Bob Welch (musician)

For other people named Bob Welch, see Bob Welch (disambiguation).

Bob Welch
Bob Welch (left) and recording engineer Jimmy Robinson at the Record Plant in Sausalito, California
Background information
Birth name	Robert Lawrence Welch, Jr.
Born	(1945-08-31)August 31, 1945 Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Died	June 7, 2012(2012-06-07) (aged 66) Antioch, Tennessee, U.S.
Genres	Rock, jazz
Instrument(s)	Vocals, guitar, bass guitar, percussion
Years active	1970–2012
Labels	Capitol Records RCA Records Curb Records Edsel Records Rhino Records One-Way Records
Website	bobwelch.com

Robert Lawrence "Bob" Welch (August 31, 1945 – June 7, 2012) was an American musician. A former member of Fleetwood Mac, Welch had a successful solo career in the late 1970s. His singles included "Hot Love, Cold World", "Ebony Eyes", "Precious Love", and his signature "Sentimental Lady".

Early life

Welch was born in Los Angeles, California, into a show business family. Raised in Beverly Hills, his father was movie producer and screenwriter Robert L. Welch, who worked at Paramount Pictures in the 1940s and 1950s, producing films starring Paramount's top box office stars, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby (solo, not as a duo). He also worked as a TV producer, responsible for the 25th Annual Academy Awards TV special in 1953 and The Thin Man TV series in 1958–59. Bob's mother, Templeton Fox, had been a singer and actress who worked with Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre in Chicago, Illinois and appeared on TV and in movies from 1962 to 1979.

As a youngster, Welch learned clarinet, switching to guitar in his early teens. He had received his first guitar at the age of eight. The young Welch developed an interest in jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock music. After graduating from high school, Welch eschewed attending Georgetown University, where he had been accepted, to move to Paris, professedly to attend the Sorbonne. Welch told People Magazine in a 1979 interview that, in Paris, "I mostly smoked hash with bearded guys five years older." He spent time "sitting in the Deux Magots café" rather than attending to his studies, and eventually returned to Southern California, where he studied French at UCLA.

Dropping out of UCLA before graduation, Welch joined the Los Angeles-based interracial vocal group, The Seven Souls, as a guitarist in 1964, replacing band member Ray Tusken, a guitarist who went on to become vice-president in charge of A&R for Capitol Records. The Seven Souls lost a battle of the bands competition whose prize was a recording contract with Epic Records, to Sly and the Family Stone. The original line-up included lead singer Ivory Hudson, saxophonist and singer Henry Moore, drummer Ron Edge and bassist Bill Deiz, who later became a television news anchorman and reporter in Los Angeles. (Later band members Bobby Watson and Tony Maiden subsequently formed the funk group Rufus with Chaka Khan.)

The Seven Souls' 1967 release "I'm No Stranger / I Still Love You" (OKeh 7289) made no impact at the time of its release, despite subsequent issue in France and Italy. However, the B-side "I Still Love You" has become a Northern Soul anthem over the past 30 years with original copies on OKeh (or French CBS / Italian Epic) changing hands for anything up to £400. "I Still Love You" was co-written by Henry Moore and Bill Deiz. The Seven Souls broke up in 1969.

Welch moved back to Paris and started a trio, Head West, which was not a success. Welch told People Magazine, in his 1979 interview, that the two years in Paris between 1969 and 1971 were spent "living on rice and beans and sleeping on the floor." During his time in Paris, Bob became friends with future CBS correspondent Ed Bradley, years later Ed came to Sunset Sound to hang out during the making of French Kiss.

Fleetwood Mac

Bob Welch struggled with a variety of marginal bands until 1971, when he was invited to join Fleetwood Mac, then an erstwhile English blues band that had lost two of its three front-line members, Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer, within a few months. Along with fellow newcomer Christine McVie, a keyboardist/singer-songwriter (formerly of the British blues band Chicken Shack), Welch helped to steer the band in a more melodic direction, particularly after lead guitarist/singer-songwriter Danny Kirwan left the band in 1972.

In the summer of 1971, the remaining members of Fleetwood Mac held auditions at their retreat in England, Kiln House, while seeking a guitarist to replace Spencer. Judy Wong, a friend of the band who served at times as their secretary (the Kirwan-written song "Jewel-Eyed Judy" was dedicated to her), recommended her high school friend Welch to the band. Welch (who has been described as Wong's high school boyfriend) was living in Paris at the time.

