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Bob Welch, who was a guitarist and singer with super group, Fleetwood Mac, was found dead Thursday, June 7, 2012 at his Nashville, Tennessee home. He reportedly shot himself in the chest and was found by his wife Wendy. According to a friend of Welch’s, the musician killed himself because he was having difficulty recovering from spinal surgery and was worried that he would be an invalid and, therefore, a burden on his wife.
The singer’s own father had been an invalid and he had watched his mother struggle to care for him. In a suicide note he left, Welch reportedly told his wife, “I’m not going to do this to you.” The singer was 66 at the time of his death.
Welch played with the legendary band, Fleetwood Mac, from 1971 to 1974, and worked with it, on two albums, Future Games and Bare Trees. Unfortunately for Welch, Fleetwood Mac would not rocket to fame until the mid-Seventies after the singer had already left the band. The band would become one of the most popular during the late Seventies and Eighties, with best-selling songs such as “Dreams,” Hold Me” and “Don’t Stop.” Fleetwood Mac eventually splintered, finally breaking up in 1991, though it has regrouped a number of times over the years.
At the time Welch was with Fleetwood Mac, it included Christine McVie, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie. Shortly after leaving Fleetwood Mac, he formed another band, a British rock group known as Paris. His biggest hit was a song entitled, “Sentimental Lady.” Welch was also a song writer whose records have been recorded by such singers as Kenny Rogers and the Pointer Sisters.
Fleetwood Mac did not include Welch in its Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction allegedly because he had sued the group in 1994 for royalties he claimed it had not paid to him.
