Fleetwood Mac

selected  Fleetwood Mac TShirTS, PosTerS & Prints 

Fleetwood Mac were formed in 1967 in London when Peter Green left the British blues band John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers. Green had replaced guitarist Eric Clapton in the Bluesbreakers, and received critical acclaim for his work on their album, A Hard Road. After he had been in the Bluesbreakers for some time, Green asked if drummer Mick Fleetwood could replace Aynsley Dunbar. Peter had been in two bands with Fleetwood; Peter B's Looners and the subsequent Shotgun Express (which featured a young vocalist named Rod Stewart). John Mayall agreed and Fleetwood became a member of the band.

The Bluesbreakers now consisted of Green, Fleetwood, John McVie, and Mayall. Mayall gave Green free recording time as a gift, in which Fleetwood, McVie, and Green recorded five songs. The fifth song was an instrumental that Green named after the rhythm section, "Fleetwood Mac."

Fleetwood and McVie were known for their regular drunkenness. In fact, McVie had been fired from the band several times for his drunkenness (once replaced by Jack Bruce, which led to the formation of Cream). Fleetwood was fired from the band because of his drinking problems. Green decided to leave the band and was replaced by future Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor.


Green contacted Fleetwood to form a new band. The pair desperately wanted McVie on bass and even named the band 'Fleetwood Mac' as a way to entice McVie. However, McVie decided that his pay with the Bluesbreakers was just too good to give up. In the meantime, Peter Green and Mick Fleetwood teamed up with talented slide player Jeremy Spencer and bassist Bob Brunning, who was in Fleetwood Mac on the understanding that if and when McVie agreed to join, he would leave. This version of Fleetwood Mac made its debut on August 13, 1967 at the Windsor Jazz and Blues Festival. Within weeks of this show, John McVie agreed to become the bassist for the band.

Fleetwood Mac's first album, Fleetwood Mac, was a no frills blues album and was released on the Blue Horizon label in February 1968. In fact, there were no other players on the album (except for the song "Long Grey Mare," which was recorded when Bob Brunning was in the band). The album was successful, though it did not have any singles on it. To alleviate that, Fleetwood Mac released two singles "Black Magic Woman" (later a big hit for Santana) and "Need Your Love So Bad."

Fleetwood Mac's second album, Mr. Wonderful, was released in August 1968. Like the first album, it was an all-blues album, but this time they had a few more frills. For example, they had it produced to sound as if it were twenty years older than it really was. They also added horns and featured a friend of Fleetwood Mac's on keyboards, Christine Perfect of Chicken Shack.

Fleetwood Mac were arguably the most popular band in Europe at the time. However, Peter Green, the frontman of Fleetwood Mac, was not in good health. He had been spiked with LSD in Munich, which began the onset of his schizophrenia. In Munich, Green penned what would be his last hit with Fleetwood Mac, "The Green Manalishi (With the Two-Prong Crown)" (which was later recorded by Judas Priest). Green's mental stability deteriorated, and he wanted to give all of the band's money to charity. The rest of Fleetwood Mac did not concur.

Green decided to leave Fleetwood Mac. His last show with Fleetwood Mac was on May 20, 1970. During that show, Fleetwood Mac went past their allotted time, and the power was shut off. Mick Fleetwood kept drumming. Fleetwood Mac, somewhat reluctantly, kept on without Peter Green and despite press reports suggesting Danny Kirwan would assume leadership, the media-savvy Fleetwood took over as business manager of the band.

end of part 1

part 2

While Fleetwood was scouting Van Nuys, California, the house engineer for California's Sound City Studios, Keith Olsen, played him a track titled "Frozen Love", which he had mixed there for an American band, Buckingham Nicks. Fleetwood liked it, was introduced to the guitarist from the band, Lindsey Buckingham, and Fleetwood soon asked him to join Fleetwood Mac . Buckingham agreed, on the condition that his musical partner and girlfriend, Stephanie Nicks (better known as Stevie Nicks), also become part of the band; Fleetwood agreed to this.


