Monthly Archives: February 2013

Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Nicks, UK Articles

Truth, Lies & Rumours I NME Meets the legendary Stevie Nicks

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UnknownThe 35th anniversary reissue of ‘Rumours’ recently hit the shelves and Fleetwood Mac are back to take it on the road. But before that Eve Barlow paid rock goddess Stevie Nicks a visit in Malibu to recall its making

 

I DON”T EVER TIRE OF THOSE SONGS. I DON”T GET HOW YOU COULD

STEVIE NICKS

A word to the wise. If one day you imagine yourself making one of the greatest albums of all time, ponder first how far you’d be willing to go to sacrifice mind, body and soul for art. Heartache? OK. Sleepless nights? Sure. Months living in a studio? Saves on rent. And as folklore has it, getting a roadie to blow cocaine up your bum? Er, hang on…

In the legends of rock’n’roll, sacrifices are made, reputations ruined (Or forged) and every now and then questions are asked such as: how on earth are the likes of Keith Richards, Ozzy Osbourne or, in this case, Stevie Nicks , still breathing? The making of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours ‘ is a fable of such proportions it continues to fascinate over three and a half decades on. Debates occur which is their greatest record (Tusk’ was so expensive! But ‘Tango In The Night’ is ‘8os heaven! But ‘Rhiannon’ is on ‘Fleetwood Mac!). Hell, arguments continue over which line up was best – Peter Green’s English blues verses the Californian soundtrack of Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham et al. But anyone who disagrees that ‘Rumours’ is not just the Mac record supreme but also one of the greatest albums ever made full stop can be disarmed by the facts.

Try some of these on for size: a) ‘Rumours’ has sold over 40 million copies worldwide, outselling all Fleetwood Mac records and, well, most records in history. 2) ‘Rumours’ has several diamond (miles better than platinum) certificates and a Grammy. 3) The songs are so famous they’ve generated sales for countless others (Tori Amos, Elton John, Biffy Clyro, Boy George, Lykke Li, Keane, Willie Nelson, John Frusciante, Hole, NOFX, uh, The Corrs), and, in the case of Bill Clinton, votes in the 1992 US election! Also, they generated an entire posthumous career for one woman (Eva Cassidy) who just happened to record a cover of one of those tracks (Songbird’) before she died. What’s more, ‘Rumours’ continues to incinerate the record books. In 2011 it re-entered the US album charts at Number One. That may have had something to do with a certain migraine called Glee covering all its hits. But look at it this way, even the enormous wangdom of all-singing-all-dancing high school berks couldn’t destroy the magic of ‘Rumours’. Nevertheless, sales and popularity alone are no guarantee of quality. It’s the myth, the rumours surrounding ‘Rumours’, that makes it a seminal work for generations to fall in love with over and over. Besides, it’s unlikely to be repeated because it comes with one caveat — don’t try this at home, folks… Continue reading Truth, Lies & Rumours I NME Meets the legendary Stevie Nicks →

Fleetwood Mac, Tour Info, UK Articles

Love, hate and betrayals of Fleetwood Mac | Daily Express

WITH Fleetwood Mac and their best-selling album making a comeback, we reveal the truth behind Rumours…

By: Anna Pukas

In February 1976 Fleetwood Mac were at the top of their game. Their 10th album released the previous year had sold four ­million copies. Now the band – drummer Mick Fleetwood, bassist John McVie, his keyboards player and singer wife Christinalito McVie, guitarist-singer Lindsey Buckingham and singer Stevie Nicks – were gathered at Record Plant, a recording studio in Saus Northern California, to start work on the follow-up.

376315_1But for all their success, away from the music their lives were a mess. All five were going through painful break-ups – mostly with each other.

After nearly eight years John and Christine McVie had called time on their marriage and Christine was already involved with the band’s lighting engineer. The Americans Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks who had been together since school were splitting up amid much acrimony. Drummer Mick Fleetwood was newly divorced from model Jenny Boyd ­(sister of Patti, who was married to George Harrison) and was about to complicate things by embarking on a two-year affair with Stevie Nicks. Continue reading Love, hate and betrayals of Fleetwood Mac | Daily Express →

Christine McVie, Fleetwood Mac, Mick Fleetwood, Release Info, Tour Info, UK Articles

‘We were never too stoned to play’ Fleetwood Mac: the comeback interview | The Times

The Mac are back, with live shows, songs and a re-release.

Will Hodgkinson meets Mick Fleetwood and Christine McVie
The Times

mick&chris_90s

 It is 36 years since Rumours, the soft-rock masterpiece by Fleetwood Mac, became the soundtrack to separation. Songs such as Go Your Own Way, The Chain and You Make Loving Fun articulated the new rules of relationships for the baby boom generation, capturing the reality of affairs, tensions, betrayals and break-ups and selling more than 40 million copies in the process. For much of the 1980s, arguing over who got the copy of Rumours was as much a part of divorce as lawyer’s fees and pretending to like each other in front of the kids.

