It was announced on the Fleetwood Mac Facebook site that Danny passed away on June 8th. He was an incredible talent. The Green / Kirwan combination remains one of the greatest guitar double acts in the history of rock.
It has been mentioned that at one point he was among those possibly being considered for a guitar slot in the Stones. I don't know if that's true.
If you're not familiar with Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac I would strongly recommend the 3cd set of the Boston Tea Party 1970 tapes. A pretty strong shout for the finest live album of it's time and as you all know, there's some pretty heavy competition when someone makes that claim. It really is that good and Peter and Danny's singing, songs and performances are outstanding.
I hope he found some stability and happiness in recent years.

Amazing guitarist.

[www.youtube.com]

Very sad. I only recently got into Danny's era of FM. Beautiful, haunted playing - especially on Woman of 1000 Years and Future Games.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2018-06-09 16:38 by peoplewitheyes.

FM Future Games (not Dreams) will always be in my top 10 albums. RIP DK.

R.I.P Danny Kirwan, Great guitar playing on some of the best “Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac Songs”: Albatross, Oh Well, the Green Manalishi and others

Sad to hear this; he was a very underrated player!

In remembrance the FMac show from October 1969 in Essen, Flac, link valid for one week:

[wetransfer.com]

This is a very sad lost that will unfortunately go pretty unreported I'm guessing. Danny Kirwan was an awesome member of Fleetwood Mac (was he my favorite besides Peter Green from the pre Buckingham/Nicks lineup?) and most of those guys that weren't Peter Green never got their due. The others did when they blew up later, and Green became known as the Syd Barrettesque figure to a good deal. But guys like Kirwan, Jeremy Spencer, Bob Welch all got kind of forgetten, which is sorta criminal because they LED this band at key moments. They weren't sidemen, Fleetwood and McVie hired these guys to LEAD their band and then they kinda faded into obscurity for one reason or another (mostly from burnout and mental heath issues).

An incredibly underrated songwriter and player, with Bare Trees probably being the ultimate and best marriage of those two things, but he had a ton of other really great songs. One of my favorite songs by FM is Jewel Eyed Judy and thats a Kirwan original so I have very high regard for the man. Its truly sad that for one reason or another the original Fleetwood Mac never played again. Fleetwood always talked about it and I suppose everyone was just too old or burnt out to actually commit but that would have been a sight to see just a fraction of that magic back. Sadder that for awhile they were all still alive in one form or another. Oh well, what could have been. RIP Danny, they should play a song to honor him on this tour. Stevie wanted to play Station Man and thats his song.

Very sad news, indeed! Another great guitar player has left us. I also hope that he had some better times during the last years of his life. He certainly would have deserved it. I like "Then Play On" very much. There's a lot of great stuff on this album, sometimes rough and sometimes tender.The way he blended in with Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer was simply outstanding. And now,
he's gone. All my best to him ....

Very sad loss.

RIP

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Rip this joint, gonna save your soul, round and round and round we go......

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RollingFreak
This is a very sad lost that will unfortunately go pretty unreported I'm guessing. Danny Kirwan was an awesome member of Fleetwood Mac (was he my favorite besides Peter Green from the pre Buckingham/Nicks lineup?) and most of those guys that weren't Peter Green never got their due. The others did when they blew up later, and Green became known as the Syd Barrettesque figure to a good deal. But guys like Kirwan, Jeremy Spencer, Bob Welch all got kind of forgetten, which is sorta criminal because they LED this band at key moments. They weren't sidemen, Fleetwood and McVie hired these guys to LEAD their band and then they kinda faded into obscurity for one reason or another (mostly from burnout and mental heath issues).

An incredibly underrated songwriter and player, with Bare Trees probably being the ultimate and best marriage of those two things, but he had a ton of other really great songs. One of my favorite songs by FM is Jewel Eyed Judy and thats a Kirwan original so I have very high regard for the man. Its truly sad that for one reason or another the original Fleetwood Mac never played again. Fleetwood always talked about it and I suppose everyone was just too old or burnt out to actually commit but that would have been a sight to see just a fraction of that magic back. Sadder that for awhile they were all still alive in one form or another. Oh well, what could have been. RIP Danny, they should play a song to honor him on this tour. Stevie wanted to play Station Man and thats his song.

neil finn & mike campbell are already working on station man.