In 1975, the new Fleetwood Mac line-up released the self-titled Fleetwood Mac, which has since informally become known as their "white album" due to its cover. (This is not to be confused with The Beatles' white album.) The album proved to be a breakthrough for Fleetwood Mac and became a huge hit (reaching #1 in the US). Among the hit singles from this album were Christine McVie's "Over My Head" and "Say You Love Me", and Stevie Nicks' "Rhiannon" and "Landslide" 

But in 1976, with the success of Fleetwood Mac also came the end of John and Christine McVie's marriage, as well as Buckingham's and Nicks' longtime romantic relationship. Even Fleetwood was in the midst of divorce proceedings from his wife Jenny. Pressure was put on Fleetwood Mac to release a successful follow-up album, which, when combined with its new-found wealth, led to creative and personal tensions, fueled by large amounts of drug and alcohol consumption.

The album Fleetwood Mac released in 1977 was Rumours, in which Fleetwood Mac members laid bare the emotional turmoil experienced at that time. Produced largely by Buckingham, it became the best-selling album of the year, spending over 6 months at the top of the U.S. chart, and was the recipient of the Grammy Award for Album Of The Year for 1977. Hit singles included Buckingham's "Go Your Own Way", Nicks' "Dreams" , and Christine McVie's "Don't Stop" and "You Make Loving Fun". Buckingham's "Second Hand News," Nicks' "Gold Dust Woman" and "The Chain" (the only song written by all five bandmates) also received a lot of radio airplay. By 2003, Rumours had sold over 19 million copies in the U.S. alone (certified as a diamond album by the RIAA), and a total of 30 million copies worldwide making it one of the biggest selling albums of all time.

The influence of the Rumours album in popular culture is evident:

Robert James Ritchie (AKA "Kid Rock") sampled the chorus to "Second Hand News" for his song "Welcome 2 the Party" (Ode 2 the Old School) on his 1998 release Devil Without A Cause. 
Bone Thugs-N-Harmony sample The Chain for their song Wind Blow on the CD, Strength & Loyalty; 
The Chain was used by the BBC for their Grand Prix Programme title sequence since the programme's inception in 1978 until ITV won the F1 rights for 1997; 
In the pilot of HBO's Flight of the Conchords, while in the electronics shop, they describe a developing love triangle. Murray, the band manager, then states its not good for the band for such a thing to happen, comparing it to the "Fleetwood Mac Situation", though he describes it as a love square. He goes on to say they made some of their best music during this time, Bret simply says "Rumours," referring to the famous album. Murray then responds "No its all true," mistaking Bret's remark. 

Buckingham was able to convince Fleetwood to allow his work on their next album to be more experimental and to work on tracks at home, then bring them to Fleetwood Mac in the studio. His expanded creative role for the next album was influenced by an appreciation for new wave music.

The result of this was the quirky double album, Tusk, released in 1979. It spawned three hit singles; Lindsey Buckingham's "Tusk", which featured the USC marching band; Christine McVie's "Think About Me"; and Stevie Nicks' seven minute opus "Sara". The latter was cut to 4˝ minutes for both the hit single and the first CD-release of the album, but the unedited version has since been restored on the 1988 Fleetwood Mac "Greatest Hits" compilation and the 2004 reissue of "Tusk". Somewhat surprisingly, original Fleetwood Mac guitarist Green also took part in the sessions, his playing for the Christine McVie track "Brown Eyes" is not credited on the album.

Tusk remains one of Fleetwood Mac's most ambitious albums to date, although only selling four million copies worldwide. This, in comparison to the huge sales of Rumours, inclined the label to deem the project a failure, laying the blame squarely with Buckingham himself. Fleetwood, however, blames the album's relative failure on account of a major U.S. radio station playing all 20 tracks in their entirety prior to release thus allowing for home taping. Additionally, Tusk was a double album, which increased its retail price tag in stores compared to that of a single album.

Fleetwood Mac embarked on a huge 18-month tour to support and promote Tusk. Fleetwood Mac traveled extensively across the world, including the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, France, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. It was on this world tour that Fleetwood Mac recorded music for the Fleetwood Mac Live album, which was released at the end of 1980.

The next album, 1982's Mirage, following 1981 solo turns by Nicks (Bella Donna) and Buckingham (Law and Order), was a return to the more conventional. Buckingham had been chided by critics, fellow Fleetwood Mac members and music business managers for the limited commercial success enjoyed by Tusk. Recorded at a chateau in France, Mirage was an attempt to recapture the pop success of Rumours. Its hits included; Christine McVie's "Hold Me" and "Love In Store" (each song being co-written by Robbie Patton and Jim Recor respectively), Stevie Nicks' "Gypsy", and Lindsey Buckingham's "Oh Diane", which made the Top 10 in the UK. A minor hit was also scored by Buckingham's "Eyes Of The World".

