Dave Mason "Is Alive"

Turn a legendary artist loose in front of an audience and great things happen.

"Anyone who follows music even loosely knows that Dave was a co-founder of one of the greatest bands of all time; Traffic."

November 29th, Good morning live music seekers! It’s “Throw-Down-Thursday" on the Live Vinyl Lovefest where we see how dedicated you are to your live album collection and challenge you with the record of the day. Today’s pick is “Dave Mason Is Alive!”

So, I attended Fleetwood Mac last night. Great show. Great performance. A friend of ours was with us and she was asking what live album I had planned for this morning and I shared with her my choice to showcase while on the ride home.

But it’s funny how things kind of fell together once I got home and I changed my mind. I was kicking back on my phone, just kind of browsing and came upon the infamous Cocker/Belushi duo on YouTube of the SNL skit where they both sang “Feelin Alright?” And that of course lead me to think about Dave Mason’s version and I thought “Hey I have a live version of Mason doing that I think” And then it hit me; “wait, I think Dave Mason was a member of Fleetwood Mac for a while?!” Okay, I’m going to pull out that Dave Mason record in the AM and feature it and dig in on the Fleetwood Mac angle.

So here we are, and low and behold my suspicions were right, he joined the Mac in the mid 90s for the album “Time”. It's like 6 degrees of separation, but with Dave Mason. Okay, okay, as my comrade in arms Steve Chinner Winstead would say “anyway … what ever ... ”

Anyone who follows music even loosely knows that Dave was a co-founder of one of the greatest bands of all time; Traffic. But there's no need to rehash that sorted tale here. But, I remember being at Traffic’s induction ceremony into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in New York and his presence just kind of struck me with the thought “man, some wounds must run really, really deep.” And, guess what song he performed with all the other inductees on stage? Yep, “Feeling Alright”.

And this album has an interesting and somewhat turbulent story behind it as well. It was recorded in 1971 at The Troubadour in West Hollywood, but was shelved until late in 1973 when it was released by the label under protest from Dave. There’s a couple of stand out performances on the recording; “Shouldn’t Have Took More Than You Gave” and … wait for it … “Feeling Alright”. I know right? Okay, so i’ve now listened to 3 different versions of that song in the last 12 hours! Clearly all of the cosmic tumblers have clicked into place.

This live album also offers considerable star power on the production side of things. It was recorded and mixed by the venerable Al Schmitt at Wally Heider Recorders assisted by Miles Weiner, Terry Stark and Chris Chigavidas. It’s a solid choice to have in your collection to be sure.