Bob Weston

Robert Joseph Weston (1 November 1947 – circa 3 January 2012), commonly known as Bob Weston was an English guitarist who was a member of Fleetwood Mac from 1972 to 1973.

Prior to joining the group, Weston, like the original lineup of Fleetwood Mac, had been active on the British blues scene playing with such acts as Graham Bond and Long John Baldry.

Weston was recruited to the band following the dismissal of Danny Kirwan, as they had been impressed by his work with Long John Baldry. Around the same time, they also hired frontman Dave Walker.

Weston was only credited as appearing on five out of the nine tracks on the resulting album Penguin though he later claimed he had played on the track Night Watch. However he displayed multiple talents, playing banjo and harmonica on Dave Walker's The Derelict and even contributing backing vocals to the song [[Did You Ever Love Me]]. The album closed with an instrumental piece composed and performed by Weston entitled Caught in the Rain.

Weston featured much more prominently on the next album Mystery to Me (also 1973) on which he played all the lead guitar parts and co-wrote the song Forever with Bob Welch and John McVie. But it was around that time that he and Mick Fleetwood's wife Jenny began an extramarital relationship. Fleetwood put up with this for a while but eventually informed the band that he could not carry on with Weston in the band. Weston was fired midway through the tour and not replaced. The relationship with Jenny Fleetwood did not continue after this time.

After Fleetwood Mac[]

After his dismissal from Fleetwood Mac, Weston worked mostly as a session musician, perhaps most notably on Sandy Denny's final album Rendezvous (1977) but mostly with Murray Head whose best known work tended to be renditions of songs from Andrew Lloyd Webber's musicals.

He kept his Fleetwood Mac connection intact however, playing on two tracks on Danny Kirwan's 1979 album Hello There Big Boy.

Weston released three solo albums, Night Light (1980), Studio Picks (1981) and There's a Heaven (1999). Studio Picks featured Mick Fleetwood on drums on the track Ford 44, showing perhaps a degree of reconciliation between the two men. Weston appeared on stage at Bob Welch's 1981 Roxy concert, playing with Welch and Christine McVie on the latter's Remember Me but a later attempt to contact Mick Fleetwood in the 1990s met with no success.

Weston was found dead in his flat in North London on January 3rd 2012 from gastrointestinal haemorrhage caused by cirrhosis.