Fleetwood Mac

Pop/rock group

For the Record…

Selected discography

Sources

Although Fleetwood Mac is today recognized as one of the most successful pop/rock bands in contemporary music, they originally began as a strict blues outfit. Guitarist Peter Green, bassist John McVie, and drummer Mick Fleetwood were all alumni of Englishman John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers when they first appeared on August 12, 1967, as Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac at the British National Jazz & Blues Festival. Jeremy Spencer added his Elmore James-flavored licks to the band which “in that early incarnation, evolved into a fantastic blues band—sharp-edged without rawness, steady in the Chicago blues mold, impressive and direct,” according to The Guitar: The Music, The History, The Players.

The band signed with Mike Vernon’s Blue Horizon label and were then known as Fleetwood Mac. Their first big hit came with “Black Magic Woman,” from their debut LP, Fleetwood Mac, in 1968. The song, which remained on the charts for thirteen weeks, stretched their blues roots to include Latin percussions and weaving guitar lines. In late 1968 they added a third guitarist, Danny

For the Record…

Band formed in England in 1967 as Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac; original members included Peter Green (guitar; born October 29, 1946); Mick Fleetwood (drums; born June 24, 1942); and John McVie (bass; born November 26, 1945); Danny Kirwan (guitar) joined band in 1968, left band in 1973; Green left band in 1970, was replaced by Jeremy Spencer (born July 4, 1948); Christine McVie (originally performed under maiden name Christine Perfect; keyboards; born July 12, 1943) joined band in 1970; Spencer left band in 1971, replaced by Bob Welch (born July 31, 1946); Welch left band in 1975, replaced by Lindsey Buckingham (born October 3, 1947); Stevie Nicks (vocals; born May 26, 1948), joined group in 1975; during 1980s Buckingham launched a solo career and was replaced by Billy Burnette and Rick Vito.

Awards: Winner of Rolling Stone magazine’s Critics’ Awards for band of the year and for album of the year (Rumours), 1977; recipient of Rolling Stone magazine’s Readers’ Poll Awards for artist of the year, best album of the year (Rumours), best single (“Dreams”), and for band of the year, 1977.

Addresses: Record company —Warner Bros., 3300 Warner Blvd., Burbank, CA 91510.

Kirwan, as the band continued to slowly move away from their roots with a Number 1 U.K. single, “Albatross.” “The BBC used it for some wildlife program and then someone put it on Top of the Pops and it was a hit,” Fleetwood told Rolling Stone.

The band was still relatively obscure in America, however, and was billed as the opening act for a U.S. tour that included Jethro Tuli and Joe Cocker. Green left the group temporarily in May of 1970 for religious reasons while the group scored a hit with his “Green Manalishi” soon after. The Mac broke into the U.S. market with their Kiln House LP later that year as McVie’s wife, Christine Perfect (formerly of Chicken Shack), filled in on keyboards on the record and the ensuing tour.

The band struggled through more personnel changes as Spencer quit in February of 1971 to join a religious cult, Children of God. Green replaced him briefly (after quitting the second time Green was committed to a mental institution for giving his royalty money away) before a California singer/guitarist named Bob Welch joined. His work on Future Games and Bare Trees was instrumental in bringing the group recognition in the States as their U.K. popularity declined. In late 1972 Kirwan was booted from the band and Bob Weston and Dave Walker were hired for 1972’s Penguin LP and the following year’s Mystery To Me.

By now Fleetwood Mac was calling Los Angeles their home, but legal complications prevented them from working until late 1974. Their former manager, Clifford Davis, had formed a bogus Fleetwood Mac band, with no original members, and was gearing up for a U.S. tour. A court order finally blocked Davis’ efforts but left the real band on hold until their Heroes Are Hard To Find LP. Mick Fleetwood and lawyer Michael Shapiro decided to run the band on their own after ditching Davis. “We probably would have broken up when there were problems,” Fleetwood told Rolling Stone about the possibility of hiring an outside manager. “This band is like a highly tuned operation and wouldn’t respond to some blunt instrument coming in. There’s a trust between all of us that would make that a problem.”

Fleetwood Mac’s musical course took a financial upswing in 1975 when Welch left to form the band Paris and was replaced by the songwriting/performing team of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks (who were, at the time, lovers). “When I joined [the band was] still hovering on the edge,” Welch told Rolling Stone. “When I left, they’d done a complete switcharound to a slick, sophisticated, production kind of band.” He later told Guitar World, “I agreed with the philosophy but I said, ‘Naah, I don’t really want to stay for another go-round.’ Much to my dismay.” While searching for a studio to record the band, Fleetwood overheard the duo’s LP, Buckingham/Nicks, at Sound City Studios in Van Nuys, California. Nicks had previously sung with Buckingham in the band Fritz and their addition to Fleetwood Mac brought the group a new melodic sound that catapulted them to superstar status nearly overnight with the LP Fleetwood Mac in 1975.

