HERE’S BEKKA — (from Rolling Stone)  Bekka Bramlett grew up around John Lennon and George Harrison, but nothing could prepare her for joining Fleetwood Mac in 1994, during one of the rockiest periods in the band’s history.

In the summer of 1994, Fleetwood Mac hit the road without Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, or Christine McVie. In the three singers’ spots, drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie placed Traffic’s Dave Mason, rockabilly singer Billy Brunette, and Bekka Bramlett — the 26-year-old daughter of late-Sixties/early-Seventies rock icons Bonnie and Delaney Bramlett.

“We ended up with a bunch of talented people playing good music, but they should not have been touring as Fleetwood Mac,” Mick Fleetwood wrote in his 2014 memoir Play On. “There were too many essential pieces missing from the machine this time. We were a totally different band, with only the original drummer andbass player, and our original name.”

The Bekka Bramlett incarnation of Fleetwood Mac released a single album, 1995’s Time, before dissolving the next year to make way for a lucrative Hells Freezes Over-style reunion album and tour by the classic Rumours lineup. This period of the band may seem like little more than a footnote to some rock fans, but it was a pivotal time for Bramlett, and she looks back on it without any regrets.

“I knew my job was to get Stevie back,” she tells Rolling Stone from her home in Nashville. “I wasn’t a moron. I also knew this was a dangerous job when I took it. I knew I was facing tomatoes. But I didn’t want to wear a top hat. I didn’t want to twirl around. I wanted to be me. 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.”

Joining Fleetwood Mac at 26 would have been a shock to the system of most singers, but Bramlett had been living in close proximity to rock stars her entire life. When she was very young, her parents toured and recorded with George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and many other A-list rock stars, winning renown as Delaney & Bonnie and Friends. Those artists also spent a lot of time at her mansion in the Hollywood Hills.

Bramlett didn’t realize any of this was unusual until she boarded the school bus one morning gripping her Disney Princess lunchbox. “This other little girl had a Beatles lunchbox,” she says. “I said to her, ‘I know him. He’s on our couch right now.’ I pointed to George Harrison. ‘I know him too.’ I pointed to John. She started hitting me since she thought I was lying. I was petrified and confused. I thought they were just Daddy’s friends that had accents.”

When she was just four years old, her father recruited Bekka and her sister Suzanne to sing background vocals on his song “California Rain.” “My mom had to get some gaffer tape to keep the headphones on my head since I was so little,” she says. “I used to hate the way it sounds, and now I love it so much. It’s so endearing.”

Right around this time, her parents split up, and she went to live with her father and grandmother. “It was weird, since mostly the moms got the babies back then,” she says. “But my parents were alcoholics. My grandmother never even smoked cigarettes or said cuss words. She brought us to church every Sunday, Wednesday, and Monday. We were in safe hands with our grandmother. I think both of my parents trusted that.”

Delaney and Bonnie both struggled to find solo success in the Seventies, and they dealt with significant substance abuse issues, but Bekka inherited their talents, and she knew from a young age that she’d devote her life to music. “I briefly thought I’d be a lawyer, but I thought I’d be a singing lawyer,” she says. “Then I wanted to be a jockey since I love horses, but I thought I’d be a singing jockey. Music is just what I’m good at.”

As a teenager with a fake ID in the early Eighties, Bramlett spent many nights checking out bands on the Sunset Strip. “I remember standing on the side of the stage as Guns N’ Roses played,” she says. “Seeing it up close, I was like, ‘This is why you never try heroin.’ But then I’d go into the audience and be like, ‘This is why you join a rock & roll band!’”

Just a terrific story and interview from Stone’s Andy Greene. You can read the rest of the interview here:https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/bekka-bramlett-fleetwood-mac-stevie-nicks-1234688286/

Interestingly enough, I found that Fleetwood Mac Time album very, very enjoyable – not only for the new members of Mac, but for Dave Mason’s reflective “I Wonder Why,” Christine McVie’s perfect “Nights in Estoril” and the track “These Strange Days,” which features Mick Fleetwood’s first-ever vocal.

