<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There was a time when one could not escape Bob Welch on FM radio.\u00a0 Hardly an hour would pass without his late 1970s hits <\/span>Ebony Eyes<\/span><\/i> or <\/span>Sentimental Lady<\/span><\/i> flowing from the speakers.\u00a0 Welch, who passed away in June of 2012 at the age of 66, was a much more complicated human being than these two pop songs might suggest.\u00a0 Few people can take credit for saving an iconic band undergoing a mid-career crisis, but Welch did.\u00a0 Mark Blake\u2019s 2024 book (<\/span>Dreams:\u00a0 The Many Lives of Fleetwood Mac<\/span><\/i>) does a great job of telling Welsh\u2019s story and <\/span>Classic Rock Magazine<\/span><\/i> ran an exclusive extract about him in their October 2024 issue.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Right off the bat, many people who knew of Bob Welsh\u2019s association with Fleetwood Mac assumed he was another British guitar player.\u00a0 Before Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks \u2018Americanized\u2019 Mac, Bob Welsh had already added his own \u2018American\u2019 influence.\u00a0 Welch was a child of \u2018old Hollywood\u2019, born there in 1945.\u00a0 His father was a movie producer who worked with the likes of Bob Hope and his mother, Templeton Fox, was an actress.\u00a0 Their family home was across the street from Yul Brynner.\u00a0 Chauffeured limousine rides to school and attending lavish Beverly Hills parties at a young age were his normal.\u00a0 He explained his upbringing:\u00a0 \u201cPeople over the years have sung about how decadent L.A. is, but they\u2019re all transplants.\u00a0 I\u2019m a native,\u00a0 I was born right here.\u00a0 I\u2019m the real deal.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0After graduating from high school, Bob went to Paris to study art.\u00a0 He was soon back in L.A. because he found it hard to focus on art with all the distractions Paris had to offer.\u00a0 Back home, he joined his first band, Seven Souls, a soul revue-style band.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t score any radio hits but their wealthy German sponsor got them gigs at exclusive resorts in places like Saint-Tropez and the Italian Riviera.\u00a0 When they broke up in 1969, he was back in Paris where he formed Head West, a funk-rock trio.\u00a0 Left destitute after their equipment was repossessed (Blake doesn\u2019t say why, but when the bailiffs came to call, it no doubt had something to do with not making payments), Welsh was at loose ends.\u00a0 A phone call from an old high school friend, Judy Wong, changed all of that.\u00a0 She was working as an aide-de-camp for Fleetwood Mac and she called Bob to tell him there was an opening in the band after the departure of Jeremy Spencer.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The now dirt poor Welsh was in L.A. with no means to get to England to audition, so the band bailed him out and paid his airfare there.\u00a0 He had to dig a little to afford the train fare from London to Guildford and upon arrival at the train station, Mick Fleetwood himself picked him up in a VW Beetle.\u00a0 Welch recalled, \u201cHe was six-foot-six and weighed about a hundred and twenty pounds.\u00a0 He was a strange-looking human being.\u201d\u00a0 Bob moved into their communal house, Benifold, and officially joined the group in April of 1971 without ever playing a note for an audition.\u00a0 After their past troubles with Peter Green and Spencer, they seemed to be spending more time scoping out compatibility issues rather than musical ones (Bob called it his \u2018psychological soundness test\u2019).\u00a0 Christine McVie said, \u201cBob never played a note.\u00a0 All we did was sit around and talk until dawn.\u00a0 We just thought he was an incredible person.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0To Welch, his new bandmates were, \u201clike the British royal family.\u201d\u00a0 He jumped right in and composed the title track for their next album, <\/span>Future Games,<\/span><\/i> and a track that was not a hit in 1972 but would become Bob\u2019s signature tune as a solo artist, <\/span>Sentimental Lady.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0 When guitarist Danny Kirwan was fired in 1972, it solidified Welch\u2019s standing in the band.\u00a0 Everybody loved him, except manager Clifford Davis.\u00a0 Maybe it was because Welch was not shy about wondering why they didn\u2019t fire Davis (he described him as their \u2018bluff cockney manager\u2019).\u00a0 For his part, Davis tried to get the other Macs to hire vocalist Dave Walker (who found fame later with Savoy Brown) because he didn\u2019t think Welch made a good frontman.\u00a0 His geeky glasses and hairline aside (part of why Davis didn\u2019t like him fronting the band), Welch did make a great songwriting and harmonizer alongside Christine McVie.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Welch seemed to fit in with the \u2018royal family\u2019 and their eccentricities.\u00a0 Peter Green came to Air Studios in London to play on 1973\u2019s <\/span>Penguin <\/span><\/i>record sporting a piece of cheese stuck in his hair.\u00a0 Bob noted, \u201cI don\u2019t know if it was Caerphilly or Cheddar, but when he left, Peter still had the same piece of cheese in his hair.