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Fleetwood Mac
Before the Buckingham/Nicks duo teamed up with Fleetwood Mac in 1975, the group
released several accomplished blues albums in the late 1960's. The band went
through several "phases," including making the transition from a pure blues
oriented rock band to more a pop-rock sound, band members coming and going and
then becoming world famous with their distinctive melodic rock and pop. Let's
explore the five main "phases" of Fleetwood Mac in detail:
Phase One
After deciding to break off of the legendary British Blues band John Mayall and
the Bluesbreakers, drummer Mick Fleetwood (he played very briefly with the band
in 1967), Bluesbreaker charter member Jon McVie and Eric Clapton's replacement
in the group, Peter Green was inspired by the success of bands such as Cream
and the Yardbirds to form their own band in 1967. Adding guitarist Jimmy
Spencer, the band made their debut at the British Jazz and Blues Festival and
soon thereafter secured a recording contract.
The 1968 album, called "Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac" was an enormous hit in the
UK and fueled by Peter Green's constantly inventive, inspired guitar work and
distinctive song writing abilities produced intoxicating blues rockers such as
"Looking For Somebody" and "Long Grey Mare" and the Latin-blues fusion of the
tune "If I Loved Another Woman"and Spencer's Elmore James-influenced songs like
"Share Your Moneymaker" and "Got To Move," the album spent over a year on the
UK charts.
In 1968 guitarist Danny Kirwan joined the group for the album "English Rose"
(1969) which was another Peter Green-influenced collage of bare bones blues
classics and contained the hit songs "Black Magic Woman" (later a huge hit for
Santana), and the instrumental called "Albatross." Another LP (and a milestone
in progressive blues rock) called "Then Play On" (1969) was the most
accomplished release to date, with Green's blues-driven originals and
extraordinary arrangements, the lp produced the British hit single "Oh Well";
cementing the band as one of the UK's finest blues rockers.
But Green left the group in May of 1970, due to his problematic ingestion of
LSD which only fueled his mental illness (schizophrenia) and he left the music
business (although he did return briefly for a tour and has released solo work,
both in the seventies and nineties).
Phase Two
This is the "post Peter Green phase," in which the band carried on with the
remaining members: Fleetwood, McVie, Spencer and Kirwan. They were joined by
McVie's wife, Christine and they tried to maintain the band's distinctive blues
edge, but with the genius of Peter Green missing, and songwriter Christine
McVie's input, they were slowly moving toward an easy-going rock and roll
ensemble with the lp "Kiln House."
In 1971, Spencer left the band-literally and was later discovered to have
joined a religious cult and sent the band into disarray. But the third phase
helped bail them out and sustain them until bigger and better things were to
come.
Phase Three
The band added California guitarist Bob Welch to the mix (the group's first
American member) and under his and Kirwan's influences, Fleetwood Mac took yet
another musical turn and it sounded nothing like Peter Green's group. Gone was
the quintessential blues quality that listeners' were accustomed to, replaced
by a more folk-rock and pop sound, more so than the previous release and one
that did not fare too well in Brittan. The album called "Future Games" (1971)
sold better than the band's first three albums in the U.S., but was not well
received in the UK. In 1972, the band released the Welch and McVie dominated
"Bare Trees," a marvelous classic pop release highlighted by Welch's melodic
"Sentimental Lady" and Movie's "Spare Me A Little Of Your Love." In 1972,
Kirwan was asked to leave the band and was replaced by Dave Walker and Bob
Weston for the album "Penguin," complete with Welch's hypnotic melodies and
McVie's romantic up tempo pop, and it became the group's best U.S. effort to
date. The band released two more albums "Mystery To Me"(1974) and "Heroes Are
Hard To Find" later that same year. But it is the forth phase of Fleetwood Mac
that caught the ears of the world and thrust the group to new heights.
Phase Four
By 1975, Bob Welch had left the band to form the trio Paris and record producer
Keith Olson played an album by Buckingham/Nicks for the band and they not only
hired him to produce their next release, but the song writing duo of Lindsey
Buckingham and Stevie Nicks as well. This gave the group three distinctive
song writers and voices as well as a skilled musician and arranger in
Buckingham, the sexy-gypsy like Nicks and Movie's penchant for tight pop
melodies and in 1975 the band released a new album, simply named Fleetwood Mac.
The song produced several top singles such as "Over My head," "Rhiannon" and
"Say That You Love Me." The album went on to sell more than five million
copies and a supergroup was in its infancy.
But, behind the scenes the band again was in turmoil. The McVie's divorced in
1976 and the Buckingham and Nicks romance ended shortly thereafter. But it
seemed that all these internal tensions and the pressure to produce another hit
album, fueled the creative fires and in the spring of 1977 the band released
the album "Rumors."
"Rumors" dominated rock and pop radio (selling well more than 17 million copies
in the U.S. alone) as the album seemed to chronicle these painful human moments
in song with hits such as Buckingham's scornful "Go Your Own Way," Nicks' "Gold
Dust Woman," McVie's anthem-like pop masterpiece "Don't Stop," the
happy-go-lucky feel of "You Make Loving Fun" and the melancholy tune "Songbird"
as well as the thumping anthem "Chain," which was a melodic representation of
the strife within the band and in retrospect, a testament to their survival at
the time. The band supported this release with an exhausting but very
lucrative tour.
But, the follow-up album, "Tusk" an experimental double album released in 1979,
couldn't duplicate the success of "Rumours," although it did go multi platinum
and scored the band Top Ten hits such as "Sara" and the title song.
Between 1980 and 1982, Fleetwood, Buckingham and Nicks all released solo
efforts (with Nicks going on to super stardom) and the band released a double
live album. In 1982, the group released the lp "Mirage"-a fine collection of
accessible pop/rock with the hit singles "Hold me" and "Gypsy."
Again, solo projects, tension and then drug addiction slowed the band down
until the next release in 1987 called "Tango In The Night," which produced the
hits "Little Lies," "Seven Wonders" and "Everywhere." Buckingham left the
group after this album (he did not tour with the group in support of this
release) and was replaced by Billy Burnette and Rick Vito, who toured with the
rest of the band to support the album.
Phase Five
In 1990, the newly formed line up released the album "Behind The Mask" (it was
the first studio album not to go platinum since 1975) and then both Nicks and
McVie announced that they would stay with the band, but no longer go out on
tour.
In 1991, Vito left the band, followed by Burnette in 1993. In January 1993,
the original members of the group (Buckingham, Nicks, Fleetwood and the
McVie's) got together for Bill Clinton's Presidential Campaign and sang the
anthem "Don't Stop" at the Presidential inaugural party. The next month, Nicks
departed.
In 1993, two new members, Dave Mason and Bekka Bramlett joined the band and
released the album "Time" in 1995, but after a disappointing response, the
group dissolved.
The band reformed in 1997, with Nicks and Buckingham joining the McVie' and
Fleetwood to record a live documentary and a live lp called "The Dance" and
the released coincided with a worldwide tour as it marked the twentieth
anniversary of the "Rumours" lp. The band has been inducted into the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame in 1998 and will go down in rock and roll history as one of
the most successful pop/rock bands of all time, with worldwide sales well over
100 million.
Author Robert Benson writes about rock/pop music, vinyl record collecting and
operates www.collectingvinylrecords.com, where you can secure your
copy of his
ebook called "The Fascinating Hobby Of Vinyl Record Collecting."
Robert can be contacted at robert@collectingvinylrecords.com. |
