Danny Kirwan's Three solo albums (1975 to 1979)

Is it ignorance? I had never heard these 3 before, nor was I aware of Danny's existence in the Fleetwood Mac I always hated due to the ubiquity of Rumors, Stevie Nicks, and the rest of that coke-addled incestuous semi-family.  But his music here is just remarkably accessible and mellow, inventive rock-based singer-songwriting full of interesting arrangements and memorable hooks, particularly the first with its absolutely gorgeous cover and back art.  Musically, so similar to my favourite Michael de Albuquerque (I posted those in comments attached to Ricotti here), and also the beautiful gems Mike Hugg (Manfred Mann cofounder) made in his two early 70s LPs. 

Only the VIPs are in wiki (like wojak, but not moth meme):

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 a solo artist from 1975 to 1979, recorded albums with Otis Spann, Chris Youlden, and Tramp, and worked with his former Fleetwood Mac colleagues Jeremy Spencer and Christine McVie on some of their solo projects.

Discogs info here.

It's hard to deny the beauty of the title track of Second Chapter which starts so inauspiciously with a country-bluegrass guitar intro but then mellows out into expansive and heavenly beauty:

There are so many things in there that are priceless, notice the descending chord changes that give you that feeling of going deeper and deeper into a novel, notice the electric keyboard playing gentle chords in the background, the second verse suddenly leading into a string section for the bridge describing the pastoral scene.  The instrumental segment in the middle even has an easy listening strings solo!  Later a french horn pops up. Like I've said so many times before, how come such a wonderful song is not well known and played on the radio today?  And why wasn't it a huge hit back then, to be made appropriately famous?  (Btw arrangements are by Gerry Shurry, never heard of him before.)

From the 2nd album, which on the whole is noticeably more poppy and less turgid with creative ideas, the Misty River:

Pretty amazing West Coast AOR rock, with the twanging 12-string guitars.  A highly versatile songwriter, clearly.

From the final album with its silly cover and equally sillyific title, normal I guess for 1979 (remember Led Zep's In Through the Out Door?), the Caroline track instead recalls the lovely Colin Blunstone who I hope everyone is familiar with:

 

Perhaps the most surprising thing to me about this music when I heard it was how much superior to Fleetwood it is.  In fact, I don't think Fleetwood in all its incarnations ever crafted an album as perfect as Second Chapter.  I'm going to spit on those old Rolling Stones critics who went nuts over Rumours and the AM radio stations that played Dreams (with its total of two chords in one whole song!) over and over and over again, all the way to this day playing it over and over again.  A song that really should be put to rest finally.

I think in a way he was cursed by his association with Fleetwood Mac, who became such mega-superstars in the late 70s that pretty much their whole long past history was erased.  It reminds me of what happened when Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel became hugely huge in the 80s and people just ignored their Genesis output, glossing over it almost as if it was an embarassment when rather, today, we think their later songs are the embarassment. Right, Sir Ss-ssudio?