Why didn't Fleetwood & McVie try a little harder to bring parts of their old incarnation back together for a limited time? It is a rhetorical question, but both of them relied on outside talent for very different versions of the band. They furnish the name, but not much creativity.

Kirwan wasn't even at their HOF induction. The Stones went out of their way to make sure Mick Taylor was at their induction, and at least brought him back for a limited return.

Funny, but completely randomly I heard Sands of Time this morning, one of my Mac favorites. The first time in a few months. RIP Danny K.

Very sad

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Keep On Rolling

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marianna
Why didn't Fleetwood & McVie try a little harder to bring parts of their old incarnation back together for a limited time? It is a rhetorical question, but both of them relied on outside talent for very different versions of the band. They furnish the name, but not much creativity.

Kirwan wasn't even at their HOF induction. The Stones went out of their way to make sure Mick Taylor was at their induction, and at least brought him back for a limited return.

Regarding Danny at the Hall Of Fame - it's my understanding that Danny was essentially a homeless alcoholic for many years. It's hard to be definite. I know he was based at St Mungo's Hostel for a while. I'm pretty sure I sure him drinking on a bench in Covent Garden in the 90s. He was not in a good way at all and though this is speculation on my part, not in the right mindset to accept help. I'm hoping that that in recent years he was in a better place. I was under the impression that he was being looked after my his ex-wife for a time.
I don't know for sure. It's a very sad story.

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marianna
Why didn't Fleetwood & McVie try a little harder to bring parts of their old incarnation back together for a limited time? It is a rhetorical question, but both of them relied on outside talent for very different versions of the band. They furnish the name, but not much creativity.

Kirwan wasn't even at their HOF induction. The Stones went out of their way to make sure Mick Taylor was at their induction, and at least brought him back for a limited return.

Yeah, they liked to entertain it but they never really followed through. Never knew whether that was just a dick move or genuine. In fairness to them, it could have been true. Peter Green isn't "crazy" anymore but he also seems far from reliable or willing to commit to something like that. Jeremy Spencer I think is doing stuff now but I think wasn't for awhile. And Kirwan was like MIA, so while the idea is nice the people surrounding it are kind of off the map so thats tough. Sad they all went through some tough times. They were all incredibly prolific men. I do think Mick has said he tried to keep in touch with all of them. Again I don't know what part of that is BS or not. I don't blame them for not bringing them to inductions or on these new tours. The Rumours Fleetwood Mac IS a completely different band than the old one. Its not like Taylor who was there for the famous stuff and fits in. Old FM is a completely different style of music. Its one thing to bring them for a retrospective tour but people go to FM shows to hear Rumours and that era. To do an old show it'd need to be specifically that. I'm sad it never happened cause that lineup deserved a happy ending and reward for creating what ended up being a juggernaut.

Sad to hear this. Bare Trees and Future Games will always be among my favourite albums. When Nicks and Buckingham joined the band, they lost me as a fan.

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RollingFreak

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marianna
Why didn't Fleetwood & McVie try a little harder to bring parts of their old incarnation back together for a limited time? It is a rhetorical question, but both of them relied on outside talent for very different versions of the band. They furnish the name, but not much creativity.

Kirwan wasn't even at their HOF induction. The Stones went out of their way to make sure Mick Taylor was at their induction, and at least brought him back for a limited return.

Yeah, they liked to entertain it but they never really followed through. Never knew whether that was just a dick move or genuine. In fairness to them, it could have been true. Peter Green isn't "crazy" anymore but he also seems far from reliable or willing to commit to something like that. Jeremy Spencer I think is doing stuff now but I think wasn't for awhile. And Kirwan was like MIA, so while the idea is nice the people surrounding it are kind of off the map so thats tough. Sad they all went through some tough times. They were all incredibly prolific men. I do think Mick has said he tried to keep in touch with all of them. Again I don't know what part of that is BS or not. I don't blame them for not bringing them to inductions or on these new tours. The Rumours Fleetwood Mac IS a completely different band than the old one. Its not like Taylor who was there for the famous stuff and fits in. Old FM is a completely different style of music. Its one thing to bring them for a retrospective tour but people go to FM shows to hear Rumours and that era. To do an old show it'd need to be specifically that. I'm sad it never happened cause that lineup deserved a happy ending and reward for creating what ended up being a juggernaut.