\u00a0 Nobody thought to mention it.\u201d\u00a0 Fitting into the band wasn\u2019t a challenge because Welch himself was pretty much a free spirit and willing to go with the flow.\u00a0 He would turn out not to be just a pull toy going along for the ride.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In the Fall of 1973, Mick Fleetwood had to pull out of their scheduled U.S. tour due to marital problems.\u00a0 The ever supportive Clifford Davis (say this again with sarcasm) recruited a \u2018new\u2019 Fleetwood Mac that included none of the existing members.\u00a0 Davis sent them out in place of the \u2018real\u2019 Mac.\u00a0 Welch’s solution was simple – he had invested three years in this \u2018dysfunctional bunch\u2019 and was not about to go down without a fight.\u00a0 He convinced the \u2018real\u2019 Mac to relocate to L.A.\u00a0 Davis and his faux band were dismissed and the outlook brightened for them in 1974 when they got a $100,000 advance for their next record, <\/span>Heroes Are Hard To Find<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0 Welch saved the band by financing the sessions with his own money.\u00a0 Unfortunately he was the only U.S. citizen in the band, a little detail that caused him eternal conflict with the IRS for years to come.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Fleetwood framed this turning point succinctly when he said, \u201cBob became part of a band that could have drifted into oblivion and was hugely important in keeping us going.\u201d\u00a0 As it happens all too frequently, being the savior exacts a cost.\u00a0 The IRS troubles, legal battles, and drugs took their toll and Welch left the band at the end of 1974.\u00a0 Bob had other reasons besides the woes listed:\u00a0 \u201cMusically speaking, I wanted to do things they didn\u2019t want from me.\u201d\u00a0 His next stop was a band called Paris that included ex-Nazz drummer Thom Mooney and former Jethro Tull bassist Glenn Cornick.\u00a0 Their album <\/span>Black Book <\/span><\/i>was more Zeppelin than Fleetwood Mac.\u00a0 Hunt Sales would replace Mooney for their second LP (<\/span>Big Towne<\/span><\/i>) but they didn\u2019t move many records.\u00a0 Before they split up, Mick Fleetwood heard them and was impressed enough to sign Welch to his Limited Management company as a solo act.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The future proved Mick\u2019s reasoning to be sound:\u00a0 \u201cThere was no doubt in my mind, Bob could have a hit record.\u00a0 We felt like we were on the coaster heading up, and I wanted Bob on this ride.\u201d\u00a0 His album (<\/span>French Kiss<\/span><\/i>) arrived in the summer of 1977, not too long after Mac released <\/span>Rumors.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>The album and both singles (the revived <\/span>Sentimental Lady<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>Ebony Eyes<\/span><\/i>) made it into the Top 20 U.S. charts.\u00a0 By the next summer, Welch was opening for Fleetwood Mac and hitching a ride to gigs on Mac\u2019s chartered plane.\u00a0 Mick would take him to radio interviews as his manager, then do his own spot as a member of Fleetwood Mac – kind of like double dipping.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0How did Welch feel about the situation?\u00a0 He was having his own hits but his former band were becoming fabulously wealthy without him.\u00a0 He insisted, \u201cI didn\u2019t feel like I was missing the boat because it was a different group.\u00a0 But I contributed something to the group\u2019s sound and felt very proud that they were making it.\u201d\u00a0 This is not a common attitude among musicians who jump (or are pushed) off the boat just before it arrives in port, but it speaks well of Bob\u2019s mindset at the time.\u00a0 His second album (1979\u2019s <\/span>Three Hearts<\/span><\/i>) was also well received and he branched out.\u00a0 He began hosting a music video show in 1980 called <\/span>Hollywood Heartbeat<\/span><\/i> but by then, Welch\u2019s\u00a0 physical appearance hinted that he might have gone down the rockstar\u2019s worst rabbit hole.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A 1981 appearance at The Roxy in Hollywood featured most of his old Mac band members\u00a0 and his playing was \u2018out of his skin\u2019 according to author Blake.\u00a0 The old \u2018but he wasn\u2019t selling very many records without his old bandmates\u2019 rub raised its ugly head.\u00a0 He declined an offer to join Mick\u2019s side band (The Zoo) and his 1983 LP (<\/span>Eye Contact<\/span><\/i>) failed.\u00a0 He was living in the Hollywood hills with gold records lining the walls, but he was at a tipping point.\u00a0 His marriage ended as did his record contract and he found himself, again, at loose ends.\u00a0 Bob Welch\u2019s life\u00a0 was about to take a sharp left turn into the fog with a big drop off a cliff possibly waiting ahead.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Guns N\u2019 Roses drummer Steven Adler came into Bob\u2019s world at this time.\u00a0 HIs then girlfriend told him about a \u2018fun dude\u2019 she knew so she took him along to visit Welch.\u00a0 Bob was recovering from a near fatal drug overdose but wasn\u2019t getting the picture.