Category Archives: Fleetwood Mac

Christine McVie, Fleetwood Mac, Release Info, Reviews

Christine McVie on Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Peculiar’ ‘Mirage’ Sessions, New LP | Rolling Stone

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By Richard Bienstock
26th Sept, 2016
Rolling Stone

Singer-songwriter looks back on heady days at Château d’Hérouville, discusses band’s future plans

Fleetwood Mac's Christine McVie recalls the "peculiar" making of the band's hit 1982 album 'Mirage.' Tim Mosenfelder/Getty
Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie recalls the “peculiar” making of the band’s hit 1982 album ‘Mirage.’ Tim Mosenfelder/Getty

Christine McVie has a confession to make. The 73-year-old singer, songwriter and keyboardist is on the phone with Rolling Stone to discuss the new deluxe reissue of Fleetwood Mac’s 1982 effort, Mirage; but, she admits, she hasn’t actually listened to it yet. “I just now got my copy of the remastered edition in my hands,” McVie says, calling from her home in the U.K. “But I just moved to a flat where I don’t have my DVD or CD player yet. So I’m unable to play it. And there’s all these outtakes and demos and things in there that I certainly haven’t heard since we made them. So I’m most curious to listen.”

Indeed, the new package is a treasure trove for Mac completists (and, apparently, band members). In addition to presenting the original 12-track album – which spent five weeks at Number One and spawned two of the group’s biggest and enduring hits in McVie’s “Hold Me” and Stevie Nicks’ “Gypsy” – in remastered form, the three-CD and DVD set offers up a disc of B sides, titled “Outtakes and Sessions,” as well as a live collection culled from two nights at the L.A. Forum in October 1982 on the Mirage tour. The whole thing is rounded out by a vinyl copy of the album and a DVD in 5.1 surround sound, as well as a booklet with extensive liner notes and photos from the era. Continue reading Christine McVie on Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Peculiar’ ‘Mirage’ Sessions, New LP | Rolling Stone →

Christine McVie, Fleetwood Mac, Lindsey Buckingham, Release Info

Lindsey Buckingham On Writing With Christine McVie on ‘Mirage’ | wror.com

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Sept 23rd, 2016
By Erica Banas
wror.com

Arriving in store today (September 23) are deluxe editions of Fleetwood Mac’s 1982 album Mirage.

The new set comes as a single-disc remastered version of the album along with a two-disc Expanded edition and a Deluxe package that includes three CDs, a DVD and an LP. The latter two include bonus demos, rarities and alternative tracks, while the Deluxe also features a 1982 concert from Los Angeles.

Mirage was the more “traditional” follow-up to 1979’s experimental Tusk and hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200, going on to be certified double platinum. Lindsey Buckingham tells us that it was also on album on which he and singer-keyboardist Christine McVie — who wrote the first single “Hold Me” — clicked in a way that was different from the way he worked with Stevie Nicks:

“I would say that it’s…an intangible thing. It’s a very strong thing of what I always thought was, for lack of a better term, the whole being greater than the sum of the parts…and I think in that sense Christine and I as two musicians who are very well-grounded in their craft have a kind of symmetry of respect and love for each other on a creative and a musical and a personal level, and I think that was a big part of what that whole being greater than the sum of the parts was at the time. The fact that what I could do for her, I did it for Stevie too but the fact that she (McVie) could infuse her sensibilities into my stuff and I could tap into what I do as a producer, say, and give back so much to her.”

McVie rejoined the band in 2014 following a nearly 16-year leave of absence. Fleetwood Mac has been working on new material but no release plans have been announced.

Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images
Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images

Gary Graff is an award-winning music journalist who not only covers music but has written books on Bob Seger, Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen.

Fleetwood Mac, Mick Fleetwood, Tour Info

Mick Fleetwood: For the love of blues | The Sportsman’s Review

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By Nathan Weinbender
Sept 22nd, 2016

Legendary drummer, Fleetwood Mac cofounder brings his blues combo to the Fox

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Mick Fleetwood has perhaps one of the most prominent surnames in rock, having lent it to the enduring, platinum-selling pop outfit Fleetwood Mac. But the towering British drummer now has another namesake, the rootsy quartet known as the Mick Fleetwood Blues Band, which stops by the Fox on Wednesday.

