Robert Lawrence Welch Jr. (August 31, 1945 – June 7, 2012) was an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter who was a member of Fleetwood Mac from 1971 to 1974. He had a successful solo career in the late 1970s. His singles included "Hot Love, Cold World", "Ebony Eyes", "Precious Love", "Hypnotized", and his signature song, "Sentimental Lady".
Early life Welch was born in Hollywood, California, into a show business family. His father, Robert L. Welch Sr., was a producer and screenwriter at Paramount Pictures, producing films starring Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. Welch Sr. produced the 25th Annual Academy Awards TV special in 1953 and The Thin Man TV series from 1958 to 1959. Bob's mother, Templeton Fox, was a singer and actress who worked with Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre in Chicago and appeared in TV and movies from 1962 to 1979.
Welch learned clarinet in his childhood, switching to guitar in his early teens. His interests were jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock music. He was accepted into Georgetown University, but instead moved to Paris, planning to attend the Sorbonne. Welch told People in a 1979 interview that, in Paris, "I mostly smoked hash with bearded guys five years older" and spent most of his time "sitting in the Deux Magots café". He returned to Southern California, where he briefly studied French at the University of California, Los Angeles, but did not complete a degree.
In 1964, Welch joined the Los Angeles-based vocal group The Seven Souls. The Seven Souls lost a battle of the bands competition, the prize being a contract with Epic Records, to Sly and the Family Stone. The Seven Souls' 1967 single "I'm No Stranger" and its , "I Still Love You" made no impact at the time of its release, despite subsequent issue in France and Italy. The Seven Souls broke up in 1969.
Welch subsequently returned to Paris and started a trio, Head West, which was not a success beyond recording a drumbeat that would go on to be sampled repeatedly. He later told People that his time in Paris (1969-1971) was "living on rice and beans and sleeping on the floor."
Fleetwood Mac In 1971, Welch auditioned for Fleetwood Mac at Benifold, their retreat and communal home in Hampshire, England. The band had recently lost one of its front-line members, guitarist Jeremy Spencer, and were looking for a replacement. Judy Wong, a friend and part-time secretary for the band, recommended her high school friend Welch. The band had a few meetings with Welch and decided to hire him, despite not having previously played with him, after listening to some of his songs on tape.Brunning, B (1998): Fleetwood Mac – The First 30 Years. London: Omnibus Press. p37 Welch was assigned rhythm guitar, backing up lead guitarist Danny Kirwan. Welch also moved in to Benifold.
The band's first album to feature Christine McVie and Welch, Future Games, was recorded at Advision Studios in London and released in September 1971, with the title track written by Welch. Six months later, in 1972, the band released Bare Trees, which was mostly recorded at De Lane Lea Studios in Wembley, London, and featured Welch's "Sentimental Lady". This song was a big hit for Welch five years later when he it for his solo album French Kiss. Christine McVie and Lindsey Buckingham also sang on and produced the remake.
Line-up changes The band recorded their next two albums Penguin and Mystery to Me at Benifold using mobile equipment hired from the Rolling Stones. Throughout this period, Fleetwood Mac often changed band members around the core of Mick Fleetwood, the McVies and Welch. Kirwan was replaced as a vocalist by ex-Savoy Brown lead singer Dave Walker, and as a lead guitarist by Bob Weston. Both Walker and Weston played on Penguin. Released in January 1973, the album reached No. 49 on the Billboard Top 200 album chart in the United States. This album contained Welch's songs "Bright Fire", "Revelation", and "Night Watch".
Mystery to Me contained Welch's song "Hypnotized", which earned significant FM radio airplay in the US. However, as a result of an aborted tour, Mystery to Me only reached No. 67 in the States.
'Fake Mac' and Relocation to LA By late 1973, internal stresses caused by a shifting line-up, touring, the deterioration of the McVies' marriage and an affair between Weston and Fleetwood's wife, Jenny Boyd, were debilitating to the band. Weston was sacked and the band quit a tour of the US.