\u00a0 Welch\u2019s housemate invited the couple in and passed them the crack pipe that was sitting on the living room table.\u00a0 Adler vividly recalled, \u201cI inhaled and had never experienced such a dire need to get high again, right away, now.\u201d\u00a0 The experience of 20 year-olds hanging out with 40 year-old Bob Welch started Adler\u2019s decline and would eventually get him booted from Guns.\u00a0 Bob would fire up the pipe and tell tales of his illustrious past and eventually, G N\u2019 R was rehearsing in his garage.\u00a0 Six months later, Welch was arrested for drug possession and in his words, \u201cI was smart enough to see the writing on the wall and changed all my friends.\u00a0 I was being a very bad boy.\u00a0 It was not a good time.\u201d\u00a0 The drug bust parted the fog and no doubt saved Bob\u2019s life, but Adler was now driving down a similarly foggy road (which he detailed in his book <\/span>\u00a0My Appetite for Destruction).<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Not long after Bob\u2019s release from the hospital he met film assistant Wendy Armistead at the Viper Room.\u00a0 They married in December of 1985 and pulled up stakes to make a new start in Phoenix, Arizona (something Blake says recovering addicts call \u2018doing a geographic\u2019).\u00a0 He credits the L.A. police (for busting him), the Cedar-Sinai hospital (for helping him with his rehabilitation) and his new wife, \u201cwho helped me stop beating my head against a brick wall.\u201d\u00a0 His next band, Avenue M, didn\u2019t last long and the couple relocated again to Nashville.\u00a0 He focused on writing songs and filed a lawsuit against Fleetwood Mac for not negotiating a higher royalty deal for him when they restructured their own contracts (thus underpaying him for his past work).\u00a0 The band took the lawsuit poorly.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When Fleetwood Mac was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988, Welch\u2019s name was nowhere to be found in the list of past members.\u00a0 As Bob put it, \u201cMick Fleetwood dedicated a whole chapter of his biography to my era of the band.\u00a0 He credited me with saving Fleetwood Mac.\u00a0 Now they want to write me out of the history of the group.\u00a0 Mick treats most past band members as if they didn\u2019t really have anything to do with Fleetwood Mac, with the exception of the <\/span>Rumors<\/span><\/i> band and Peter Green and, rarely, Jeremy Spencer.\u00a0 Everybody else he shuts out of this mind.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When the band finally settled out of court in 1996, Welch changed his tune a bit.\u00a0 He blamed Warner Bros for the \u2018financial mismanagement\u2019 and the Rock Hall of Fame for him being left out of the ceremony.\u00a0 If a bit of revisionary history eased his mind and the out of court settlement gave him some financial stability, so be it.\u00a0 He would get back to making music including two albums of re-recorded Fleetwood Mac songs.\u00a0 He remained interested in paranormal activity and left-field science (which often inspired some of his out-there lyrics) for the rest of his life.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Asked in the early 2000s, he said he was \u2018semi-retired\u2019 but still playing a few dates here and there.\u00a0 \u201cTwo shows at a time and then go home,\u201d he told Blake, \u201cAt my age that\u2019s all that I want to do.\u201d\u00a0 He stayed sober in his later years but spinal surgery in March of 2012 did not go well.\u00a0 The doctors told him he had little chance of recovery and over time, he would lose all mobility.\u00a0 He was in great pain and as he explained it in a letter to his wife, he had watched his mother care for his invalid father and did not want her to have to do that for him.\u00a0 Sadly, he put a gun to his chest on June 7 and ended his life.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Not long after his death, Mick Fleetwood did something Welch had accused him of never doing.\u00a0 He acknowledged Welsh\u2019s contributions to the band.\u00a0 Mick said, \u201cLike Stevie and Lindsey later on, Bob came out of the ether when we needed someone just like him.\u00a0 I would have hated the thought of him becoming like that guy Pete Best, who left The Beatles and was thinking, \u2018I was right there, then left and then this happens.\u00a0 I do so hope [Bob] felt identified and not ust left on the sidelines.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In the end, Welch was satisfied with his life in music.\u00a0 He was smart enough to pull back from oblivion when he was well on the way to killing himself with partying.\u00a0 It is just a shame that his physical health pushed him to put the final period on his all too short life.<\/span><\/p>\n Top Piece Video:\u00a0 Bob Welch performing\u00a0Ebony Eyes\u00a0<\/em>with Stevie Nicks and other members of his old band, Fleetwood Mac<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There was a time when one could not escape Bob Welch on FM radio.\u00a0 Hardly an hour would pass without his late 1970s hits Ebony Eyes or Sentimental Lady flowing from the speakers.\u00a0 Welch, who passed away in June of 2012 at the age of 66, was a much more complicated human being than 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