Fleetwood Mac has gone through several lineup changes over the years, but none were as drastic as the summer of 1994 when they toured with only two original members: Mick Fleetwood and John McVie.
For that tour, Traffic’s Dave Mason, singer Billy Burnette and Bekka Bramlett filled in for Lindsey Buckingham, Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks. In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Bramlett, daughter of rock duo Bonnie and Delaney Bramlett, says she knew the gig was never going to last.
“I knew my job was to get Stevie back,” she says. “I wasn’t a moron.”
She says she knew taking the gig was “dangerous,” noting, “I knew I was facing tomatoes.”
Because of that, Bramlett decided to go out of her way to make sure fans didn’t mistake her for Stevie. “I didn’t want to twirl around. I wanted to be me,” she says. “I even dyed my hair brown just so people in the cheap seats would know that Stevie wasn’t going to be here. I didn’t want anyone to be discouraged or let down.”
She also stayed away from performing signature Stevie songs like “Rhiannon” and “Dreams,” although she did sing “Landslide” for a bit of the tour.
And as she suspected, the job didn’t last long. Bramlett says Mick fired her by fax, which she described as heartbreaking.
She did eventually get to meet Nicks, but says, “She didn’t care for me.”
“I was blonde. The first thing she said was, ‘Oh, I didn’t know she was blonde. And she over-sings,’” Bramlett explains. “But it’s OK. I still love her. She probably felt like I pissed on her tree. I can understand that. I’m a woman. I dig it. I understand it. I get it. I don’t dig it, but I get it.”
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