Bob Welch – The Past Dispatch

Christine McVie Deep Dive: Bob Welch’s ‘Live from the Roxy’

July 3, 2025January 13, 2024 by Bonnie Waters

There was a time, so soon after their ascendency to superstar status, when the most enduring incarnation of Fleetwood Mac was on such good terms with former frontman Bob Welch that it remains baffling why he was left out of their Hall of Fame induction and acrimony ensured for decades.

Ok, yes, the fact that he sued them in ’94 for unpaid royalties probably had lots to do with that snub. Rewind to November 1981, however, when this star-studded set was captured at West Hollywood’s world-famous Roxy Theatre, and you’ll find they were rarely chummier.

Christine McVie Deep Dive: Bob Welch’s ‘French Kiss’

July 3, 2025August 4, 2023 by Bonnie Waters

To re-address @jldrueke’s question: Yes, I am including this one in my Christine McVie deep dive, for reasons some fans automatically know while others will learn below. That said, I’m not so sure I’d consider Bob Welch’s solo debut a truly bizarro follow-up to Rumours, as Jeremiah suggests.

Christine McVie Deep Dive: ‘Live from the Record Plant’

July 3, 2025February 6, 2023 by Bonnie Waters

I did say at the close of my last post in this chronicle of the career of Christine McVie that the most beloved version of Fleetwood Mac was just about to emerge.

But not quite yet. First there needed to be a tour behind Heroes Are Hard to Find, their best-charting LP thus far in the States yet still a marginal success they view with some disappointment. All four members — Mick, the McVies and Bob Welch — sense an imminent shakeup.

Christine McVie Deep Dive: ‘Heroes Are Hard to Find’

July 3, 2025February 4, 2023 by Bonnie Waters

I can understand why even ardent Fleetwood Mac fans find it difficult to say they genuinely like this ninth album, the fourth and last to feature Bob Welch — and the first recorded as a quartet, since Bob Weston got the boot after boinking Jenny Boyd. She was Mick’s wife at the time, after all.

Christine McVie Deep Dive: ‘Mystery to Me’

July 3, 2025January 22, 2023 by Bonnie Waters

Just when I thought I was back on track with my deep dive into Christine McVie’s lengthy discography we got smacked twice with miserable attention-diverting news: first Jeff Beck departed, then David Crosby.

So, again … where were we?
Ah, yes: late ‘73, in full fracturing transition.

Christine McVie Deep Dive: ‘Penguin’

July 3, 2025January 8, 2023 by Bonnie Waters

Figured it out, right? After days of needless deliberation over this week’s #superfriendssunday theme — select an album turning 50 in 2023 — it occurred to me the simplest solution would be to spotlight Penguin, the first of two Fleetwood Mac LPs from ‘73, seen here with an equally flightless metronome and a Funko Pop of Chilly Willy.

Christine McVie Deep Dive: ‘Future Games’

June 30, 2025December 17, 2022 by Bonnie Waters

It’s February ‘71, Fleetwood Mac are touring the southwest US, and co-founding guitarist Jeremy Spencer has gone out for a magazine. He will not return — to the band at all, but initially not even to anywhere he could be located. Eventually it’s discovered that he’s joined the SoCal Christian cult the Children of God, now known as the Family.