Bob Welch

Bob Welch, who has died aged 66 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest, was a musician and former member of Fleetwood Mac who went on to write songs and record several hits during a solo career.

He was born in Los Angeles to movie producer father Robert L Welch and actress mother Templeton Fox and moved to Paris to study French at the Sorbonne, then returned to Los Angeles in the early 1970s.

He was invited to join Fleetwood Mac after the departure of founding members Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer. He played guitar and was a vocalist with the band from 1971 to 1974, working on five of their early albums including Future Games (1971), Bare Trees (1972) and Mystery to Me (1973).

But it was after Welch's departure from the band in 1975 that Fleetwood Mac went on to find its largest measure of fame on albums such as Rumours (1977) with the addition of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks to the band's line-up.

Nicks released a statement, calling Welch's death "devastating".

"He was an amazing guitar player – he was funny, sweet and he was smart – I'm so very sorry for his family and for the family of Fleetwood Mac, so, so sad," Nicks said.

Welch fell out with his former band mates after suing the group in 1994 for unpaid royalties, which led to his exclusion from the group's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 1998.

"It basically comes down to the fact that they don't like me anymore," he said at the time. "I guess they can do what they want. I could understand it if I had been a sideman for a year. But I was an integral part of that band ... I put more of myself into that band than anything else I've ever done."

The singer and guitarist formed a hard rock group called Paris in 1975, releasing two albums, Paris and Hunt Sales, before disbanding the group a few years later and embarking on a solo career.

His debut solo record, the pop-driven French Kiss in 1977, went platinum in the US and produced the hits Sentimental Lady, on which Fleetwood Mac's Christine McVie and Lindsey Buckingham did backing vocals, Ebony Eyes and Hot Love, Cold World. Welch followed up with Three Hearts (1979), and four more albums throughout the early 1980s, none of which emulated the same success as French Kiss.

He moved to Phoenix, Arizona, in 1987 and formed a short-lived group called Avenue M, before moving to Nashville in the late 1990s, working on a songwriting career and releasing a tribute to bebop music, Bob Welch Looks At Bop, in 1999.

As a songwriter, Welch had his songs recorded by Kenny Rogers, Sammy Hagar, the Pointer Sisters and others. His most recent albums, His Fleetwood Mac Years and Beyond (2003) and His Fleetwood Mac Years and Beyond 2 (2006), had previously unreleased material as well as new compositions.

Welch is the second member of Fleetwood Mac to die this year. In January, another former guitarist for the band, Bob Weston, died in London from a gastrointestinal haemorrhage, at the age of 64.

Welch's wife Wendy found him with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his chest at their south Nashville home. A suicide note had been left. Welch had spinal surgery three months ago, doctors told him he would not get better and he did not want her to have to care for an invalid. The couple had no children.