Maps of Music

Then Play On (1969)

Where the lyrics of Then Play On take you, and where it was really made.

The title comes from a Shakespeare line, and the band first announced the album as Bread & Kunny before changing it.

Key places

Show-Biz Blues sessions at De Lane Lea Studios (1969)

Recording site De Lane Lea Studios — Show-Biz Blues was one of the songs the band recorded during sessions at De Lane Lea Studios in London from 2 July through 4 July. Two takes were completed on the first session, and work resumed the following day to yield the master. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Then Play On is the third studio album by the British blues rock band Fleetwood Mac
• Released 19 September 1969 in the UK
• First original album to feature Danny Kirwan; last album with Peter Green
• Broader style than the first two albums, with folk rock, hard rock, art rock and psychedelia
• Title taken from the opening line of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night
• First release on Reprise Records after the band left Blue Horizon

Background

• Earlier albums were recorded live in the studio and followed the blues formula strictly
• Editing and overdubbing were used extensively for the first time on this album
• Fleetwood wanted to move away from strictly blues-oriented material
• Jeremy Spencer barely appeared, apart from a couple of piano parts according to Mick Fleetwood
• At the time the band described itself as stylistically two bands in one
• Green opposed mixing disparate styles, so a planned Spencer EP was not issued until 1998
• Green and Spencer discussed a concept album about the life of Jesus Christ, but it never materialised

Recording

• Martin Birch served as audio engineer
• Green often brought in demos recorded at home on his Revox
• Several Kirwan tracks were first recorded on 6 October 1968 and later re-recorded and remixed
• Green compiled the Madge jams from several hours of studio jam sessions
• Birch used panning on guitar tracks to create the impression of a guitar duel between Green and Kirwan
• The band produced the album themselves, which Green later regretted

Cover

• The cover painting is a mural by English artist Maxwell Armfield
• Titled Domesticated Mural Painting, it shows a naked man on a galloping horse with a yellow sky

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• Formed in London in July 1967 by Peter Green after leaving John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, with Mick Fleetwood on drums.
• The name combines Fleetwood's surname with bassist John McVie, who joined in 1967.
• Early line-up was primarily a British blues band; "Albatross" reached UK No. 1 in 1968.

Members

• Core members over time: Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Christine McVie, Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham.
• Buckingham and Nicks joined at the end of 1974 and drove the band's global success.

Career

• Rumours (1977) is one of the best-selling albums of all time and won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 1978.
• The band has sold more than 120 million records worldwide.
• Received a Hollywood Walk of Fame star in 1979 and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998.
• Received the MusiCares Person of the Year award in 2018.
• Christine McVie died in 2022; Stevie Nicks later said she saw no reason to continue the band.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• John Morthland in Rolling Stone said Fleetwood Mac had fallen flat on their faces and dismissed the album as mostly nondescript ramblings
• Robert Christgau described the mix of easy ballads and Latin rhythms with the hard stuff as odd but very good
• Melody Maker praised the album, saying it would enhance the band's reputation
• Record Mirror called it an interesting, progressive LP and the band's most interesting album to date
• Billboard said it gave a good sampling of their blues-with-a-British-accent style of playing
• Record World found creative playing and arrangements, and said the bottleneck guitar work evoked music from the 1920s and 1930s
• Cashbox called it an exciting package that would make the band as popular statewide as in their home

Reappraisal

• The New Rolling Stone Album Guide labelled it a cool, blues-based stew and considered it the second best Fleetwood Mac album
• The Daily Telegraph described it as a musically expansive, soft edged, psychedelic blues odyssey
• Blender's Clark Collins gave it five stars out of five and described Oh Well as an epic blues-pop workout

Records

• Reached No. 6 on the UK Albums Chart
• Became the band's fourth Top 20 LP in a row
• Their third album to reach the UK Top 10
• The non-album single Oh Well, released soon after, reached No. 2 on the UK Singles Chart
• Oh Well became the band's first song to chart on the Billboard Hot 100

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• The title comes from a line in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, and the band first told the press it would be called Bread & Kunny
• The cover mural by Maxwell Armfield was originally designed for the dining room of a London mansion
• Spencer's planned bonus EP, The Milton Schlitz Show, was not released until 1998 on The Vaudeville Years
• Madge, the jam namesake, was a female fan who hitchhiked to several of the band's shows
• Green's Before the Beginning was first titled Blues in B flat minor and recorded as an instrumental
• Fleetwood called Then Play On his favourite Fleetwood Mac album in his 2013 autobiography

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Maps of Ages ↗ (mapsofages.com)

Privacy · Contact