Sunday Music - Ebony Eyes - Vale Bob Welch

Today’s music video is Ebony Eyes  from the late Bob Welch.

Link to Video at You Tube

This video was posted to You Tube by VideodromeDisco

It’s an almost sad Post today. As more of those old popular music stars pass away, this Post marks the almost unheralded passing of Bob Welch. I heard this song again last Friday on the radio, and as it was one of my favourites from the late 70′s I turned up the radio, and thought that it would be a good idea to use the song for my Sunday Music Post. At the end of the song, the announcer came on and said that was Ebony Eyes from the late Bob Welch. I hadn’t even known he had died, as it was not reported here in Australia, so I thought that the announcer may have got it wrong, but when I checked, it was true. Bob had indeed died. In this day and age of older rock stars passing away, I guess Bob was one of those not considered to be worthy of a mention, which is a real shame, as he was a really great and talented artist, performing with the legendary band Fleetwood Mac, before his relatively large solo career.

The germ of this series of Posts titled Sunday Music actually started on a Saturday close to Christmas in December of 2008. My good lady wife and I were visiting our daughter and her family in Rockhampton, 500 miles from where I lived. As I was a visitor, I didn’t want to be seen hogging the computer all day, so rather than spend the usual time I did at this site most days, I had an hour or so a day that I would write something to Post for the day. This Saturday, there was very little news around, being so close to Christmas, and I decided instead to do something rather than the News articles, and pressed for time, I wrote a Post on a favourite piece of music. From that Post then developed the idea of making it a regular thing here at our site, and now, three and a half years later, it’s a regular Post we have every Sunday.

I have never had a problem finding something to Post, as I have such a huge collection of records to choose from, so I just select a song, and then go searching for the clip of that song at the You Tube site.

That very first music Post I made was of a Fleetwood Mac song, in this case that beautiful Instrumental Albatross, at this link.

This song was first released in 1969, before Bob joined that famed band. It was a Number One Smash hit for the band, and four years later, in 1973, when it was again released as a single, it again went straight to Number One, a mean feat for any song, let alone an Instrumental. Original band members Bob Green and Jeremy Spencer left the band in 1971, and with the loss of two guitarists, the remaining members of the band needed a replacement guitarist, and this time, instead of selecting a fellow English artist, the band asked American Bob Welch to join them. He joined the remaining founder member Mick Fleetwood, the first joining new band members John McVie, and Danny Kirwan, and later member Christine McVie, who joined as keyboards player Christine Perfect from the band Chicken Shack, and she later married fellow band member John McVie. These five formed the second nucleus of this wonderful band and as this group, with Bob Welch, they produced a further 4 studio albums to add to the already prolific number of albums before that.

Danny Kirwan left the band in early 1974 and now the band had only 4 members and Bob Welch took over as the sole guitarist and did all the lead guitar work.

Bob Welch left the band at the end of 1974, having been part of those 4 studio albums in that 3 year period, and over the years, those 4 albums that he was a part of have sold in excess of 2 million copies.

When he left, the remaining three members of Fleetwood Mac asked Lindsey Buckingham and ‘Stevie’ Nicks to join the band, and that lineup saw this wonderful band just go meteoric.

After leaving, he formed his own band, Paris, which was relatively short lived and then he started his solo career.

The first album he brought out on his own was French Kiss, which was an enormous hit album, and three songs were lifted from that as singles, and they all made it into the charts. This was his biggest success as a solo artist, and while he released a further 6 studio albums, none reflected the scale of this first sol album, which is a certified Platinum album, and has sold well over a million copies.

For this French Kiss album, 2 former members of Fleetwood Mac, Mick Fleetwood and Christine McVie also appeared on different songs as did new member Lindsey Buckingham, and when Bob was touring the album, Stevie Nicks sometimes appeared on stage with Bob on some of the songs.

Today’s featured song, Ebony Eyes was a favourite song of mine in 1978, mainly because of the wonderful guitar work. The video clip released for the TV video shows was OK I guess, but it’s obvious he is lip syncing the song, as they all did for those shows and video clips. That aside, the song really highlights Bob’s mastery of his instrument, the guitar.

Sadly, later in life Bob had some pretty major health problems, foremost among them problems with his spine. In June of this year, barely 10 weeks ago Bob took his own life, at the age of 66. He had undergone spinal surgery three months earlier, and his Doctor had told him that he would not get better. Bob was downcast at this and not wanting his wife to spend the rest of her life caring for an invalid, Bob took his own life.

However, as is the case with the passing if those rock icons from a time when popular music was evolving at such a rapid rate, we have left the anthology of the lives of these musicians in the form of their records, and Ebony Eyes is just another of those great songs, all we have left now.

Vale Bob Welch.

Tagged: Bob Welch, Fleetwood Mac, Music, Music Video

Posted in: Music, Videos