The band had a few meetings with Welch and decided to hire him without actually playing with him or listening to any of his recordings. Welch was given the role of rhythm guitar, backing up lead guitarist Danny Kirwan. It was felt that having an American in the band might extend Fleetwood Mac's appeal in the States. Welch eventually went to live in the band's communal home, a mansion called Benifold, which was located in Hampshire. (Using mobile equipment borrowed from The Rolling Stones, the band would record four albums at Benifold: Future Games, Bare Trees, Penguin and Mystery to Me.)

In September 1971, the band released the first Fleetwood Mac album featuring Welch, Future Games, with the title song written by Welch. This album was different from anything the band had done up to that point. In 1972, six months after the release of Future Games, the band released Bare Trees, which featured Welch's song Sentimental Lady. The song would become a much bigger hit for him five years later when he re-recorded it for his solo album French Kiss.

Friction

While the band was doing well in the studio, their tours were more problematic. Kirwan developed an alcohol dependency and became alienated from Welch and the McVies. Welch held contradictory attitudes towards Kirwan in the 18 months they were band mates in Fleetwood Mac: On the one hand, their personal relationship was difficult as Welch felt that Kirwan was playing mind games with the band; and on the other hand, Welch had enormous respect for Kirwan's musicianship. In 1999, Welch stated: "He was a talented, gifted musician, almost equal to Pete Green in his beautiful guitar playing and faultless string bends." In a later interview, Welch said: "Danny wasn't a very lighthearted person, to say the least. He probably shouldn't have been drinking as much as he did, even at his young age.... He was always very intense about his work, as I was, but he didn't seem to ever be able to distance himself from it... and laugh about it. Danny was the definition of 'deadly serious'."

The end for Kirwan came in August 1972, during an American tour, when he stormed off stage in a violent rage after arguing with Welch. Before a concert on that year's US tour, Kirwan and Welch fought over tuning and Kirwan flew into a rage, smashing his guitar and refusing to go onstage. He reportedly smashed his head bloody on a wall in back of the stage, then moved into the sound booth to watch the show, where the band struggled without him as Welch tried to cover his guitar parts. After the fiasco of a show, he criticized the band.

Fleetwood subsequently fired Kirwan, partly on the recommendation of Welch. The artistic direction of Fleetwood Mac essentially was left in the hands of Welch and Christine McVie.

Challenges

Over the next three albums Fleetwood Mac released, they constantly changed line-ups around the core of Fleetwood, the McVies and Welch. Kirwan was replaced by Savoy Brown lead singer Dave Walker and Bob Weston on lead guitar. Both Walker and Weston appeared on Penguin, released in January 1973, cracking the Top 50 on the Billboard Top 200 album chart in the U.S., reaching #49. Walker's style did not mesh with Fleetwood Mac and he was amicably dismissed, failing to appear on Mac's second album of 1973, Mystery to Me, which was shipped to market six months after Penguin.

Mystery to Me contained the Welch song "Hypnotized", which got a lot of airplay on the radio in the United States. However, Mystery to Me only reached #67 in The States, as that market became increasingly important to the band, which was shipping albums in the respectable range of 250,000 units at the time.

Fake Mac and the move to Los Angeles

Internal stresses caused by line-up changes, touring and the failing marriage of Christine and John McVie (exacerbated by John's alcoholism), and an affair between Weston and Fleetwood's wife Jenny Boyd proved debilitating to the band. Fleetwood was devastated by his wife's revelation of the affair, and Weston was sacked from the band. Fleetwood's distress led to the cancellation of a planned tour in the United States.

The band's manager, Clifford Davis, decided not to cancel the tour and claimed that he owned the name Fleetwood Mac. According to Welch, Davis sent letters to all the remaining Fleetwood Mac band members saying he was putting a new "star-quality, headlining act" together and offering them jobs in this new band. Welch said that he believed that Davis' gambit was ignored by them all. Without telling any of the band members, Davis then set up a tour with a new group of musicians, booking them into venues in the United States under the name "Fleetwood Mac" even though none of the new musicians had ever played with any previous incarnation of the band.

