Danny Kirwan
Daniel David Kirwan was a British musician and guitarist, singer and songwriter with the blues-rock band Fleetwood Mac between 1968 and 1972. He released three albums as a solo artist from 1975 to 1979, recorded albums with Otis Spann, Chris Youlden, and Tramp, and worked with former Fleetwood Mac colleagues Jeremy Spencer and Christine McVie on some of their solo projects. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Fleetwood Mac in 1998.
Early life, education and family
Kirwan was born Daniel David Langran on 13 May 1950 and raised in Brixton, South London. His parents separated when he was young and his mother, Phyllis Rose Langran, married Aloysious J. Kirwan in 1958 when Danny was eight. Kirwan left school in 1967 with six O-levels and worked for a year as an insurance clerk in Fenchurch Street in the City of London.Career
Musical influences and first band
Kirwan's mother was a singer and he grew up listening to the music of jazz musicians such as Eddie Lang, Joe Venuti, Belgian gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt and 1930s–40s groups such as the Ink Spots. He began learning guitar at the age of 15 and rapidly became an accomplished musician and guitarist. He was influenced by, among others, Hank Marvin of the Shadows, Django Reinhardt, Jimi Hendrix, and particularly by Eric Clapton's playing in the Bluesbreakers. Kirwan was 17 when he came to the attention of established British blues band Fleetwood Mac in London while fronting his first band, Boilerhouse, a blues three-piece with Trevor Stevens on bass and Dave Terrey on drums. Boilerhouse played support slots for Fleetwood Mac at London venues such as the Nag's Head in Battersea and John Gee's Marquee Club in Wardour Street.Joining Fleetwood Mac
Mick Fleetwood recalled, "We met Danny at a little club in Brixton, the Nag's Head, one night when we played with a local band called Boilerhouse. Danny played beautifully, getting a subtle tremolo effect from his fingering." Fleetwood Mac's producer Mike Vernon booked Boilerhouse to play at his blues club, the Blue Horizon in Battersea, and he remembered, "Danny was outstanding. He played with an almost scary intensity. He had a guitar style that wasn't like anyone else I'd heard in England." Kirwan became a devoted fan of the band's lead guitarist, Peter Green, and followed Fleetwood Mac around the London clubs, often turning up at gigs during the afternoon to help to carry the gear in and jam with Green after the soundcheck. "Which is how Danny Kirwan came into our lives," Fleetwood said. "Danny was a huge fan of Peter's. He would see us every chance he got, usually watching in awe from the front row."Fleetwood Mac had been constituted as a quartet but Green, the band's founder, wanted to move away from pure blues and had been looking for a new musical collaborator and backing guitarist to work with, as slide guitarist Jeremy Spencer did not contribute to his songs. Green found that he and Kirwan worked well together, and suggested to Fleetwood that Kirwan could join Fleetwood Mac. Although the rest of the band were not entirely convinced, Fleetwood invited Kirwan to join the band in August 1968.
Fleetwood said, "Danny was an exceptional guitar player. It was clear that he needed to be with better players... In the end, we just invited him to join us. It was one of those 'ah-ha' moments when you realise the answer is right there in front of you." Kirwan's reaction was described as "astonishment and delight". His arrival expanded Fleetwood Mac to a five-piece with three guitarists.
Green described Kirwan as "a clever boy who got ideas for his guitar playing by listening to all that old-fashioned Roaring Twenties big-band stuff." Kirwan was known to be "emotionally fragile", and Green said that in the early days, Kirwan "was so into it that he cried as he played."
Fleetwood Mac
A year after forming Fleetwood Mac, Peter Green was looking for ways to extend the band and perhaps change its direction. He wanted to be open to other musical styles and bring in more of his own material. Kirwan was the ideal foil for Green's new approach: he played gentle, supportive rhythm guitar to Green and Spencer's fiery solo work and introduced vocal harmonies to some of the songs. Spencer said, "Peter and I had seen Danny play and thought he was very good. Peter and Danny worked well together."Fleetwood said, "Danny worked out great from the start. His playing was always very melodic and tuneful, with lots of bent notes and vibrato. Danny's style of playing complemented Peter's perfectly because he was already a disciple. His sense of melody on rhythm guitar really drew Peter out, allowing him to write songs in a different style. He was full of ideas that helped to move Fleetwood Mac out of the blues and into the rock mainstream... Playing live, he was a madman." Fleetwood Mac biographer Leah Furman said Kirwan had "provided a perfect sounding board for Peter's ideas, added stylistic texture, and moved Fleetwood Mac away from pure blues."
