MAC, MYTHS and MYSTERIES
Martin Celmins
Was Fleetwood Mac guitarist Jeremy Spencer really kidnapped mid-tour by a religious cult who shaved his head, brainwashed him and hid him from the band? Um, no. Classic Rock hears the true story.
It’s late February, 1971. A headline in UK music paper Sounds reads: `Jeremy Spencer “Lost in America?”‘. The NME also reports that early on in Fleetwood Mac’s lengthy tour their slide guitarist suddenly went missing in LA. The paper then ratchets up the story with hearsay that he’s joined `a strange religious cult’, is `walking around in a daze like a zombie’ and `just mumbles “Jesus loves you”‘. Apparently, `he’s with about 500 of these people and they’re just like vegetables’.
That `religious zombie’ story, it now turns out, is like the one about one¬time Mac mainman Peter Green flipping out and threatening his accountant with gun unless he takes back a fat royalty cheque: both are fabulous Fleetwood Mac myths, and too juicy to be upstaged by what really happened.