Davis announced that Welch and John McVie had quit Fleetwood Mac, and put the "fake Mac" band out on to tour the United States. None of the "fake Mac" members was ever officially in the real band, but it was announced that Fleetwood and Christine McVie would be joining the band at a later date. The members of Fleetwood Mac obtained an injunction preventing the "fake Mac" from touring under their name, while Davis obtained an injunction preventing the "real Mac" from touring. The lawsuits resulting from the tour, which was aborted, put the real Fleetwood Mac out of commission for almost a year.

During this period, Welch stayed in Los Angeles and connected with entertainment attorneys. Welch believed the band was being neglected by Warner Bros., the parent of their label, Reprise Records and decided that if the band wanted to get better treatment from Warner Bros., they would have to change their base of operation to Los Angeles. The rest of the band agreed. Rock promoter Bill Graham wrote a letter to Warner Bros. to convince them that the "real" Fleetwood Mac were in fact Fleetwood, Welch and the McVies. While this did not end the legal battle, the band was able to record as Fleetwood Mac again.

Instead of getting another manager, Fleetwood Mac decided to manage themselves. After the courts ruled that the "Fleetwood Mac" name belonged to Fleetwood and John McVie, the two band members set up their own band management company, Seedy Management.

Heroes Are Hard to Find

In 1974, for the first time, Fleetwood Mac had only had one guitarist, Welch, who took over lead guitarist duties. The quartet of Welch, Fleetwood, and the McVies represented the ninth line-up in the band's seven year history. Warner Bros. made a new record deal with the band, which recorded and released the album Heroes Are Hard to Find on Reprise in September 1974. The album became the band's first to crack the US Top 40 in the United States, reaching #34 on the USA Billboard 200 chart.

The Heroes Are Hard to Find tour proved to be the last for Welch. The constant touring had taken its toll on him. His marriage was failing and he felt that he had hit the end of his creative road with the band. In a 1999 online question and answer session on the Fleetwood Mac fan site The Penguin, Welch also said he felt estranged from John and Christine McVie while he felt close to Fleetwood, with whom he asserted he was running the band in 1974.

Welch resigned from Fleetwood Mac in December 1974 and was replaced by Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks.

Of the Fleetwood Mac albums on which Welch appeared, American album sales totaled 500,000 units shipped between 1971 and 2000 for Future Games; 1 million units of Bare Trees between 1972 and 1988; and 500,000 units of Mystery to Me between 1973 and 1976, when it was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America.

Legacy and lawsuit

The Buckingham–Nicks version of Fleetwood Mac achieved supergroup status with the albums Fleetwood Mac (1975) and Rumours (1977), which shipped 5 million and 19 million units in the US alone, both reaching #1 in the US. (Rumours, which has shipped 40 million units worldwide, is one of the most successful sound recordings ever released.) Welch's French Kiss, released in 1977, was his sole platinum album, and after his gold-certified album Three Hearts (1979), his career faded.

Mick Fleetwood continued to manage Bob Welch's career into the 1980s. In 1994, Welch sued Fleetwood, John and Christine McVie, band attorney and attorney Michael Shapiro and Warner Bros. Records for breach of contract related to underpayment of royalties. In 1978, Welch and the three band members signed a contract with Warner Bros. agreeing to an equal share of all royalties from their Fleetwood Mac albums. Welch alleged that the three subsequently had struck various deals with Warner Bros. that gave them higher royalty rates. Welch alleged that Fleetwood and the McVies had failed to inform him of the new, higher royalty rate, thus depriving him of his fair share of royalties. The breach of contract lawsuit was settled in 1996.

Hall of Fame controversy

When Fleetwood Mac was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998, original band members Peter Green, Jeremy Spencer, Danny Kirwan, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie were named to the Hall, as were Christine McVie, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. Welch, who anchored the band for several years and five albums, was not. "My era was the bridge era," Welch told the Cleveland newspaper the Plain Dealer in 1998, after he was snubbed by the Hall of Fame. "It was a transition. But it was an important period in the history of the band. Mick Fleetwood dedicated a whole chapter of his biography to my era of the band and credited me with 'saving Fleetwood Mac.' Now they want to write me out of the history of the group. It hurts."