They should have called it "Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac", "Fleetwood Mac Blues Band" or something along these lines to avoid confusion or irritation amongst the "pop era"-fans. Well, the Mick Fleetwood Blues Band followed the route of the Green-era Mac, and the fact that this outing did not include Green/Kirwan/Spencer is telling enough - although Rick Vito did a great job imo it just was not the same.

There surely was enough time inbetween the "pop"-FM ventures to follow a second route, but my take is that Green/Kirwan/Spencer were either unreliable or not interested - or both.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2018-06-10 19:01 by retired_dog.

Oh yes, I'm in no way saying the name was the biggest issue. But just that it would have confused people if it did come back. I think what happened was your take and the way I felt as well. Those guys are too far gone or unreliable to commit to shows and just too far removed from playing that music in general. Combined with the fact that I question how much Fleetwood TRULY tried to get it moving (I think he just liked to talk about it to make old time fans happy) and you get a situation that is most likely never gonna happen.

Very sad news.... A player from the best line up of Fleetwood Mac.
One of the finest bands from the greatest musical era ever.

Rest in peace Danny Kirwan

What a drag it is gettin' old

That's really sad loved that man and the band.... it's in my top 5 band (RIP............)

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Sad news indeed

Always liked this photo of Peter Green with the others during FM's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 1998...



...notice the eight awards on the podium - the other two were for Danny and Jeremy.

Not a great photo to commemorate Danny Kirwan's passing...

RIP, he was a great writer and musician. Dragonfly is my personal favorite, and Without You is an excellent minor key blues.

In the liner notes for his first solo album, Second Chapter, it says he missed the call for the Stones audition to replace Mick Taylor. While a nice thought, I don’t see him being content just playing lead guitar, but I think he could have co-wrote some great music with Jagger.

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Jah Paul
Always liked this photo of Peter Green with the others during FM's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 1998...



...notice the eight awards on the podium - the other two were for Danny and Jeremy.

Right before he didn't play with them. Nice bunch they are. I know he played with Santana that night but it wouldn't have killed FM to play Oh Well or something.

Sorry for posting the photo...I meant no disrespect to Danny's memory.

Interesting read; Danny Kirwan

OBSERVER MUSIC
For Your (Re)Consideration: Danny Kirwan, the Sad, Beautiful Ghost of Fleetwood Mac
By Tim Sommer • 11/02/15 11:45am


Fleetwood Mac circa 1969 with Danny Kirwan reclined in the center.
Please Note: Discussing the history of Fleetwood Mac is complicated business. You may want to have a dry erase board handy, along with a calculator and a compass (both the directional kind and the kind you put a little shorty pencil into and draw arcs with). I also suggest setting aside some money so you can go to Carvel later, to reward yourself for your patience and attention.

Fleetwood Mac had already been through three distinct ideations before Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined the band in 1975 (from 1967 until today, the only constants in the group are drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie). To people who only know the Rumours-era Mac, discovering the pre-Nickingham band is a bit like finding out your dad had kids with another woman before you were born, and these kids are really good looking and talented.

Danny Kirwan is one of the great lost figures in rock history (both literally and figuratively).

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. The vastly inferior Eric Clapton is barely fit to clean Green’s fish tanks with his tongue.[ii] On top of that, Green, with his clear and unaffected baritone, is (after Stevie) the most distinctive vocalist the Mac ever had.


In 1968, 18-year-old guitarist and vocalist Danny Kirwan joined the band. 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. Green provided his mix of lightning-fast, moonshine-clear solos and proto-metal riffs (as evidenced on “Oh Well” or “Green Manalishi”);[iii] Jeremy Spencer, an elfin devotee of amphetamine rockabilly whose persona seems to presage Dr. 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.



