"Whoa, wait a minute, I'm confused," you're thinking. "We had already worked our way through the '70s and into the '80s with this series. Why are we backtracking?"
That's a good question, and it has a simple answer. The truth is, while Fleetwood Mac started in the '60s and hit their full stride in the '70s with the beginning of the Buckingham-Nicks era, it wasn't until the 1980's that it really hit me that they were, in fact, one of My Favorite Artists. As much as I loved the self-titled LP (1975) and especially Rumours (1977), it took the release of the Mirage album, and particularly the song "Gypsy", in 1982, to cement Mac's place in my pantheon of favorites.
Fleetwood Mac has a weird history. They began their days as a British blues band, founded by guitarist Peter Green. Green left the acclaimed group John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers to form his own band. When he left, he took drummer Mick Fleetwood with him, and tried to entice their bass player, John McVie, to come along as well, by naming the new band Fleetwood Mac. They added guitarist Jeremy Spencer, and a few weeks later, McVie did move over to Fleetwood Mac.
Eventually, starting with their second LP, they added a a keyboard player, Christine Perfect (who later married McVie, but wouldn't become an official member of the band until their fifth LP, 1971's Future Games).
Green, unfortunately, had a mental breakdown, partially fueled by a lot of LSD. Spencer ran off and joined a religious cult, and was replaced with guitarist Danny Kirwan. Kirwan lasted for awhile, and at some point, was joined on guitar by Bob Welch. When Kirwan left after something of an alcohol-fueled mental breakdown (are you seeing a pattern here?), he was replaced by Bob Weston.
I was aware of Fleetwood Mac from early on in their career. Probably the first recording of theirs I ever heard was the non-album single "Oh Well." (The first song would have been Peter Green's "Black Magic Woman", but of course what I heard was the much more famous Santana version. I wasn't aware that it was originally a Fleetwood Mac song until decades later.) But I was never a big blues guy, so I didn't pay FM a whole lot of attention.
I eventually went back and picked up all of those early Fleetwood Mac albums. But while there was some good stuff here and there, I can't say I ever rated any of their pre-1975 albums more than a 2.5 out of 5.
By the early-to-mid 70's, they had morphed from being a blues band into more of a pop rock band, and you would have thought that the songwriting contributions of Christine McVie and Bob Welch would have made them a reasonably strong one. But Welch did his best work as a solo artist (especially on his 1977 LP French Kiss), and McVie didn't really hit her stride until the next rendition of the band.
After the recording of the unsuccessful 1974 album Heroes Are Hard to Find, the band began to suspect that Welch was going to leave, and started casting about to replace him. (Weston had already left an album earlier after starting a secret affair with Fleetwood's wife Jenny - which began another dysfunctional band pattern for Fleetwood Mac.) They became aware of Lindsey Buckingham after hearing the Buckingham Nicks LP, and asked him if he was interested in joining. Buckingham told them he would, but he and his musical/romantic partner Stevie nicks were a package deal. Fleetwood and the McVie's probably figured, "Fine. We'll stick her in the corner of the stage with a tambourine. How much harm can she do?" and agreed. And thus, the classic lineup of Fleetwood Mac.
The new lineup came out firing on all cylinders with their self-titled 1975 album, which was their first to hit (or come anywhere near, for that matter) # 1 on the US charts.
I was aware of this album right away, although for some weird reason, I didn't buy a copy until years later. But "Rhiannon" hit me immediately, and the presence of Nicks and Buckingham inspired Christine to take her game to a whole new level, with songs like "Say You Love Me" and "Over My Head". And somewhere along the way, I became of aware of "Landslide". These days, if I had to choose the greatest and most most beautiful song of all time, I think "Landslide" would be my choice.
Some thoughts about this lineup. I made a (partially) facetious comment one time, calling Lindsey Buckingham the third best songwriter in the band. I actually believe that, but it's not as insulting as it sounds. Yes, I know that he was the guy who organized and arranged everything, and that (especially with Stevie) he helped the others with their songs.
But let's face it, Stevie's songs in this era, especially the ones she wrote for FM, but also those in her solo career, were just ridiculous. "Rhiannon", "Landslide", "Dreams", "Gold Dust Woman", "Sara", "Sisters of the Moon", "Edge of Seventeen", "Gypsy" - this was an insanely good output. And clearly, Stevie has had the most successful solo career of any of the members of the band.
As for Christine, as I said earlier, she really hit her stride during this period, with contributions like "Say You Love Me", "You Make Lovin' Fun", "Songbird" and "Little Lies".