“This tour is short and very busy, and we don’t often do it,” Fleetwood said from his tour bus, en route to California. “It’s spotty. It’s not a consistent thing.”

But it’s not like Fleetwood has a lot of free time. Fleetwood Mac recently completed two world tours (one of which brought them to Spokane in June 2013), and four members of the band’s most successful lineup have been working on new original material. Now that he’s back on the road with his other band, Fleetwood admits that he’s something of a “glutton for punishment.”

“It’s just for the love of playing, really,” Fleetwood said. “We’re not out promoting anything. We’re just getting up and doing what we do. I like to play, and this is a great little band.”

The Mick Fleetwood Blues Band formed 12 years ago and frequently serves as in-house entertainment at Fleetwood’s Maui restaurant, Fleetwood on Front St. Unlike Fleetwood Mac, which has had some major personnel shakeups over the years, this band’s lineup has remained the same: Fleetwood on drums, bassist Lenny Castellanos, keyboard player Mark Johnstone and guitarist Rick Vito, who briefly replaced singer-guitarist Lindsay Buckingham during a hiatus from Fleetwood Mac in the late ’80s. Continue reading Mick Fleetwood: For the love of blues | The Sportsman’s Review →

Christine McVie, Fleetwood Mac

Christine McVie quit Fleetwood Mac over flying phobia | durhamregion.com

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durhamregion.com
21st Sept, 2016

Christine McVie quit Fleetwood Mac because she developed a fear of flying.bs2bs1209229_image1_content

The 73-year-old singer used to whizz around the globe for the ‘Go Your Own Way’ rockers’ mammoth tours on their own private jets, but she slowly developed a phobia of flying and had to leave the band 18 years ago because she couldn’t bring herself to step foot on a plane.

Speaking on UK station BBC Radio 2 on Wednesday (09.21.16), she said: “It must have been six years ago or seven. It was when I did a little tour of an album but at the time I was so frightened of flying that I couldn’t promote it. That was a big thing, I had a real phobia of flying. I think I did one too many (trips in private planes). I think that’s kind of why I left the band.”

The British songwriter – who was married to her bandmate John McVie from 1968 until 1976 – later went to therapy to help her beat her extreme phobia. Continue reading Christine McVie quit Fleetwood Mac over flying phobia | durhamregion.com →

Fleetwood Mac, Release Info, Reviews

Fleetwood Mac: Mirage (Expanded Reissue) | American Songwriter

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Fleetwood Mac
Mirage (Expanded Reissue)
(Warner Brothers/Rhino)
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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Often considered the belated follow-up to 1977’s mega platinum Rumours, 1982’s Mirage was a clear retreat from the somewhat abrasive, occasionally commercial avant-pop of the controversial Tusk. While that album has, over the decades, come to be respected as Lindsey Buckingham’s creative zenith, it appears Warner Brothers was less enthusiastic about their star act’s detour into the artsy abyss. Perhaps Mac were tired of it themselves, because the slick, glossily produced Mirage seems a capitulation to an audience who might have found the dense, inconsistent, but bold Tusk a musical and drug-fueled bridge too far.

While Mirage was no Rumours, its dozen sophisticated pop songs include such near-classics as “Love in Store,” “Gypsy,” and “Hold Me,” the latter two appearing on most subsequent Mac hits packages. But there are other, often unappreciated gems here too. Selections such as Buckingham’s folksy “Can’t Go Back,” Stevie Nicks’ surprisingly effective foray into country “That’s Alright,” the frisky pop/rock and sumptuous harmonies of “The Eyes of the World” and the closing “Wish You Were Here,” one of the always dependable Christine McVie’s more affecting and least appreciated pieces, are well worth reexamining. Continue reading Fleetwood Mac: Mirage (Expanded Reissue) | American Songwriter →

Fleetwood Mac, Release Info

Mick Fleetwood on Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Overlooked’ Smash ‘Mirage’ | Rolling Stone

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By Richard Bienstock
20th Sept, 2016
Rolling Stone

Ahead of new reissue, drummer talks “wild and romantic” France sessions, opulent video shoots and more

In advance of Fleetwood Mac's new 'Mirage' reissue, Mick Fleetwood recalls making the comparatively modest 'Tusk' follow-up. Neal Preston
In advance of Fleetwood Mac’s new ‘Mirage’ reissue, Mick Fleetwood recalls making the comparatively modest ‘Tusk’ follow-up. Neal Preston

“I don’t think it would be wrong to say it sort of got overlooked,” says Fleetwood Mac drummer Mick Fleetwood, reminiscing about his band’s 1982 album, Mirage, which will be reissued in a deluxe package via Warner Bros. on September 23rd. It’s something of an odd statement to make about a record that charted at Number One on the Billboard 200, spawned multiple hit singles and went on to sell more than three million copies. Of course, when you’re in Fleetwood Mac, the definition of what constitutes success is relative.

