Bob Weston

Bob Weston, who has died aged 64, played lead guitar with Fleetwood Mac in the early 1970s, but lasted only a year before being unceremoniously sacked for having an affair with Mick Fleetwood’s wife; he thus missed out on the opportunity to feature in what became the most commercially successful rock group of the era.

Fleetwood Mac in 1973: (left to right) Bob Weston, Christine McVie, Bob Welch, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood

Weston’s fall from grace was one of the more pedestrian dramas to have afflicted the band’s line-up over the years. Named after the drummer, Mick Fleetwood, and bass guitarist John McVie, Fleetwood Mac initially featured the great Peter Green on lead guitar, and had its first No 1 single in 1969 with Albatross.

But Green began to binge on LSD, and left the band in 1970; the following year, during an American tour, his fellow guitarist Jeremy Spencer walked out of his hotel in Los Angeles to go shopping and never returned — he had joined a religious group called The Children of God. A third guitarist, Danny Kirwan, was fired in autumn 1972, to be replaced by Weston.

Weston featured on the album Penguin (1973), playing lead guitar alongside Bob Welch . He also sang with Christine McVie on Did You Ever Love Me, and wrote the instrumental Caught in the Rain. On the album Mystery to Me, he co-wrote the track Forever.

It was while the band was touring America in late 1973 that Weston was discovered to be having an affair with Mick Fleetwood’s wife, Jenny Boyd. After the band’s performance at Lincoln, Nebraska, Weston was fired and the remainder of the tour cancelled. Weston later recalled: “I got a phone call early one morning, about eight. I hadn’t even had a cup of tea. Next thing, there’s a knock at the door, and the entire road crew was standing there. They were all looking daggers at me, very menacing, all broken noses and scars ... It was horrible seeing all those lads with whom I’d worked so happily emanating such a lot of hostility towards me.” The group’s manager, Clifford Davis, attempted to recruit an entirely new set of musicians to complete the tour under the name Fleetwood Mac, leading to a prolonged legal wrangle.

With both Weston and Welch gone (Welch left in December 1974), Fleetwood, McVie and McVie’s wife Christine Perfect then recruited Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks to form the line-up that in 1977 would create the album Rumours, which sold more than 40 million copies.

Weston, meanwhile, picked up his career and toured with the blues veteran Alexis Korner. He also featured on the album Say It Ain’t So (1975) by Murray Head, star of Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar.
Robert Joseph Weston was born in Plymouth on November 1 1947. Initially he was taught violin, but at the age of 12 decided to switch to guitar. Arriving in London in the mid-Sixties, he joined a group called The Kinetic, which recorded an album and supported Chuck Berry and Jimi Hendrix at concerts in France. In 1970 Weston became part of the backing group of the blues singer Long John Baldry, touring Europe and the United States (sometimes appearing on the same bill as Fleetwood Mac) as well as playing on Baldry’s album Everything Stops for Tea (1972).
Weston made three solo albums, Nightlight (1980), Studio Picks (1981) and There’s a Heaven (1999). Latterly he had written and arranged music for film and television.
The dramas surrounding Fleetwood Mac did not end with Weston’s departure. Christine McVie had affairs with the band’s lighting director and the Beach Boy Dennis Wilson; Stevie Nicks, meanwhile, had affairs with both Joe Walsh and Don Henley of The Eagles. John McVie suffered an alcohol-induced seizure and was arrested for possession of firearms.
Mick Fleetwood went bankrupt after a series of disastrous property ventures; he and Jenny Boyd divorced, remarried, then divorced again.
Bob Weston, who had been due to record with the former Rolling Stone Mick Taylor, was found dead in his London flat by the police after friends had been unable to contact him for several days. A post-mortem revealed that he died from a gastrointestinal haemorrhage.

Bob Weston, born November 1 1947, found dead on January 3 2012