In contrast, for me, with the exception of "The Chain", which is a great song (and although it's credited to the whole band, my guess is Lindsey was the biggest contributor), I feel like a lot of Lindsey's songs enhanced the albums, but wouldn't have carried them by themselves. (I will admit to a special love for his solo track "Holiday Road" from the the Vacation movies, though.)
Rumours was released in 1977, and of course, was legendary. It was the first Fleetwood Mac album I ever bought (initially on the strength of "Dreams"), and I played it to death. It's one of those albums where practically every track is a winner. (In retrospect, that's also true of the self-titled album, and it might very well be just as good an LP. As often happens in music, though, Fleetwood Mac let the world know that this new lineup for the band was a great one, and set the stage for Rumours to be the massive multi-platinum hit that it was.)
Meanwhile, the turmoil going on within the band when they were making Rumours is also legendary. John and Christine were basically broken up (and Christine was sleeping with the band's lighting director), Lindsey and Stevie were in process of breaking up, Mick was going through a divorce, and at one point, disastrously enough, Stevie and Mick even had an affair with one another.
I remember seeing a concert clip of a show on the Rumours tour where the band was playing "The Chain", and Stevie and Lindsey were just barking the chorus into one another's faces like the musical equivalent of a hatefuck. It was intense, but totally riveting - you couldn't look away from it.
For me, this two-album streak was flat out the highlight of Fleetwood Mac's career. There are some who hold that Tusk is their (or Lindsey Buckingham's, at least) masterpiece, but I've never been able to see it. I liked the two Stevie songs I named earlier ("Sara" and "Sisters of the Moon"), and I sort of liked the title track, weird as it was, but a lot of the rest of it just sort of bounced off of me.
They released Mirage in 1982. I don't really feel this was a great album, but "Gypsy" was certainly a great song, and Christine's "Hold Me" was pretty strong too. And it was around this point where Mac crossed the threshold into my list of My Favorite Artists.
It was another five years before they released Tango in the Night, which was the last LP with all five members of the classic lineup on it. They added a lot more to their legacy with this album, which featured classics such as Christine's "Little Lie's" and "Everywhere", Lindsey's "Big Love", Stevie's "Seven Wonders".
Of their last three studio albums, Behind the Mask (1990) featured Stevie and Christine (but no Lindsey), Time (1995, their least successful LP) had Christine, but neither Lindsey nor Stevie, and Say You Will (2003) featured Stevie and Lindsey (with just a few sparse musical contributions, but no songs, from Christine). They also released a 4-song EP, appropriately entitled Extended Play in 2013, which again had contributions from Lindsey and Stevie, but none from Christine. Mick and John, of course, played on all of these, making them the only two band members to play on every album in the entire Fleetwood Mac discography. There were some decent songs scattered among these offerings, but I think it would be fair to say nothing on par with their best material from Fleetwood Mac through Tango in the Night.
If you've been following this Favorite Artists series, I think it's pretty obvious why Fleetwood Mac eventually made my top bands list. It's all about the hooks. You had a great songwriter in Stevie Nicks, and two very good songwriters in Christine McVie and Lindsey Buckingham. All three were respectable vocalists, (although yes, I thought it was funny when South Park had the American GI's in Iraq getting Stevie mixed up with a goat). The band was certainly always instrumentally proficient. And while my interest in Fleetwood Mac was primarily in the classic lineup, I respect their blues history, and the fact that they were actually the first band to record Peter Green's "Black Magic Woman" and Bob Welch's "Sentimental Lady."
I've seen Fleetwood Mac live in concert twice, both times in Madison Square Garden. The first was in 2009, on a tour where the band wasn't accompanied by Christine McVie, and the second in 2019, on a tour where Lindsey Buckingham had been replace by Neil Finn of Crowded House and Mike Campbell from Tom Petty's band. So obviously, I never got to see the full classic lineup together, and both times, it would be fair to say that the band was past its prime. Nevertheless, I treasure the fact that I got to see them live in whatever form I did, and that over the course of the two shows, I got to see all five members of the classic lineup, even if it was never all of them at the same time.
I think that's all I have to say right now about Fleetwood Mac.
The next article in this series is scheduled to be about yet another band that started in the 1970's but didn't make the My Favorite Artists until a decade later: Rush.
Unfortunately, as some of you aware, I have something of a serious health scare going on now, and while I hope to live long enough to write that for you (and for me), it's a little iffy right now. (Truth be told, I had to really buckle down over these last few weeks to make sure I got this one written and posted.)
So let's hope I get that Rush write-up done someday. But if I don't, it's been fun writing these first fifteen articles, as well as the rest of the reviews, etc., on this blog.
Ciao! (For now?)
