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lead singer of Savoy Brown, and they had established quite
a following in America "playing blues boogie in the heavy
metal style of those metal monsters, Grand Funk Railroad."
After Danny Kirwan was let go, Fleetwood Mac recruited Walker
as a 'front-man vocalist.'
Like Christine McVie, Walker's roots
were in Birmingham, England, and he shared a similar musical
background with FM. He even knew Chris' ex-Chicken Shack-mates Andy Sylvester
and Dave Bidwell. After touring the U.S. in late 1972, Walker and the rest of the band recorded Penguin , which was released
in the spring of 1973. His contribution to the album was minimal,
and he seemed to spend more time in the pub than in the studio.
Christine McVie and Bob Welch tried to write material for him,
but Walker tended to make the songs sound more like Savoy Brown
than Fleetwood Mac. As Welch recalls: "The light finally
dawned on us that we were throwing away what FM had been, that
we weren't Savoy Brown." Walker "was aware of the other's
growing resentment over his inability to either hack it in the
spotlight or contribute to their repertoire," and he was
asked to leave the band by mid-1973. Walker went on to join Black Sabbath in the fall of 1977 as 
a replacement for Ozzy Osbourne, but left in February 1978 upon Ozzy's return. Walker did not appear on any Black Sabbath albums, but played live once on BBC's "Top of the Pops" and was involved in a primitive version of "Junior's Eyes".
Currently, Dave Walker is living in Montana but has been working the small clubs in England doing mostly acoustic gigs and getting a very good reception. He will be traveling back to England in a few months to play more acoustic shows with a small band in some of the smaller venues.
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an R&B
singer. Weston made two albums with the band, Penguin and
Mystery to Me, both released in 1973. The band was extremely
proud of their work on the latter-- it was also doing well on
the charts-- and set out on tour to promote it in September of
that year. All went very well for about a month, when Mick Fleetwood
suddenly became aware that his wife, Jenny, was having an affair
Check out the Q&A with Bob Weston from December 1999 here ! |
however, and on October 23rd, 1973,
in Lincoln, Nebraska, he told the McVies and Welch that he couldn't
do it any longer. Fleetwood Mac's road manager, John Courage,
fired Weston, who was put on a plane and not seen again by the
group for years. As Weston remembers, "I got a phone call early one morning after a gig, about eight. I hadn't even had a cup of tea! Next thing, there's a knock at the door, and the entire road crew was standing there. They were all looking daggers at me, very menacing, all broken noses and scars...It was horrible seeing all those lads with whom I'd worked so happily emanating such a lot of hostility towards me. I think I was a scapegoat. There were all these other affairs going on within the band, but I wasn't good at boxing. I didn't duck at the right time!" Recently, Weston wryly recalled that it was, "...the most expensive affair I've ever had in my life...cost me a career, that did. 
"Bob Welch then called FM's manager in England, Clifford Davis, and tried to explain why the tour would have to be cut short. A furious Davis, who felt he 'owned' the name Fleetwood Mac, soon put together a fake band and sent them out on the road, beginning a year-long legal battle which almost did the real Fleetwood Mac in for good.
Weston is releasing his first new album since 1981 now, There's A Heaven, and will be a guest on The Penguin this December for a Q&A Session.
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