Maps of Music

Bare Trees (1972)

Where the lyrics of Bare Trees take you, and where it was really made.

The master tapes were erased at an airport: passing through an x-ray machine demagnetized the finished recordings, and the band had to remix the album in New York.

Key places

Recording at De Lane Lea Music Centre (1972)

Recording site De Lane Lea Studios — The album was recorded at DeLane Lea Music Centre in London. The master recordings were later taken to New York for remixing at Record Plant Studios. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Bare Trees: sixth studio album by British-American rock band Fleetwood Mac
• Released March 1972
• Last Fleetwood Mac album to feature Danny Kirwan, who was fired during the album's supporting tour
• Five of the ten tracks were written by Kirwan and make up most of the music on the album
• Cover photography by John McVie

Background

• Child of Mine alludes to Kirwan's biological father not having been part of his life
• Homeward Bound alludes to Christine McVie's road weariness, according to Mick Fleetwood
• Sentimental Lady was released as a single and later re-recorded by Bob Welch
• Spare Me a Little of Your Love became a staple of the band's live act through the mid 1970s
• The closing track Thoughts on a Grey Day is a recorded poem read by Mrs. Scarrott, an elderly woman who lived near the band's communal home Benifold

Recording

• Recorded at DeLane Lea Music Centre
• Remixed at Record Plant Studios after the master recordings were brought to New York
• Engineer Martin Birch; remix engineer Bob Hughes; remastering by Lee Herschberg

Cover

• Cover photo by John McVie
• The cover photography shares a theme with the title track Bare Trees

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• Formed in London in July 1967 by Peter Green after leaving John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, with Mick Fleetwood on drums.
• The name combines Fleetwood's surname with bassist John McVie, who joined in 1967.
• Early line-up was primarily a British blues band; "Albatross" reached UK No. 1 in 1968.

Members

• Core members over time: Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Christine McVie, Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham.
• Buckingham and Nicks joined at the end of 1974 and drove the band's global success.

Career

• Rumours (1977) is one of the best-selling albums of all time and won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 1978.
• The band has sold more than 120 million records worldwide.
• Received a Hollywood Walk of Fame star in 1979 and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998.
• Received the MusiCares Person of the Year award in 2018.
• Christine McVie died in 2022; Stevie Nicks later said she saw no reason to continue the band.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Record World called the album a worthwhile package that improved on the band's brand of rock and roll
• Cashbox said the album was another stunning example of tight rock and roll playing
• Billboard said Kirwan's vocals were full of delightful little flourishes and labelled Child of Mine, Bare Trees and Danny's Chant as outstanding tracks
• Tony Stewart of New Musical Express wrote that the album retained much of the initial Mac appeal, and praised the musicianship and the guitar work
• Stewart was generally complimentary of Kirwan's compositions, singled out Sunny Side of Heaven, and praised McVie's songwriting

Reappraisal

• AllMusic, in a retrospective review, called Bare Trees the first consistently strong album Fleetwood Mac ever recorded

Records

• Debuted at number 175 on the US Billboard 200 chart dated 22 April 1972
• Peaked at number 70 on the chart dated 3 June 1972 after seven weeks on the chart
• Spent a total of 27 weeks on the Billboard 200
• Returned to the Billboard 200 at number 182 dated 6 September 1975
• Certified platinum by the RIAA on 9 February 1988 for sales of over a million copies in the United States

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• Kirwan wrote five of the ten tracks, the majority of the album's music
• After the album was finished, the master recordings were demagnetized and erased at an airport x-ray machine on the way to New York, so the band remixed it at Record Plant
• Trinity, another Kirwan song recorded at the sessions, was released in 1992 on the 25 Years box set
• The Ghost was later re-recorded by Bob Welch in 2006, but that version was only available on the digital edition
• Dust takes the lyrics from the first two verses of a 1910 poem by Rupert Brooke, who was not credited

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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