The band's manager, Clifford Davis, refused to cancel the remaining 26 dates of the tour, fearing that this would destroy his reputation with bookers and promoters. In a letter to the remaining Fleetwood Mac members, he said he "had not slaved for years to be brought down by the whims of irresponsible musicians". He claimed that he owned the Fleetwood Mac name, and informed them of his plan to make the band into a new "star-quality, headlining act"—in effect firing them, but offering them jobs in the new band. Welch and the other band members did not take this seriously and ignored Davis's offer. Davis then set up a US tour with a new group of musicians—without Fleetwood Mac's consent—who were to be billed as "The New Fleetwood Mac". 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 that Fleetwood and Christine McVie would be joining the 'new' band at a later date. The original members of Fleetwood Mac obtained an injunction preventing the "fake Mac" from touring under their name, while Davis obtained an injunction preventing the original band from touring. The lawsuits resulting from the ultimately aborted tour put Fleetwood Mac out of commission for almost a year.
During this limbo, 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 convinced the band to move to Los Angeles.
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 and departure from Fleetwood Mac In 1974, Welch was the only guitar player in the band. Warner Bros. made a new deal with Fleetwood Mac, releasing the album Heroes Are Hard to Find on Reprise in September 1974. The album became the band's first to reach the Top 40 in the United States, peaking at No. 34 on the Billboard chart. The subsequent tour would be Welch's last with Fleetwood Mac.
Welch was suffering with personal and professional issues: his marriage was failing, and he felt he had exhausted his creativity with the band. Later, he explained that he felt estranged from John and Christine McVie, yet close to Fleetwood; he asserted in 1974 that he was running the band. 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.
Welch's relationship with his former band remained amicable in the years following his departure. During the height of their respective popularity in the late 1970s, Welch would frequently open for Fleetwood Mac and he would sit in as lead vocalist on "Hypnotized". Mick Fleetwood managed Welch's career into the 1980s.
Lawsuit
By the 1990s, Welch's once diplomatic relationship with Fleetwood Mac had become acrimonious. In 1994, Welch sued Fleetwood, the McVies, band attorney Michael Shapiro and Warner Bros. Records for breach of contract related to underpayment of royalties. Previously, in 1978, Welch and the band had signed a contract with Warner Bros. agreeing to an equal share of all royalties from their Fleetwood Mac albums. Welch alleged that the members later made new deals with Warner Bros. for higher royalty rates, and neither Fleetwood nor the McVies had informed Welch, thus cheating him out of equal royalties. The lawsuit was settled in 1996.
Hall of Fame controversy and reconciliation When Fleetwood Mac was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998, original band members Peter Green, Jeremy Spencer, Mick Fleetwood, and John McVie were named to the Hall, as were later additions Danny Kirwan, Christine McVie, Lindsey Buckingham, and Stevie Nicks. Welch, who anchored the band for several years and five albums, was not. Welch felt the recent legal battle with the band soured the committee to include him. "My era was the bridge era," Welch told the Cleveland newspaper the Plain Dealer in 1998. "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... 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."
In a 2003 online question-and-answer session on the Fleetwood Mac fan site The Penguin, Welch revised his opinion about the exclusion. He had recently visited Fleetwood Mac backstage after a show, and he reconnected with Mick Fleetwood. Welch no longer blamed the band for his exclusion. He instead blamed the Hall's committee and its industry insiders (such as Ahmet Ertegun and Jann Wenner), stating they did not like his style of music. He still maintained that the lawsuit was a factor, as it prevented him from contacting Mick Fleetwood, and they were still estranged at the time of the induction.
Rock trio and solo career In 1975, Welch formed the short-lived hard rock power trio Paris with ex-Jethro Tull bassist Glenn Cornick and former Nazz drummer Thom Mooney. With a guitar-driven aesthetic compared by retrospective critics to Led Zeppelin,[ Allmusic review by Mark Allan] Retrieved January 9, 2009 Paris released two commercially unsuccessful albums: Paris and Big Towne, 2061. Hunt Sales later replaced Mooney until the group disbanded.
In a 1979 interview with People, Welch said that the two Paris albums were "ill-conceived." The band's overhead and ensuing lack of commercial success drained Welch's finances, leaving him with only $8,000 in savings (equivalent to ~$35,000 in 2024) after its dissolution.
In September 1977, Welch released his first solo album, French Kiss, a mainstream pop collection featuring contributions from Fleetwood, Buckingham, and Christine McVie. The album was certified platinum by the RIAA, peaking at No. 12 on the Billboard chart in 1978. It yielded three hit singles: a revamped version of "Sentimental Lady" produced by Buckingham and McVie (#8), "Ebony Eyes" (#14; featuring Juice Newton on backing vocals) and "Hot Love, Cold World" (#31).