This lineup recorded (just) one studio album, but is best showcased on the live recordings made at the Boston Tea Party in February of 1970, shortly before Green left the band. Although these showcase Green’s stellar blend of economy and ferocity, the real scene-stealer on these recordings are Jeremy Spencer’s ecstatic rockabilly covers. These oldies combust a Velvets-like overdrive while also strongly resembling the head-bang-a-billy of the early Flaming Groovies, and they are goddamn hot.[iv]

But I’m actually here to talk about Danny Kirwan.

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.


It’s perpetually late on a wet autumn afternoon in Danny Kirwan’s world. 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. 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. 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.

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.

970841_10151443492954646_829669267_n
Danny Kirwan, center, owning that whole angel-faced disaffected youth thing.
Although his best work was yet to come, Kirwan had contributed significantly to the Green-era Mac.

His deeply sensitive spirit and hushed soloing hovers over the almost historically gorgeous “Albatross,” [v] 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. Christine McVie also cut “When You Say” in 1970 on her fascinating Christine Perfect album; her version, produced by Kirwan, is extraordinary, far more reminiscent of the string-driven autumn simplicity of Nico’s Chelsea Girl than anything the Mac (in any configuration) ever recorded. Find this recording, and stick it on your Fleetwood Mac mixtape, in a place of honor.


Although Fleetwood Mac’s first Green-less album, Kiln House (1970), is a relatively unsatisfying transitional album (the group is, unknowingly, searching for a bridge between the old blues Mac and the more melodically-driven band to come), it features Kirwan’s gentle, persuasive, almost Harrison-esque instrumental “Earl Grey,” which sounds like a slightly wet R.E.M. trying to play Cream’s “Badge” (that’s a compliment).


Future Games (1971) and 1972’s Bare Trees are where Kirwan really blooms. Spencer left the Mac in ’71, leaving Kirwan, an increasingly confident McVie, and newcomer Bob Welch to guide the band. Kirwan’s material on Future Games, typified by “Woman of A Thousand Years,” features delicate wisps of melody and firm but whispered guitar work that seems to have one foot in English folk and another in the Mac’s sunny but moody mega-pop future.

Bare Trees (1972) is the Kirwan-era Mac masterpiece, and it is very likely the best and most engaging Fleetwood Mac album not named Rumours. Bizarrely, it is not available on any of the streaming or download services, so do everything you can to get it. It is a treasure. Bare Trees contains five Kirwan songs, three of which I’ll underline here: “Sunny Side of Heaven” is a bittersweet, richly melodic instrumental that has a third Velvet Underground album-meets-Durutti Column quality; it’s without a doubt one of the 10 best Mac songs ever recorded. “Danny’s Chant,” one of the most interesting tracks on Bare Trees (even if it’s not one of the best), is nothing less than the Beta-Version of “Tusk.” Featuring a tribal Fleetwood beat and some chanted vocals, it’s difficult to imagine that Mac weren’t aware of it when they recorded the more famous song six years later.


Danny Kirwan was fired from Fleetwood Mac in the fall of 1972. His alcoholism and increasing mental instability had made him a difficult bandmate and collaborator.

Kirwan’s final song on Bare Trees, “Dust,” lies somewhere between Richard Thompson and Neil Young, and has a beach-in-winter, sepia-toned quality to it. It’s deeply beautiful and deeply sad, and like many of Kirwan’s best songs, it is compact in structure and length but expansive in emotion.

Danny Kirwan was fired from Fleetwood Mac in the fall of 1972. His alcoholism and increasing mental instability had made him a difficult bandmate and collaborator.[vi]

After leaving the group, Kirwan appears to have had some difficulty getting a solo career off the ground. He finally emerged with the first of his three solo albums in 1975.