It certainly wasn’t the hit Rumors was, or even Tusk for that matter, but reflected a re-jiggering of the group; which was pretty good in my book.

Billy Burnette and Dave Mason replaced Buckingham, which led to the oft-spoken comment: it took 2 guitarists to replace Lindsey.

Great piece by Andy Greene.

SUCCESSION — (via Deadline) The Roys are back with a vengeance. The Season 4 premiere of Succession drew an audience of 2.3M on Sunday across HBO Max and linear telecasts, which is a series high for same-day viewers. Total viewing for Sunday night was up 62% compared to Season 3’s premiere viewership of 1.4M in October 2021. At the time, that marked the best premiere night performance of any HBO original series since HBO Max launched in May 2020. Sunday’s viewership is also up about 33% from the Season 3 finale’s 1.7M. Season 3 averaged about 7.2M viewers per episode, according to HBO.HBO also says that all previous seasons of succession saw a 4x increase in viewership in the week leading up to the Season 4 premiere, compared to the week prior.

The Roy family saga picks up as the sale of media conglomerate Waystar Royco to tech visionary Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård) looms. The prospect of the seismic sale provokes existential angst and familial division among the Roys: patriarch Logan Roy (Brian Cox) and his four grown children, Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Siobhan (Sarah Snook), Roman (Kieran Culkin) and Connor (Alan Ruck). A hopefully Roy-esque power struggle will ensue as the family weighs up a future where their cultural and political weight is threatened.

Succession has 13 Emmys including Best Drama Series wins for its Season 2 and Season 3, the latter of which premiered in 2021.

We had mentioned earlier that most of the  advance reviews said the writing was the star of the premiere episode and I definitely agree. Creator Jesse Armstrong wrote it and delivered just a stellar job. The episode began with a grumpy-Brian Cox at his birthday and took a few moments to develop into the powerhouse it has become, but it was very, very enjoyable.

Sure some of the dialogue  and plot harked back to earlier episodes, but it’s so good, you hardly noticed. And the ending with Shiv and Tom, alone at at home and contemplating their futures, was just splendid and reeked of the amazing emotion the show almost always conjures up. A class act all around.

SHORT TAKES — London’s Guardian gave the new Keifer Sutherland steaming-series Rabbit Hole a pretty stellar review. Love Keifer and love Charles Dance. And newcomer Meta Golding received a rave as well. Check it out here: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/mar/27/tv-review-rabbit-hole … Ant-Man and Creed III star Jonathan Majors has a major problem. Saturday night he was arrested for violence with his supposed girlfriend in a cab going from a bar in Brooklyn to NYC. A commercial he did for the Army has already been pulled. The papers in Manhattan have been all over his story and one poster said: Innocent or not; the damage is already done. Sad for sure. He portrays Kang in the next several Marvel-movies, so we’ll see what happens. I wonder what bar in Brooklyn he was at? There are some rough ones out there for sure …

Donnie Kehr’s terrific new album Beautiful Strange is out now on CD …

Variety confirmed this week, that the locale of the next White Lotus, from Mike White, will be Thailand. Now, if we could only get Jennifer Coolidge back … Congrats to New York Independenteditor Keith F. Girard on his second novel –

just out: The Curse of Northam Bay …PR-pasha David Salidor was interviewed by Charles Rosenay for Monkee Mania Radio … Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer open July 21 and it is indeed 3 hours.

It stars Cillian Murphy and the trailer looks rather stupendous. Check it out here:

Happy Bday Steven Tyler and Diana (Miss) Ross!

NAMES IN THE NEWS — Alex Salzman; Jeff Smith; Dino Danelli; Bill Amendola; Maria Milito; Steve Walter; Melissa Davis; Anthony Noto; Deb Caponetta; Christine Nagy; Jim Farber; Kent Denmark; Jane Ayer; Toby Mamis; Howard Bloom; Brad LeBeau; and BELLA!