His deeply sensitive spirit and hushed soloing hovers over the almost historically gorgeous “Albatross,” and Then Play On (the only true studio album from the Green/Spencer/Kirwan Mac), which contains Kirwan’s “When You Say,” a positively Robert Wyatt-ish song of child-like simplicity and deep sentiment. Kirwan’s work in Fleetwood Mac has an almost Peter Holsapple-esque quality (though I could also cite the Bongos, R.E.M., Big Star and Robyn Hitchcock) it’s feather-gentle, darkly foreboding, arpeggio-laden pop with a shadow of the old Blues Mac hanging around.ĭanny Kirwan, center, owning that whole angel-faced disaffected youth thing.Īlthough his best work was yet to come, Kirwan had contributed significantly to the Green-era Mac. He is half-smiling because he’s just conjured a gorgeous melody that is somehow both as bright as their future and as dark as his own. One young man, almost too pretty but with lips pearl’d in perpetual sadness and skepticism, sits on a bench taking it all in, smoking endless cigarettes and running nicotine-stained fingers through his mop of blonde hair. Couples are buzzing around, clutching each other’s arms and surprised-almost thrilled-by the sudden chill students pop in and out of coffee shops, spouting wise asides about film and poetry and optimistic about the casually tossed scarf’d future that lies ahead of them. It’s perpetually late on a wet autumn afternoon in Danny Kirwan’s world. Not only is Kirwan one of the great lost figures in rock history (both literally and figuratively), but he is also the person who midwives the transition from the Blues Mac of the 1960s to the mega-selling FM pop machine of the mid-1970s. Feelgood, the Sensational Alex Harvey Band, and Slade, added Elmore James-esque slide and frantic Jerry Lee Lewis vocals and Kirwan is the sensitive youngest brother/George Harrison of the ensemble, contributing work of devastating originality and heart. Green provided his mix of lightning-fast, moonshine-clear solos and proto-metal riffs (as evidenced on “Oh Well” or “Green Manalishi”) Jeremy Spencer, an elfin devotee of amphetamine rockabilly whose persona seems to presage Dr. This five-piece Mac (who existed for just two years) are the Beatles of the blues, fronted by three distinct characters, each of which were capable of singular magic. In 1968, 18-year-old guitarist and vocalist Danny Kirwan joined the band.
On top of that, Green, with his clear and unaffected baritone, is (after Stevie) the most distinctive vocalist the Mac ever had. The vastly inferior Eric Clapton is barely fit to clean Green’s fish tanks with his tongue. The original Mac (Fleetwood, McVie, and vocalist/guitarist Peter Green, with the very early addition of Jeremy Spencer on guitar and voice) played vigorous, tight, incendiary Chicago and Delta blues, showcasing Peter Green, the best white blues guitarist who ever lived.
Danny Kirwan is one of the great lost figures in rock history (both literally and figuratively).
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