Kirwan was interviewed by weekly music paper Melody Maker soon after joining Fleetwood Mac and gave the first indication of the breadth of his musical influences. He told Melody Maker:
The band's manager Clifford Davis, himself a musician, remembered Kirwan as "a very bright boy with very high musical standards. When we were on the road he was constantly saying 'Come on, Clifford, we must rehearse, we must rehearse, we've got to rehearse'." Davis said Kirwan "was the originator of all the ideas regarding harmonies and the lovely melodies that Fleetwood Mac would eventually encompass."
First gigs and tours
Kirwan progressed from being an 18-year-old guitarist in a small pub band in south London to being a member of an internationally known touring band in one move. He played his first gig with Fleetwood Mac on 14 August 1968 at the Nag's Head Blue Horizon Club in Battersea, London. Ten days later he was with them on stage at the Hyde Park Free Concert in London, performing on the same bill as Family, Ten Years After and Fairport Convention. A session in the BBC radio studios in London followed, to record twelve songs for broadcast on John Peel's 'Top Gear'. Three days after that the band began a 50-date tour of the UK and Scandinavia, and at the end of November they were in Paris, performing in a New Year's Eve show for French television with The Who, Small Faces, Pink Floyd and The Troggs. Two days later, on 1 December 1968, Kirwan was in New York City at the start of an almost sold-out, 30-date Fleetwood Mac US tour which would include performances at major venues such as the Fillmore East in Manhattan, the Fillmore West in San Francisco, the Boston Tea Party, and an appearance before 100,000 fans at the three-day Miami Pop Festival in Florida alongside, among others, Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, B. B. King, and the Grateful Dead. In April 1969, Kirwan played at the Royal Albert Hall in London when Fleetwood Mac supported B.B. King on the opening date of his first UK tour, and they played support on the eight-date tour.First recording: "Albatross"
Kirwan's first recorded work with Fleetwood Mac, in October 1968, was his contribution of the second guitar part to Green's blues instrumental "Albatross". Green had been working on the piece for some time, and Kirwan completed it by adding the counterpoint harmony in the middle section. Green said, "Once we got Danny in, it was plain sailing... I would never have done 'Albatross' if it wasn't for Danny. I would never have had a number one hit record." Kirwan said Green had told him what to do and all the bits he had to play. The band spent two days recording and mixing the track at CBS studios in New Bond Street, London, and when they listened to the final mix, everyone agreed it was "a beautiful record". "Albatross" was released in November 1968 on Mike Vernon's Blue Horizon label. It reached number one in the UK Singles Charts in December 1968 and sold nearly a million copies.Kirwan provided the instrumental "Jigsaw Puzzle Blues" for the B-side of "Albatross". His first published composition, this was originally a clarinet piece, written by Joe Venuti and Adrian Rollini and recorded by the Joe Venuti / Eddie Lang Blue Five in 1933. Kirwan worked it out from the record and adapted it for Green and himself to play on guitar, but Green remembered, "I couldn't do it properly, I can't play that sort of big band Prohibition-time thing," so Kirwan played all the guitar parts himself.
The Beatles admired "Albatross" and were inspired by it to create the slow, melodic, harmonised track "Sun King" on their 1969 album Abbey Road. In the spring of 1969, after Fleetwood Mac's manager had removed the band from the Blue Horizon label, John Lennon was reported to be interested in signing Fleetwood Mac to the Beatles' new Apple Records label.
Blues sessions at Chess
In early January 1969 Kirwan was on his first tour of the United States with Fleetwood Mac, and they opened for Muddy Waters at the Regal Theater in Chicago. While they were there, producer Mike Vernon heard that Chess Records was about to close its famous Chicago studio and suggested recording a Fleetwood Mac blues album in the home of Chicago blues before it disappeared. He and Marshall Chess arranged a two-day recording session in which Kirwan, along with Green, Spencer, McVie and Fleetwood, played with legendary blues musicians David "Honeyboy" Edwards, Walter 'Shakey' Horton, J.T. Brown, Willie Dixon, Otis Spann, Buddy Guy, and S.P. Leary. Willie Dixon organised the sessions.The recordings made at Chess Studios were judged a great success, and were released by Vernon in December 1969 as a double album on the Blue Horizon label, originally entitled Blues Jam at Chess and later reissued as Fleetwood Mac in Chicago. Fleetwood said later that the sessions had produced some of the best blues the band had ever played, and ironically, the last blues that Fleetwood Mac would ever record. Two of Kirwan's songs, "Talk With You" and "Like It This Way", were included on the album.