MAC-MAINn_1665500aFleetwood Mac – from left, John McVie, Christine McVie, Mick Fleetwood, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks – at the time of Rumours

Sam Emerson

Rumours hit a nerve because it came from a place of truth. Fleetwood Mac’s keyboardist Christine McVie was divorcing its bassist John McVie. The singer Stevie Nicks was splitting with her childhood sweetheart, the band’s guitarist Lindsey Buckingham. Stuck somewhere in the middle was the drummer Mick Fleetwood, who was recently divorced from his wife. Everyone dealt with the situation in the only way rock stars in the 1970s knew how: by taking huge amounts of cocaine. Continue reading ‘We were never too stoned to play’ Fleetwood Mac: the comeback interview | The Times →

Fleetwood Mac, Tour Info, UK Articles

Mick Fleetwood: ‘Rumours is who we are’ – Telegraph

Telegraph.co.uk
Thursday 07 February 2013
Neil McCormickBy Neil McCormick

With their 35-year-old album back in the charts, the Fleetwood Mac drummer Mick Fleetwood talks to Neil McCormick about its stormy story and long legacy.

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Don’t stop… Mick Fleetwood behind the kit in 2009  Photo: REX

‘It’s good therapy,” says Mick Fleetwood, settling back to talk about Rumours,
an album released 35 years ago that continues to haunt the lives of everyone
involved. “There’s still a fascination about it, it’s who we are and what we
are, the reason why we made all that music. It forces you to think about
yourself, how you’ve developed or undeveloped, screwed up or not, what you
learnt from that, and whether you have truly moved on from the hurt, fear
and loathing.”

Fleetwood Mac’s classic 1977 album is back in the charts, a reissued expanded
edition going straight in at No  3 this week. “It’s this mutant thing, with
a life of its own,” says Fleetwood about the enduring appeal of an album
that has already sold more than 40 million copies. “It shaped me as a
person, because we went through a damage, making that album,” admits the
tall, hirsute, elegantly attired 65-year-old drummer. “I know it sounds
like, ‘Oh my God, when will those people grow up?’ Well, the reality was
maybe we didn’t actually ever grow up. But it’s never too late. We’re not
finished yet.” Continue reading Mick Fleetwood: ‘Rumours is who we are’ – Telegraph →

Christine McVie, Fleetwood Mac, Release Info, Tour Info, UK Articles

Mick Fleetwood: We miss Christine.. I’m hoping I can get her to rejoin

The Sun
By JACQUI SWIFT
Published: 01st February 2013

IT was one of the top-selling albums of the Seventies which turned Fleetwood
Mac into the biggest superstars in the world.

 

But with all the broken hearts, tempestuous affairs and excessive drink and
drugs, the making of 1977’s Rumours came at a price.

This week, almost 36 years after the seminal record hit shelves, an expanded
and deluxe version of the album is released including original B-side Silver
Springs, unreleased live recordings, outtakes, and documentary The Rosebud
Film.

Rumours was huge, selling more than 40million copies, and made the entangled
lives of Brits Mick Fleetwood, husband and wife John and Christine McVie and
US couple Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, one of rock ’n’ roll’s
legendary stories.

Songs such as Don’t Stop, Go Your Own Way, You Make Loving Fun, The Chain and
Dreams are as popular as ever today. With a world tour opening in the US in
April and a UK tour planned for September, Fleetwood Mac are winning over a
new generation of fans as well as their hardcore devotees. Continue reading Mick Fleetwood: We miss Christine.. I’m hoping I can get her to rejoin →

Fleetwood Mac, Release Info, UK Articles

Fleetwood Mac – Rumours Reviews from Uncut.co.uk

ALBUM REVIEW
Uncut.co.uk

Fleetwood Mac – Rumours

The game-changing ’70s AOR blockbuster turns 35 with a super deluxe boxset…

fleetwoodmac310113w

“Times were a lot crazier then – anything was possible. Budgets were not important and doing drugs was the norm. In the mid-’70s there was a sense that you could do no wrong.” So said an eyeliner’d Lindsey Buckingham, reminiscing in the 1997 Classic Albums documentary on the making of the ultimate classic album, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours. Thirty-six years after its release – and with more than 40 million copies sold (so far) in at least 80 official international editions – you would imagine that every last drop, every demo, druggy anecdote and hazy recollection, has been squeezed out of one of the biggest records of all time, the eighth best-selling LP in history. You’d assume that anything worthwhile that could add to the enjoyment and understanding of Rumours must have surfaced by now. For a start, Mac completists and even fairweather fans will already have the 2004 2CD reissue that came with a full set of rough mixes and outtakes from those fabled album sessions at the Record Plant in Sausalito, just north of San Francisco. Worryingly, that same disc is included in this “super-deluxe” 4CD+DVD+LP boxset – a package designed to celebrate the album’s 35th anniversary but which actually turns up, as if stoned, the following year.

Like Star Wars or Snickers, there’s never really a bad time to reissue Rumours. Sooner or later everyone finds a way in to it – or looks for a way out, if your parents raised you on Rumours and Tusk in the ’80s. It’s the evergreen baby boomer blockbuster that eased Bill Clinton into the White House and now finds itself a post-ironic hipster lifestyle accessory; Florence Welch, for one, is an eternal student of Stevie Nicks’ cosmic witchcraft. Today, 45 years after they formed, Fleetwood Mac’s twilight period – commencing with 2003’s reunion for Say You Will and drifting through two further “reunions” for world tours, including one this year – has lasted far longer than the band’s vital, late-’60s incarnation. Continue reading Fleetwood Mac – Rumours Reviews from Uncut.co.uk →