Welch went on to tell the Plain Dealer, "Mick and I co-managed the group for years. I'm the one who brought the band to Los Angeles from England, which put them in the position of hooking up with Lindsey and Stevie. I saw the band through a whole period where they barely survived, literally." At the time, Welch believed that he had been blackballed by the Hall because of the breach of contract lawsuit against Fleetwood and John and Christine McVie. At the time of his snubbing by the Hall, he believed that the falling out with three band members led them to pressuring the selection committee into excluding him from the Hall.

In a 2003 online question and answer session on the Fleetwood Mac fan site The Penguin, Welch revised his opinion of why he was snubbed by the Hall. He had recently attended a Fleetwood Mac show and visited the band members back stage after the show. The visit reconnected him with Mick Fleetwood, his ex-band mate and ex-manager, after being estranged for many years. (He had never been estranged from Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, who were not party to the lawsuit.) By 2003, Welch believed that he had been snubbed by the Hall as the directors in New York, music industry insiders, did not like his style of music. However, he did believe that the lawsuit was a factor in his being blackballed, as it prevented him from getting in touch with Mick Fleetwood, whom he was not talking to at the time of the induction, who may have otherwise have used his influence to get Welch included with other members of the band. (Jerry Garcia had used his influence to get 12 members of the Grateful Dead inducted into the Hall, including some band mates whose contributions were considered marginal.) As the Plain Dealer article noted, 16 members of the Parliament-Funkadelic collective were inducted into the Rock Hall—an oddly large number in the author's view, considering Welch's pivotal role in Fleetwood Mac and a board member's contention that only band members who made important creative contributions to a group's sound and impact are nominated for inclusion.

Paris

In 1975, Welch and Jimmy Robinson (recording engineer) formed the short-lived hard rock power trio Paris with ex Jethro Tull bassist Glenn Cornick and ex drummer Thom Mooney. Paris released two albums; Paris (produced by Jimmy Robinson (recording engineer)), and after Hunt Sales replaced Mooney, Big Towne 2061, produced by Bob Hughes. Sales' brother Tony subsequently replaced Cornick before the group split. The first album to this day is still selling as it been released 4 times; the second album not so well.

In a 1979 interview with People Magazine, Welch said that the two Paris albums were "ill-conceived." Because of the misfire of Paris, his finances had deteriorated until he had only $8,000 left. Mick Fleetwood and members of Fleetwood Mac would soon help him reinvigorate his career as a solo act.

Solo

In September 1977, Welch released his first solo album, French Kiss (originally to have been called Paris 3), a mainstream pop collection featuring contributions from former band mates Mick Fleetwood and Christine McVie. This release brought Welch his greatest success, selling one million copies being certified by the RIAA on 5/1/78. It yielded three hit singles: a revamped version of "Sentimental Lady", which hit Billboard's Top 10, the rocker "Ebony Eyes" and "Hot Love, Cold World".

Welch followed up French Kiss with 1979's Three Hearts, an album that replicated the rock/disco fusion of French Kiss. It was certified Gold by the RIAA on 2/23/1979, and spawned the top 20 hit "Precious Love", while the follow-up single "Church" also charted. He also hosted a music video program, Hollywood Heartbeat.

Welch released solo albums into the early 1980s (The Other One, Man Overboard, Bob Welch, and Eye Contact) with decreasing success, during which time he also developed a short lived cocaine and heroin addiction for less than a year and a hospitalization scared him into stopping in the Spring of 1985. The day he got out of detox he met his wife to be Wendy Armistead at the Central (now the Viper Room) where they were introduced by Taryn Power (Tyrone Power's daughter) and Tony Sales (Soupy Sales' son). Wendy had been employed for 7 years by Michael Viner a producer/manager and his wife, actress Deborah Raffin, out of their home office. Welch and Armistead were married in December 1985, and remained together as husband and wife and business partners until his death. Wendy moved Bob to Phoenix Arizona to keep him away from all the drug dealers in LA in 1986 and he never did drugs again, not even marijuana. After cleaning himself up in 1986, Welch turned away from performing and recording and focused his attention on songwriting for others. In Phoenix, Bob and Wendy put together a short-lived group called Avenue M, who went on tour and recorded one song for a greatest hits compilation. He later moved to Nashville, Tennessee.