The first two (1975’s Second Chapter and ‘76’s Midnight In San Juan) are a little too precious—it sounds like Kirwan was listening to a lot of McCartney and Nilsson—and lack the extraordinary vulnerability of his Mac work. There are some highlights (like the first album’s title cut, or the lilting “Angels Delight” from Midnight in San Juan), but these are non-essential albums from an essential artist. And the less said about his final solo album, 1979’s Hello There, Big Boy!, the better; Kirwan, who participates only minimally as a writer or guitarist, sings half-hearted vocals in a notably lower range over a pile of tracks clearly modeled after the prevailing Steely Dan/Mac AOR pop of the day. It’s a terribly sad album, especially in light of what was to come.

Danny Kirwan
Danny Kirwan.
Tragically, mysteriously, almost uniquely, that’s where Kirwan’s musical story ends. For the past 35 years, Danny Kirwan has lived behind a veil of mental illness and homelessness. He doesn’t appear to have been photographed since 1993, and some reports have him living at a hostel in London.[vii]

I need not detail the extraordinary commercial and creative heights Fleetwood Mac ascended to without Kirwan. Yet Danny Kirwan is the beautiful angel of melody and vulnerability who hovers over Mac. The spirit and sound he brought to the band—highly melodic, proto-shoegaze pop songs with a dusting of melancholy—essentially became the model for Mac’s platinum future. Kirwan is one of rock’s greatest and most powerful ghosts, and no picture of music in the 1970s—and certainly no picture of Fleetwood Mac—is complete without Bare Trees and Future Games.


And that’s before we even address the band’s life after 1987—I mean, how many people out there are even aware that a Mac featuring Bekka Bramlett, Dave Mason and Billy Burnette made an album in 1995 that didn’t even dent Billboard’s Top 200 album charts?

[ii] Assuming Green has fish.

[iii] Please also note that Green wrote Santana’s trademark song, “Black Magic Woman,” originally recorded by the Mac in 1968.

[iv] A remarkable artifact of Jeremy Spencer’s post-rockabilly, pre-punk sensibility is the amazing “Someone’s Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In Tonight,” a slice of Joe Meek-ish insanity the Mac cut in 1968 and released under the name Earl Vince and the Valiants. The Mac (Fleetwood, McVie, Kirwan, Spencer) also cut an utterly bizarre album of rockabilly pastiches and parodies in 1970, which was released as a Jeremy Spencer solo album. This LP, titled Jeremy, is without a doubt the oddest and least known Fleetwood Mac record.

[v] “Albatross” is one of the best singles of all time. Period. If you don’t know it, listen to it now; and if sounds familiar, it’s because the Beatles ripped it off for “Sun King.”

[vi] Kirwan was replaced by Bob Weston, who sticks around for just one album, 1973’s Penguin.

[vii] It’s worth noting, with deep sadness, that three members of the ’69 Mac, i.e. all except for Fleetwood and McVie, ended up with significant social and psychological issues. Jeremy Spencer joined the controversial Children of God cult; after many years battling mental illness and occasional homelessness, Peter Green successfully returned to a more-or-less functional public life in the mid-1990s; but Kirwan’s fate remains tragic and unresolved. It is also should be noted that Bob Welch committed suicide in 2012.

Despite the lurid purple prose, that is a very good and informative article. Thanks for posting.

Quote from runaway's post of an article on Danny Kirwan two posts up

"Bare Trees (1972) is the Kirwan-era Mac masterpiece, and it is very likely the best and most engaging Fleetwood Mac album not named Rumours. Bizarrely, it is not available on any of the streaming or download services, so do everything you can to get it. It is a treasure. Bare Trees contains five Kirwan songs, three of which I’ll underline here: “Sunny Side of Heaven” is a bittersweet, richly melodic instrumental that has a third Velvet Underground album-meets-Durutti Column quality; it’s without a doubt one of the 10 best Mac songs ever recorded. “Danny’s Chant,” one of the most interesting tracks on Bare Trees (even if it’s not one of the best), is nothing less than the Beta-Version of “Tusk.” Featuring a tribal Fleetwood beat and some chanted vocals, it’s difficult to imagine that Mac weren’t aware of it when they recorded the more famous song six years later."

The lp Bare Trees is on youtube.

Bare Trees: I've just seen it today on iTunes ...