Unlike the Tusk Tour, Fleetwood Mac only embarked on a short tour of 18 American cities, the Los Angeles show being recorded and released on video. It also headlined the first US Festival for which Fleetwood Mac was paid $500,000. Mirage was Certified double platinum in the U.S.

Following Mirage, Fleetwood Mac went on hiatus, which allowed members to pursue solo careers. Stevie Nicks released two more solo albums (1983's The Wild Heart and 1985's Rock A Little), Lindsey Buckingham issued Go Insane in 1984, the same year that Christine McVie made a self-titled album (yielding the Top 10 hit "Got A Hold On Me" and the Top 40 hit "Love Will Show Us How"). All three met with success but it was Nicks who became the most popular. However, also during this period, Mick Fleetwood had filed for bankruptcy, Nicks was admitted to the Betty Ford Clinic for addiction problems, and John McVie had suffered an addiction-related seizure - all attributed to the lifestyle of excess afforded to them by Fleetwood Mac's worldwide success. It was rumoured that Fleetwood Mac had finally broken up, however Buckingham commented that he was unhappy to allow Mirage to remain as Fleetwood Mac's last effort.

The Rumours line-up of Fleetwood Mac recorded one more album for the time being, Tango In The Night, in 1987. Initially, like various other Fleetwood Mac albums, the material started off as a Buckingham solo album before becoming a group project. The album went on to become their best-selling release since Rumours, especially in the UK where it hit no. 1 three times over the following year. The album sold three million copies in the USA and contained four hits; Christine McVie's "Little Lies" and "Everywhere" (the former being co-written with McVie's new husband Eddy Quintela), Sandy Stewart and Stevie Nicks' "Seven Wonders", and Lindsey Buckingham's "Big Love". "Family Man" and "Isn't It Midnight" were also released as singles, with lesser success. Fleetwood Mac intended to tour as usual to support the album but Buckingham refused. According to Fleetwood, Buckingham withdrew from Fleetwood Mac following a heated, angry exchange in August 1987. Nicks and Christine McVie have also confirmed the infamous incident taking place during various interviews, including when Fleetwood Mac were interviewed for the British music programme Rock Steady screened in March 1990. McVie herself described the incident, which took place in her house, as "ugly". However, years later on a 2001 VH-1 Behind The Music documentary on Lindsey Buckingham, both Fleetwood and Buckingham played down the incident.

Following Buckingham's departure, Fleetwood Mac added two new guitarists to the band, Billy Burnette and Rick Vito. Burnette is the son of Dorsey Burnette and nephew of Johnny Burnette, both of The Rock and Roll Trio. He had already worked with Mick Fleetwood in Zoo, with Christine McVie as part of her solo band and did some session work with Stevie Nicks and even backed up Lindsey Buckingham on Saturday Night Live.

Furthermore, Fleetwood and Christine McVie played on his Try Me album in 1985. Vito, a Peter Green admirer, played with many artists from Bonnie Raitt to John Mayall, and even worked with John McVie on two Mayall albums. Billy was mainly added for his singing and songwriting skills and Rick for his lead guitar abilities.

The 1987-88 "Shake The Cage" tour was the first outing for this Fleetwood Mac line-up, and was successful enough to warrant the release of a concert video (simply titled "Tango In The Night"), filmed at San Francisco's Cow Palace arena in December 1987.

Capitalising on the success of Tango in the Night, and without Buckingham, Fleetwood Mac continued with a "Greatest Hits" album in 1988. It featured singles from the 1975-88 era, and included two new compositions: "No Questions Asked" written by Nicks, and "As Long As You Follow" written by McVie and Quintela, which was released as a single in 1988 but only made #43 in the US and #66 in the UK. It did, however, reach #1 on the US Adult Contemporary charts. The Fleetwood Mac "Greatest Hits" album, which peaked at #3 in the UK and #14 in the US (though has since sold over 8 million copies there), was dedicated to Buckingham by Fleetwood Mac , with whom they had now reconciled.

from Wikipedia licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.