In 1999, Welch released an experimental jazz/loop based album, Bob Welch Looks at Bop. He followed this up in 2003, with His Fleetwood Mac Years and Beyond, which contained new recordings of songs he originally recorded with Fleetwood Mac, as well as some solo hits. In 2006, he released His Fleetwood Mac Years and Beyond 2, which mixed a half-dozen new compositions, along with a similar number of his Mac/solo remakes. He released more CD's with Fuel Records in 2008, 2010, and 2011.

Welch appeared as an avatar named BobWelch Magic in 2008 performing solo acoustic favorites and hits live for 30 minutes, in a show with Von Johin (musician/publisher Mike Lawson) and Cypress Rosewood (musician Tony Gerber) in the virtual world of Second Life streaming live over the internet into the Gibson Island virtual stage from Lawson's studio

He had been married since 1985 to Wendy Armistead Welch of Memphis, Tennessee. The couple resided in Nashville.

Death

On June 7, 2012, Welch committed suicide in his Nashville home at around 12:15 p.m (a mere six months after the death of his former Fleetwood Mac bandmate Bob Weston). He was found by his wife, Wendy, with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest; a 9-page suicide note and love letter had been written to his wife. According to her, Welch had had spinal surgery three months earlier. Doctors told him he would not get better. He was in serious pain and he did not want his wife to have to care for an invalid. Also, she believes that the pain medication pregabalin (Lyrica), which he had been on for six weeks, may have contributed to his death.

Discography

Albums

Head West

Date	Album	US	UK	Additional information
1970	Head West		–	–

Fleetwood Mac

Release Date	Album	US	UK	Additional information
September 3, 1971	Future Games	91	–	Debut album with Fleetwood Mac
March 1972	Bare Trees	70	–	Features the original recording of "Sentimental Lady"
March 1973	Penguin	49	–	–
October 15, 1973	Mystery to Me	68	–	Features "Hypnotized", written by Welch
September 13, 1974	Heroes Are Hard to Find	34	–	Welch quit Fleetwood Mac after this album
November 24, 1992	25 Years – The Chain	34	–	Compilation

Paris

Release date	Album	US	UK	Additional information
January 1976	Paris	103	–	–
August 1976	Big Towne, 2061	152	–	–

Solo

Release date	Album	US	UK	Additional information
November 1977	French Kiss	#12	–	Platinum
February 1979	Three Hearts	#20	–	Gold
November 1979	The Other One	#105	–	–
September 1980	Man Overboard	#162	–	–
October 1981	Bob Welch	#201	–	–
June 1983	Eye Contact	–	–	–
December 1991	The Best of Bob Welch	–	–	–
1994	Greatest Hits	–	–	–
September 10, 1999	Bob Welch Looks at Bop	–	–	–
July 8, 2003	His Fleetwood Mac Years & Beyond	–	–	–
August 10, 2004	Live at The Roxy	–	–	–
March 28, 2006	His Fleetwood Mac Years and Beyond, Vol. 2	–	–	–

Solo singles

• "Big Towne, 2061" / "Blue Robin" (1976)
• "Ebony Eyes" / "Outskirts" (1977)
• "Sentimental Lady" / "Hot Love, Cold World" (#8, 1977)
• "Ebony Eyes" / "Dancin' Eyes" (#14, 1978)
• "Hot Love, Cold World" / "Danchiva" (#31, 1978)
• "I Saw Her Standing There" / "Church" (1979)
• "Precious Love" / "Something Strong" (#19, 1979)
• "Church" / "Here Comes The Night" (#73, 1979)
• "Church" / "Don't Wait Too Long"
• "Three Hearts" / "Oh Jenny" (1979)
• "Rebel Rouser" / "Spanish Dancers" (1979)
• "Don't Let Me Fall" / "Oneonone" (1980)
• "Don't Rush The Good Things" / "Reason" (1980)
• "Those Days Are Gone" / "The Girl Can't Stop" (1980)
• "Two To Do" / "Imaginary Fool" (1981)
• "Sentimental Lady" / "Ebony Eyes" (1981)
• "Remember" / "You Can't Do That" (1982)
• "'Fever" / "Can't Hold Your Love Back" (1983)
• "Can't Hold Your Love Back" / "S.O.S." (1983)
• "I'll Dance Alone" / "Stay" (1983)

External links

• Bob Welch's MySpace
• Bob Welch Memorial