conversed for some time, and at Dorothea’s request, he talked about his son, Connor. This was just a few months before Connor’s fateful accident in New York. I sent Eric my condolences in a letter, and mentioned something about the verse in the Bible’s book of Revelation about the Lord wiping away the tears in Heaven. I don’t know, but it may be that Eric’s beautiful song, “Tears in Heaven” was inspired by that very verse. I haven’t seen him since.

One of the next times I met Eric Clapton was after the 1969 Melody Maker awards, which we attended in order to pick up the trophy.

At the time, I had wanted to record an album of Buddy Holly’s songs but I heard from Jenny Boyd (Mick Fleetwood’s wife at the time and sister of Patti Boyd who was then married to George Harrison) that Eric Clapton was about to do the same. I told her that I would drop the idea, especially because he was going to be accompanied by the Crickets themselves!

Jenny came back to me with word from Eric that he, knowing I wanted to do that, would bow out and leave the project to me.

Anyway, Eric was present at the Melody Maker Award ceremony. He asked me about the ‘Boody Hoolly’ project, as he called it and he again told me to go ahead with it. I objected, but he insisted. A gracious move on his part. He ended up recording only a couple of numbers with the Crickets on his upcoming album with Delaney and Bonnie’s musicians (an excellent album, by the way) and I never pursued the Buddy Holly album idea. I would love to, however, and I would like to record his more obscure numbers that had moved me, some of the very ones that Eric had mentioned in our conversation.