With its folksy, lush vocals, the album “finally realized the apotheosis of that early-Sixties blues crusade to get back to the roots,” wrote John Swenson in Rolling Stone. In concert, Nicks took on the persona of the mythological Welsh witch Rhiannon, swirling about on stage in a black cape and adding a new sexual element to the band’s presence. Tunes like “Say You Love Me,” “Over My Head,” and “Monday Morning” pushed Fleetwood Mac to platinum status and became Warner Brothers’ best-selling LP ever at the time (previous Mac albums sold around 200, 000 copies each). Released in July of 1975, the LP reached the Top 20 and then sank to the Top 40 just before peaking at Number 3 right before Christmas. Of their success, Buckingham told Guitar World, “It wasn’t a supergroup. They were selling no albums at all. They were broke for all practical purposes…. I’m not saying it was our doing, but it was all of our doing. It was the right chemistry.”

Musically, the band members meshed perfectly, but their personal relationships were not as smooth. During the next eleven months they worked on their follow-up LP, Rumours, while trying to cope with the breakups of the McVies and Nicks and Buckingham. “Go Your Own Way” was typical of the album’s tone and, as the band struggled with their relationship problems, their record flew up the charts to the Number 1 spot. “What makes the difference this time is knowing that, for all the problems we’ve encountered, we’ve got a huge album,” Fleetwood told Rolling Stone during the recording of the LP. “It makes any bad things that happen seem not nearly as bad as if the last album had stifled.”

The high recording expense paid off as Rumours eventually sold 16 million copies, more than any other album by a single group. With Fleetwood Mac and Rumours, the band had made pop history and defined the decade’s musical characteristics. “Catchy but emotionally affecting pop rock for the late Seventies,” was how John Rockwell described their music in The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll. “The music was unabashedly pop, yet it touched on serious themes without being weighed down by them.”

Buckingham took control on their next effort, the dou-ble-LP Tusk, from 1979. More folk than rock, nine of the tunes were penned by the guitarist. “Another series of saccharine-soaked melodies, guaranteed to stick to your cassette deck like a layer of crazy glue,” stated Keith Sharp in Rock Express. “[Buckingham] recognizes the powerful Yuppie, Middle America market and he’s orchestrated an album that will fill a huge void in the lazy summer months ahead…. Functional… but no longer fun. And with Lindsey Buckingham holding the reins, I’m surprised he hasn’t renamed the band Buckingham Mac.”

Other critics were not as harsh and some even compared Tusk to the finest work of the Beatles. No one could have possibly expected it to sell like their previous two LPs, and it didn’t, but Buckingham told Rolling Stone about the pressures of trying to create Rumours Two. “Suddenly the phenomenon was the sales and not the work. And that’s dangerous ground as far as I’m concerned.”

During the 1980s, Fleetwood Mac released a live LP and two more studio albums while Nicks worked on a solo career for the Modern label and Buckingham recorded the exceptionally fine Law and Order on his own. After their Mirage LP in 1982, Mick Fleetwood declared bankruptcy and in 1987 called on Buckingham to take a break from his solo career to help out on the band’s Tango In the Night. Fleetwood Mac was back in the spotlight thanks to the hit single “Seven Wonders” as Buckingham returned to his solo work while being replaced by two guitarists, Billy Burnette and Rick Vito.

In 1990 the band released their Behind The Mask LP and were, amazingly, still going strong after twenty-three years and eleven different lineups. “No rock band has had more excuses to break up. Or fewer inclinations to do so,” wrote Edna Gundersen in the Lansing State Journal. “Fleetwood Mac has weathered soured romances, commercial slumps, drug addiction, alcoholism, bankruptcy and abrupt membership shuffles; any might have splintered a less resilient menage.”

Selected discography

Fleetwood Mac, Blue Horizon, 1968.

Fleetwood Mac in Chicago, Blue Horizon, 1969.

Then Play On, Reprise, 1969.

English Rose, Epic, 1969.

Kiln House, Reprise, 1970.

Future Games, Reprise, 1971.

Bare Trees, Reprise, 1972.

Penguin, Reprise, 1972.

Mystery To Me, Reprise, 1973.

Heroes Are Hard To Find, Reprise, 1974.

Fleetwood Mac, Reprise, 1975.

Rumours, Warner Bros., 1977.

Tusk, Warner Bros., 1979.

Fleetwood Mac Live, Warner Bros., 1980.

Mirage, Warner Bros., 1982.

Tango In The Night, Warner Bros., 1987.

Behind The Mask, 1990.

Sources

Books

Christgau, Robert, Christgau’s Record Guide, Ticknor & Fields, 1981.

Kozinn, Allan, Pete Welding, Dan Forte and Gene Santoro, The Guitar: The Music, the History, the Players, Quill, 1984.

Logan, Nick, and Bob Woffinden, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock, Harmony, 1977.

The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll, edited by Jim Miller, Random House/Rolling Stone Press, 1976.

The Rolling Stone Record Guide, edited by Dave Marsh with John Swenson, Random House/Rolling Stone Press, 1979.

Periodicals

Detroit Free Press, July 1, 1990.

Guitar Player, January 1977; January 1978.

Guitar World, January 1983; May 1987; December 1989.

Lansing State Journal, June 30, 1990.

Rock Express, May-June, 1987.

Rolling Stone, April 8, 1976; March 24, 1977; April 21, 1977; December 29, 1977; January 12, 1978; December 13, 1979; February 7, 1980; June 5, 1986; March 26, 1987; September 24, 1987.

—Calen D. Stone