An undated portrait of Danny Kirwan, a guitarist during Fleetwood Mac’s earliest years. Kirwan died at age 68 on June 8.
(RB/Redferns/Getty Images )
Daniel David Kirwan (13 May 1950 – 8 June 2018) was a British musician whose greatest success came with his role as guitarist, singer and songwriter with the blues rock band Fleetwood Mac between 1968 and 1972. He released three albums as part of a solo career from 1975 to 1979, recorded albums with Otis Spann, Chris Youlden and Tramp, and worked with Fleetwood Mac colleagues Jeremy Spencer and Christine McVie on some of their solo projects.
Kirwan was born in Brixton, South London, and his guitar skills started attracting attention at an early age. He was still only 17 when he came to the attention of established British blues band Fleetwood Mac, while he was playing in London with his first band Boilerhouse, with Trevor Stevens on bass guitar and Dave Terrey on drums.[1] He persuaded Mac’s producer Mike Vernon to go and watch Boilerhouse rehearse (in a South London basement boiler-room), and Vernon then informed Fleetwood Mac founder Peter Green of his discovery. Green was impressed and Boilerhouse began playing support slots for Fleetwood Mac at London venues like John Gee’s Marquee Club in Wardour Street, allowing Kirwan and Green to jam together and get to know each other.[citation needed]
Green took a managerial interest in Boilerhouse but Stevens and Terrey were not prepared to turn professional at the time, so Green put an advert in the Melody Maker to find another rhythm section to back Kirwan. Over 300 applicants replied but after several auditions, none was deemed good enough to replace the pair by the hard to please Green,[2] so another solution was found. Fleetwood Mac had been constituted as a quartet, but Green had been looking for another guitarist to share some of the workload, in view of slide guitarist Jeremy Spencer’s unwillingness to contribute much to Green’s songs.[3] Drummer Mick Fleetwood, previously a member of John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, suggested to Green that Kirwan could join Fleetwood Mac, and although neither Green, bassist John McVie (both also former Bluesbreakers), nor Spencer were entirely convinced,[4] Fleetwood asked Kirwan to join the band in August 1968.[5] Kirwan’s arrival expanded Fleetwood Mac to a five-piece with three guitarists. He played his first gig with the band on 14 August at the Nag’s Head Blue Horizon Club in Battersea, London.[4]
In an interview with Mike Vernon in June 1999, Green described Kirwan as “a clever boy who got ideas for his guitar playing by listening to all that old-fashioned roaring twenties big band stuff.” He added that in those early days, Kirwan “was so into it that he cried as he played”.[6]
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During the late 1970s Kirwan’s mental health deteriorated significantly and since then he played no further part in the music industry. During the 1980s and 1990s, he endured a period of homelessness living in London.[21]
In a 2009 BBC TV documentary about Peter Green, Clifford Davis blamed Kirwan’s mental deterioration on the same incident that is alleged to have damaged Green’s mental stability, i.e. a reaction to LSD taken at a party at a commune in Munich, Germany in late March 1970. Davis stated:
“Peter Green and Danny Kirwan both went together to that house in Munich, both of them took acid as I understand it, [and] both of them, as of that day, became seriously mentally ill.”[22]
However, other sources do not concur that Kirwan was present at the commune in Munich. Fleetwood Mac roadie Dinky Dawson remembers that the only two to go to the party were Green and another roadie, Dennis Keane, and that Kirwan did not go. Dawson also states that when Keane returned to the band’s hotel to explain that Green would not leave the commune, neither Kirwan nor Davis travelled to the commune to fetch Green, leaving that job to Keane, Dawson and Mick Fleetwood.[23] Keane himself concurs with Dawson, except that he telephoned Davis from the commune and did not physically return to the hotel to fetch help, and that Davis accompanied Dawson and Fleetwood to fetch Green.[24]:110–11 Green also commented, “To my knowledge only Dennis and myself out of the English lot went there.”[24]:111 Jeremy Spencer has also stated that he was present at the commune, and has implied that he arrived later with Fleetwood.[25] Neither Keane, Dawson, Green nor Spencer mention Kirwan being present at the commune.
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It was announced on Fleetwood Mac’s official Facebook page that Danny Kirwan had died on 8 June 2018. Mick Fleetwood said:
“Today was greeted by the sad news of the passing of Danny Kirwan in London, England. Danny was a huge force in our early years. His love for the Blues led him to being asked to join Fleetwood Mac in 1968, where he made his musical home for many years.
Danny’s true legacy, in my mind, will forever live on in the music he wrote and played so beautifully as a part of the foundation of Fleetwood Mac, that has now endured for over fifty years.
Thank you, Danny Kirwan. You will forever be missed!”
~Mick Fleetwood and Fleetwood Mac”
Read Mr. Kirwan’s full, extensive biography here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Kirwan
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Other Notable Musicians’ Deaths…
June 2018
12: Wayne Dockery, 76, American jazz double bassist; Helena Dunicz-Niwinska, 102, Polish
violinist, translator and author; Jon Hiseman, 73, English drummer (Colosseum, Colosseum II),
brain cancer; Jaroslaw Kozidrak, 63, Polish guitarist, keyboardist and composer.
11: Maria Butaciu, 78, Romanian folk singer; Bonaldo Giaiotti, 85, Italian operatic bass;
Yvette Horner, 95, French accordionist.
10: Douglas J. Bennet, 79, American diplomat and educator, President of Wesleyan University (1995–2007); Neal E. Boyd, 42, American singer and reality show winner (America’s Got
Talent), heart and kidney failure and liver disease; Ras Kimono, 60, Nigerian reggae musician.
9: Crawford Gates, 96, American composer and conductor; Lorraine Gordon, 95, American jazz
club owner (Village Vanguard), stroke.
8: Danny Kirwan, 68, British Hall of Fame guitarist (Fleetwood Mac, Tramp); Gino Santercole,
77, Italian singer and songwriter, heart attack; Leo Sarkisian, 97, American musicologist and
broadcaster.
7: Stefan Weber, 71, Austrian singer.
6: Jimmy Gonzalez, 67, American Tejano singer (Mazz), multiple Latin Grammy winner, heart
attack; Teddy Johnson, 98, English singer (Pearl Carr & Teddy Johnson); Ralph Santolla, 51,
American metal guitarist (Deicide, Obituary, Iced Earth), heart attack.