Tuesday March 17 2020
The Times

Producer who turned Fleetwood Mac into superstars only to have a falling out when he banned them from taking drugs in the studio

On the last day of 1974, Keith Olsen received a phone call that was destined to change the face of popular music.

On the line was Mick Fleetwood, the drummer with Fleetwood Mac, calling from a payphone at Los Angeles airport. Olsen was booked to produce the struggling English band’s next album in the new year but Fleetwood had some bad news to impart. His services would no longer be required because Bob Welch, the group’s guitarist, singer and main songwriter, had quit and Fleetwood Mac were facing extinction.

The two put their heads together in search of a rescue plan. Olsen had recently discovered a talented young guitarist named Lindsey Buckingham and his girlfriend Stevie Nicks. They wrote songs together and Olsen had produced an album for them. The record had flopped and “sold bupkis”, as he put it: at the time of Fleetwood’s phone call the duo were without a recording contract and Nicks was working as Olsen’s house cleaner for $250 a month.

However, Fleetwood had heard their record and was one of the few to be impressed. Perhaps, he suggested, Buckingham might be persuaded to join Fleetwood Mac? Olsen told him that he thought it was unlikely and, in any case, they wouldn’t be split up and he came as a pair with Nicks.

“Well, maybe that will work. Can you see if you can convince them to join my band?” Fleetwood asked. Abandoning his new year plans, Olsen drove to the couple’s apartment, taking with him “the obligatory bottle of bad champagne”. Continue reading Keith Olsen obituary | The Times →