Fleetwood Mac ‎ Kiln House 1970 Reprise Records Original Press Vinyl LP

$

30

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Kiln House Studio album by  Fleetwood Mac Released 18 September 1970 Recorded June–July 1970 Studio De Lane Lea, London Genre

• Blues rock 
• rock and roll 
• folk rock 
• soft rock

Kiln House is the fourth studio album by British blues rock band Fleetwood Mac, released on 18 September 1970 by Reprise Records. This is the first album after the departure of founder Peter Green, and their last album to feature guitarist Jeremy Spencer. Christine McVie was present at the recording sessions and contributed backing vocals, keyboards and cover art, although she was not a full member of the band until shortly after the album's completion.

Background

Fleetwood Mac recorded after the departure of Peter Green, a founding member of Fleetwood Mac. Around the time of Green's final performance with the band on 28 May 1970, the remaining members regrouped by moving to the English countryside with their wives, children, and road managers. John McVie commented that "The legs went out from under us, and we were faced with a future without Peter."

The album title is taken from the name of two converted oast houses, known as Kiln House, in Truncheaunts Lane in East Worldham, near Alton, Hampshire. The property had previously been used for drying hops for beer brewing, and later became a listed building. The band leased Kiln House and lived there communally with their families for a six-month period in 1970. Mick Fleetwood married Jenny Boyd at the house on 20 June 1970.

I remember sitting with Mick, Danny and Christine in a small side room off the practice studio that occupied what decades ago used to be the oast-drying place for the making of beer and mulling over our future. All we knew, Danny and I, was that we had some material to record.

Recording

The band spent two weeks recording Kiln House at De Lane Lea Studios. Christine McVie, who at the time was still known as Christine Perfect, lived in Kiln House with the band and had participated in the album's recording sessions. She was signed to Blue Horizon as a solo artist and could not be credited as a musician in the liner notes of Kiln House due to contractual reasons. Clifford Davis, the band's manager, provided McVie with session money for her contributions.

Spencer, who played on one track during the recording of the previous album, Then Play On, played a much more active role during the Kiln House sessions. His retro 1950s homages and parodies dominate the album, although Danny Kirwan's songs are almost equally prominent. Spencer was particularly influenced by rockabilly and music from the Sun Records record label. "Buddy's Song" is derivative of "Peggy Sue Got Married" with new lyrics listing a number of Buddy Holly song titles with a writing credit given to Buddy's mother. Fleetwood Mac's cover of "Hi Ho Silver" was based on a recording titled "Honey Hush" from Johnny Burnette's Rock and Roll Trio. Johnny Burnette's nephew, Billy Burnette, later joined Fleetwood Mac in 1987. Fleetwood Mac had performed "Buddy's Song" and "Honey Hush" on BBC Radio 1 for a broadcast on Top Gear. These recordings would later appear on Live at the BBC in 1995.

"Jewel Eyed Judy" was written by the band's secretary Judy Wong. The song was also released as a single in certain markets. Spencer's "Blood on the Floor" was a style parody of country and western dirges. An early version of Kirwan's instrumental "Earl Gray", entitled "Farewell", was later released on the compilation The Vaudeville Years. Demos of the song were recorded in the middle of April 1970 at De Lane Lea Studio when Green was still a member of the band. Spencer originally wanted to drop "One Together" from the album, but the band convinced him otherwise. "Tell Me All the Things You Do" included keyboard playing from Perfect and was included in Fleetwood Mac's live setlists through 1977 and again in 2018–2019 during the band's An Evening with Fleetwood Mac Tour. "Mission Bell" was a cover of a 1960s ballad originally performed by Donnie Brooks. When discussing the song in a Q&A, Spencer remembered hearing some people express their displeasure with the band's cover of "Mission Bell".

Critical reception

In his review of Kiln House, J.R. Young wrote in Rolling Stone that the album was "carefully conceived and prepared" and marked a shift from the Fleetwood Mac's earlier work with Green, saying that "Danny Kirwan and Jeremy Spencer took up the slack and built a new engine" for the band. He felt that Kirwan was successful in reining in Spencer's retro-pastiches such as "Blood on the Floor" and also found Spencer's material on Kiln House to be more tasteful than the songs found on his self-titled album released earlier in 1970. Billboard characterised the album as a foray into "the roots of contemporary rock."

Robert Christgau thought that the band released a respectable album without the contributions of Green. He said that Spencer's "Blood on the Floor" was "less charitable than one would hope", but was more complimentary toward "This is the Rock". Beat Instrumental described the band as a "mighty fine unit" without Green and highlighted the "nostalgia for the fading 'fifties" that permeated through Spencer's compositions. They also thought that "Station Man" and "Tell Me All the Things You Do" exemplified the band's "multi-guitar work". In a retrospective review, Bruce Eder of AllMusic wrote that the album lacked the intensity found on some of their previous work with Green, but said that the album instead "broaden[ed] the band's use of blues into other contexts, and add[ed] new influences in the absence of Green's laser-like focus."

Track listing