The Smiley Smile Message Board

Lindsey B'ham is an unabashed fan of Brian's work and has done various tributes. I sense a particularly strong influence on the Tusk album. We know that Dennis was one of Christine's great loves. Stories of her worshiping the ground Dennis walked on are not rare and I'm guessing the rest of The Mac LOVED having the man around. My dad used to drive me past a house in Laurel Canyon when I was young saying "That's where Dennis Wilson once drove Christine McVie's Rolls Royce into a pool" lol. Maybe some of you session date experts (poking AGD with a nicotine stained finger) can let us in on the overlap between The Mac and The Boys physically being present during some important recordings?

Some evidence of such connection:

Lindsey Buckingham - DW Suite (tribute to Dennis, supposedly written in the style of the SMiLE music)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAIdrbYiUB0

Brian Wilson - He Couldn't Get His Poor Old Body To Move (Love and Mercy B-Side cowritten by Lindsey)
https://youtu.be/eFGKk0rPq4Q

Fleetwood Mac - Farmers Daughter (BBs cover)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkKceP-HeRs

Fleetwood Mac - Hold Me (Christine's tribute to Dennis)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAbfPDZdEBU

The notes to the CD reissue of Fleetwood Mac's Tusk describe "That's All For Everyone" as having music "worthy of Brian Wilson's hymnbook". Wonderfully put. A stunning track it is too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJeikZr5xN4

Seriously - I never understood the glory of Tusk, and That's All For Everyone in particular, until hearing it blasted on a huge soundsystem. The incredible harmonies panning back and forth. I think it's my favorite production on any album ever.

All due respect to your father, but I think he's confusing his drummers. Dennis never drove a car into a pool (that's Moonie's domain): all he did was set fire to Christie's pool house.

Yah I realized it was bs as I got older but hey this was pre-internet rockstar legend stuff y'know?

Buckingham to me is Brian's true inheritor.  Unlike most Wilson disciples, he took Brian's sound and went somewhere totally new with it (e.g. layering different guitar textures).  His production work on TUSK is revelatory.  Love that record.

"That's All For Everyone" hooked me from the get-go back in '79. To Adam's point, I've always admired the layered vocal sound Lindsey got with his backgrounds, and how he made a trademark out of panning them back-and-forth in rapid succession. If you haven't heard "Law And Order" or "Go Insane", his first two solo albums, be sure and do so!

I have a great Lindsey Buckingham story.

I was working at a law office in the late '90s and I think LB was going to the place across the hall to do his estate planning.  As it happens, we both got in the elevator for a ride down at the same time - him, his SO, and two other people.  We had to go down about ten floors, and all the way down I could see LB kind of looking at me a little nervously out of the corner of his eye because I think he knew I was the only one in the elevator who might recognize him and was worried I might pester him for an autograph or something.  I didn't say a word.

When we got to my floor, I turned, looked him in the eye, and said:  "D.W. Suite." and put my thumb up, and walked out.  LB seemed to be totally gobsmacked and I heard him kind of stammer out, "wow...thank you."

That was a great moment.

Guy is one of my heroes.  Some of the Fleetwood Mac stuff is just breathtaking.

Wow...thank you, Adam.

Here's one for ya...November 2004, I'm in L.A. at the Walt Disney Theatre performance of BWPS (second night) with Eric Anniversario. Our seats were on the upper tier, and from there we could see both Lindsey Buckingham and Van Dyke Parks enter below and take their seats in the first few rows (after the show, we also spotted both Danny Hutton and Wendy Wilson, but that's beside the point). Intermission comes, and I have to take a leak. I head to the upstairs men's room, and am confronted with a long-ass line. Desiring to use the head (and stealthily change the tape in my digital recorder) in time to make it back for the second set, I descend down one level, easily slipping past the red velvet rope designed to stop me from doing so. I find the men's room there, and out walks LB. No one else around, just me and him. I call out "Lindsey!", and blurted out my praise and admiration for him. He stops, shakes my hand, and we have a nice chat for a minute or so. Told him how I had just seen FM in Omaha the previous year (to which he looked shocked) and what a great show I thought it was (I'd also been fortunate enough to have seen them with Christine in '97). He said thanks, and then said "Isn't it great to see Brian in this place?" I readily agreed, and off we went - him to his seat, me to the john (which, coincidentally or not, was fragrantly filled with the sweet smell of recently-smoked herbs). It was then I realized that the tape recorder, still hidden in my pocket, had captured our entire conversation! A nice keepsake of a chance encounter with one of my idols. I only wish I'd thought to ask him about the session for "He Couldn't Get His Poor Old Body To Move"! 

Great stories Adam and Craig!

You sure about that? 

Not that it's important but a photograph of Dennis appears on one of the covers of Tusk.

I love LB's DW Suite.

