Fleetwood Mac - Kiln House (1970)

By the time that Fleetwood Mac came to record their fourth studio album, major upheavals had occurred which would affect the group for the rest of their career. The main one was that Peter Green left the band in May 1970, following an LSD experience in March during a tour of Germany, which changed his outlook on life so much that he left the band that he'd formed. The rest of the group decided to carry on as a four-piece, and started recording sessions for their next album, titled 'Kiln House', after the name of a converted Oast house in Hampshire where the band and their families lived for a six-month period in 1970. Although Jeremy Spencer sat out for the previous album 'Then Play On', he played a much more active role during these sessions, with his retro 1950's homages and parodies dominating the album, and because these have always been my least favourite songs from their live concerts and BBC sessions, it makes 'Kiln House' the album that I return to less than any other. To help out with the recordings, Christine Perfect contributed backing vocals, keyboards and painted the cover art, although she was not a full member of the band until shortly after the album's completion. A comment by swboy prompted me to do something about this (although not exactly as their suggestion, but hopefully along the right lines), and make 'Kiln House' a more palatable album to my ears, so we have to make a few assumptions first. As Jeremy Spencer had contributed very little to 'Then Play On', and left immediately after 'Kiln House', let's assume that he'd already left by the time the sessions started, and as Christine Perfect joined the band immediately after 'Kiln House', her official joining can be brought forward to before recording started rather than after. Peter Green left in May 1970, but in April he'd recorded two songs which were issued as a single the following month, and as happened quite often at that time, both sides of 'The Green Manalishi (With The Two Prong Crown)' and the Green/Kirwan instrumental 'World In Harmony' could have been added to the next album. Also in May the band taped an otherwise un-recorded Green song 'Sandy Mary' for the BBC, with Danny Kirwan taking lead vocals, as well as recording one of his originals 'Only You'. As Christine Perfect was now a full member of the group, it's possible that she would have been granted a lead vocal to welcome her, and 'Down At The Crown' and 'Crazy About You (Can't Hold Out Much Longer)' were both recorded for the BBC in late 1970, with Kirwan and Perfect sharing the vocals on the former, so as they were never subsequently recorded in the studio they could be added to the tracklisting. If we then remove all of Jeremy Spencer's 50's pastiche songs and replace them with the BBC sessions and both sides of the May single we end up with a much more consistent album, which I think I will end up playing more than the original.   

Track listing

01 The Green Manalishi (With The Two Prong Crown)
02 Station Man
03 Crazy About You (Can't Hold Out Much Longer)
04 World In Harmony
05 Sandy Mary
06 Jewel Eyed Judy
07 Earl Gray
08 Down At The Crown
09 Tell Me All The Things You Do
10 Only You