Then Play On
Then Play On is the third studio album by British blues rock band Fleetwood Mac, released on 19 September 1969. It was the first of their original albums to feature Danny Kirwan and the last with Peter Green. Jeremy Spencer did not feature on the album apart from "a couple of piano things". The album, appearing after the group's sudden success in the pop charts, offered a broader stylistic range than the classic blues of the group's first two albums. The album went on to reach #6 in the UK, subsequently becoming the band's fourth Top 20 hit in a row, as well as their third album to reach the Top 10. The title is taken from the opening line of William Shakespeare's play Twelfth Night — "If music be the food of love, play on".
This was the band's first release with Warner/Reprise after being lured away from Blue Horizon and a one-off with Immediate Records. All subsequent Fleetwood Mac albums have been released on Warner. The album, which at its original UK release had an unusually long running time, has been released with four different song line-ups. The original CD compiled all songs from the two US LP versions, both of which omitted tracks from the original UK version. In August 2013, a remastered edition of the album was reissued on vinyl and CD, restoring its original 1969 UK track listing and adding four bonus tracks from the same era. This version reached No. 112 on the UK Albums chart.
Background
The band's previous albums had been recorded live in the studio and adhered strictly to the blues formula. For the recording of Then Play On, editing and overdubbing techniques were used extensively for the first time.Green had recently introduced improvisation and jamming to the band's live performances and three of the tracks on the album, "Underway", "Searching for Madge" and "Fighting for Madge", were compiled by Green from several hours of studio jam sessions.
Although "Oh Well" was a hit in the UK, it was not the group's first single released in America. Instead, Clifford Davis, who was Fleetwood Mac's manager at the time, selected "Rattlesnake Shake" to be released in the US instead. While he thought "Rattlesnake Shake" would become a big hit, it failed to chart anywhere. After the failure of "Rattlesnake Shake", "Oh Well" was chosen as the second single in the US. It fared much better, becoming the band's first song to chart on the Billboard Hot 100. Mick Fleetwood ranked the song in his top 11 favourite Fleetwood Mac songs list.
It incorporated the freedom to go off on a tangent, to jam – the classic 'Do you jam, dude?' We learned that as players. You hear that alive and well in the double-time structure that I put in at the end, which on stage could last half an hour. It was our way of being in The Grateful Dead.
Artwork
The painting used for the cover of the album is "Domesticated Mural Painting", by the English artist Maxwell Armfield. It was featured in the February 1917 edition of The Countryside magazine, which states that the mural was originally designed for the dining room of a London mansion.Reception
Contemporary reception of the album was mixed. Writing for Rolling Stone, John Morthland said Fleetwood Mac had fallen "flat on their faces", and later dismissed the album as mostly "nondescript ramblings". On the other hand, Robert Christgau was more positive. He described the album's mixing of "easy ballads and Latin rhythms with the hard stuff" as "odd" but "very good".Modern reviews are highly positive; The New Rolling Stone Album Guide labeling the album as "cool, blues-based stew" and considered it as the second best Fleetwood Mac album. The Telegraph described it as a "musically expansive, soft edged, psychedelic blues odyssey". Clark Collins of Blender gave the album five stars out of five, and described "Oh Well" as an "epic blues-pop workout".
Track listing
Original UK LP, September 1969
Note- "When You Say" was covered by Christine McVie on her 1970 eponymous album.
Original US LP, September 1969
Revised US LP, November 1969
When the double-sided single "Oh Well " became a hit, the US LP was re-released in a revised running order to include "Oh Well", dropping Danny Kirwan's "When You Say" and "My Dream" to make room for it. The two parts of "Oh Well" differ widely, the first being hard rock, the latter a meditative instrumental, on which Green played cello. The first minute or so of "Part 2" was included as a fade-out coda to the A-side of the single. For the album, "Oh Well " were crudely spliced together, so that the coda is heard twice. Without the repeat, the whole piece runs only 7:58. "Part 1" of "Oh Well" has remained a regular concert feature to the present day, sung variously by Bob Welch, Lindsey Buckingham, Billy Burnette and Mike Campbell.Other changes include putting the two edits from the "Madge" jams back-to-back, fading down between them. The giggle that previously linked "My Dream" to "Like Crying" ended up, in the previous edit, following the end of "Fighting for Madge" instead. Madge, the press were told at the time, was a female fan of the group, immortalised in two long instrumental jams finally released in their entirety on 2002's The Vaudeville Years.
Original CD, 1990
The CD release mostly sticks to the order of the revised US track listing, but re-inserts the two deleted songs in new locations. The giggle is now tied to the end of "Fighting For Madge" instead of the beginning of "Like Crying" by the previous edit. "Oh Well" still contains the repeated minute. The two songs that appeared only on the UK LP are still missing.Rhino Records Deluxe Edition CD/LP 2013
In August 2013, Rhino Records reissued a Deluxe Edition remastered edition of the album on vinyl and CD, restoring its original 1969 UK track listing and adding four bonus tracks from the same era.Unreleased Bonus EP: ''The Milton Schlitz Show''
The original intention was to include a bonus EP in the Then Play On album. The EP was to be compensation for the fact that Jeremy Spencer barely appeared on the album. The EP consisted of Spencer's parodies of doo wop, Alexis Korner, country blues, acid rock, and John Mayall. It was finally released on Fleetwood Mac's The Vaudeville Years compilation in the 1990s.Personnel
Fleetwood Mac- Peter Green – vocals, guitar, harmonica, six string bass, percussion, cello on "Oh Well "
- Danny Kirwan – vocals, guitar
- John McVie – bass guitar
- Mick Fleetwood – drums, percussion
- Jeremy Spencer – piano on "Oh Well "
- Christine Perfect – piano
- Sandra Elsdon – recorders on "Oh Well "
- Big Walter Horton – harmonica
- Fleetwood Mac – producers
- Martin Birch – engineer
- Dinky Dawson – sound consultant
Charts
| Year | Chart | Position |
| 1969 | UK | 6 |
| 1970 | US | 109 |
Singles – Billboard
| Year | Single | Chart | Position |
| 1970 | "Oh Well – Pt. I" | Pop Singles | 55 |