Another connection: Jenny Boyd -- Mick Fleetwood's future first wife -- was in Rishikesh studying with the Maharishi the same time as Mike Love.

Another connection: Michael Bernard, Brian's personal synth programmer for BW '88 and Sweet Insanity, toured with the Mac as a keyboardist in 2004, according to Wikipedia, and assuming it's the same Michael Bernard.

Another connection: Joe Thomas produced the 2004 "Fleetwood Mac in Boston" DVD (as well as, I'm sure, the Soundstage appearances by Lindsey and Stevie).

During a chat with Lindsey a few years back, I asked him his thoughts on Dennis, and he said (among other things), this. . .

"He was kind of a lost guy. He was a very talented guy -- way more talented than he had the structure to be able to exhibit. Y'know, he had a lot going on without the tools to sort of get there -- that's my opinion anyway. He was a real sweetheart. He was also a rogue. Y'know, he was that rogue element."

Threads like this are what this place should be about.

Good stuff.  Delightful to hear the joy these encounters have brought to some of you.    fun to share isn't it?     Saw FM on their first tour with LB and SN.......went not knowing Bob Welch was gone.    Small venue.    LB doing Welch songs.   SN swirling around the stage.      Great melding of talent took me by surprise.      Had no idea LB would become such a revered rocker and producer of music.  Or that that girl swirling about would become so legendary.   Or that they would all be on stage together again in four decades.      :)

Haha! Great description of Dennis in such a very Lindsey way.. not far off from this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaM6gTUTooc

Q: You've mentioned that Brian was one of your biggest inspirations. Is that mainly in terms of songwriting, production . . .?

A: Not really in terms of production much, thought I like what he did with the Beach Boys stuff. I admire him most as a melodic writer, an arranger, and a vocal orchestrator. When people think of Brian they think of "Little Deuce Coupe" and "I Get Around" which are great songs, but there's also "Wind Chimes" [a bizarre tune on the largely psychedelic Smiley Smile] and all those other obscure but beautiful pieces of work. "Wind Chimes" is a classic. No one has done anything like it since. Even a lot of his later work stands up real well. Beach Boys Love You had great songs on it, great tunes with great arrangements, but it just sailed over the heads of everyone and didn't sell as a result.

http://www.fleetwoodmac-uk.com/stillgoinginsane_old/articles/198101.html

Thanks for sharing this! It's great to know Lindsey is a fan of stuff like Love You and Smiley Smile. :)

I was at the first night at Walt Disney Theatre and sat behind another great fan of Brian - Mick Fleetwood and his wife!  When Van Dyke entered the theatre to take his seat and people started applauding Mick asked "who is that" and I told him it was Van.  Next to Mick was . . . John Stamos.

Been listening to a lot of Buckingham's work lately and came across this and I love it.

https://johnnywestmusic.wordpress.com/2008/05/29/a-two-a-three-a-four/

Always thought Christine wrote "Wish You Were Here" on Mirage for Dennis. Truly that is a great track!

I find Dennis in so many of Christine's songs, especially ones like "Isn't It Midnight".  Howie recently said he's sure "Red Sun", from the new Buckingham/McVie album is about Dennis.  Christine often told me that all of her relationship songs come from past relationships/memories, even when they have the flavor of a love just beginning

Ed, I love that photo you had of the Beach Boys with Christine sitting on Carl's lap.

I've always wanted to meet Lindsey Buckingham.  Nice.

Fantastic thread - love LB; his song All My Sorrows is completely Brian-influenced and would appear on any playlist called 'Sounds Like the Beach Boys'

I have read Fleetwood bios where it appears that the rest of the group excepting Christine got pretty annoyed with Dennis as he was viewed as a bit of a hanger on, nuisance wild-man and some felt he was sponging off of her by that point in time.  His "charm", such that it was at that point, apparently wore thin pretty fast with FM group members who were not in love with him....

Think you only have to listen to some of Lindsey's stuff to know that isn't completely true.

The problems mainly stemmed from, shall we say, his 'flirtatious' nature with the wives and the other singer in the band...

I recently hipped Stevie Nicks to the BW "Stevie" track and she was amazed that Brian had even noticed her, let alone wrote and recorded a song about her.
She asked me about three times if I was mixing him up with Dennis. She then related a story about catching Dennis in a tree watching her through a window. . . . . . . . .

That's my boy!!!  Kind of unrelated, but one time we were driving up Malibu in his Rolls with the top down.  He turned right up a small canyon road, (probably because we couldn't get the joint rolled), and there was Katherine Ross, stark naked, watering her lawn!  Dennis shut the car off, and we both just sat there, gaping at her, until she turned the hose on us....

Yeah, Brian probably never said more than 2 words to Stevie; he just stare at her, kind of like we stared at Katherine Ross!  (Probably was picturing her naked!)

Howie or Jon need to collab with Ed on a book! ;D