The album, the band’s 13th studio effort overall and fourth to feature singer Stevie Nicks and singer/guitarist Lindsey Buckingham alongside longtime members Fleetwood, bassist John McVie and singer/keyboardist Christine McVie, came on the heels of one of the more impressive runs in rock: the lineup’s smash 1975 “debut,” Fleetwood Mac; the now-more-than-40-million-selling follow-up, Rumours; and the sprawling and sonically adventurous Buckingham-helmed double–LP Tusk (a commercial “failure” that still managed to move several million copies). By the time the band reconvened for Mirage in May 1981, they had been off the road for close to a year, during which time three members had recorded – but not yet released – solo albums (Buckingham’s Law and Order, Fleetwood’s The Visitor and Nicks’ eventual chart-topping, multi-platinum Bella Donna). That time apart, combined with the tensions that had been brought on by the experimental nature of the Tusk album, left them ready to recapture a bit of the old Rumours magic, so to speak. Continue reading Mick Fleetwood on Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Overlooked’ Smash ‘Mirage’ | Rolling Stone →

Christine McVie, Fleetwood Mac, Release Info

10 Questions for Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac | theartsdesk

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The peacemaker of Fleetwood Mac on Mirage, Maui and missing the buzz

by Tuesday, 20 September 2016

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theartsdesk meets Christine McVie on a sunny Friday afternoon in September; the Warner Brothers boardroom (with generous hospitality spread) is suitably palatial. We’re the first media interview of the day, so she’s bright and attentive. McVie was always the member of Fleetwood Mac who you’d want to adopt: the most approachably human member of a band constantly at war with itself. Readily admitting that she’s the “peacekeeper’ in the band, the singer/songwriter behind such Mac classics as “Everywhere” and “You Make Loving Fun” is as sweet and serene as you’d hope she would be.

She’s here to promote the new deluxe remaster of 1982 album Mirage – the follow-up to the somewhat deranged 1979 Tusk, which was recorded and released as Christine and John McVie, the band’s bassist, were divorcing. She quit the band in 1998 after the hugely successful live album The Dance, after which she started a fairly solitary life of her own in the English countryside for the best part of 16 years. The first four of those, she says, were simply spent working on the house. It was only therapy and the canny, persuasive hand of Mick Fleetwood that coaxed her into returning after a trip to Maui, Hawaii, where Mick lives close to John McVie, his lifelong partner-in-crime.

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The former Christine Perfect had a severe fear of flying that she’s now completely beaten, and as we speak, it’s clear that she’s fairly perplexed about having left the fray for so long in the first place. So what was she doing in all that time exactly? “A lot of people ask me that question!” With a brand new album (their first since 2001’s Say You Will) and a new world tour in the planning stages, it’s clear that the Fleetwood Mac story still has several enthralling chapters ahead. Somewhere near Fleetwood’s on Front Street – Mick’s fancy restaurant in Maui – the drummer must be feeling pretty smug that the ragged band of brothers and sisters he founded are finally back together.

Continue reading 10 Questions for Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac | theartsdesk →

Fleetwood Mac, Solo Activity, Stevie Nicks, Tour Info

Stevie Nicks on Secret to Fleetwood Mac’s Longevity, Touring Like Prince | Rolling Stone

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By Brittany Spanos
September 14, 2016
Rolling Stone

Ahead of 24 Karat Gold solo tour, singer-songwriter talks set lists, “sex, rock & roll and drugs” songs, and more

Steve Nicks discusses how her solo career helps keep Fleetwood Mac stable, and why she can no longer write "sex, rock & roll and drugs" songs. Kristin Burns
Steve Nicks discusses how her solo career helps keep Fleetwood Mac stable, and why she can no longer write “sex, rock & roll and drugs” songs. Kristin Burns

Stevie Nicks has been having trouble sleeping. The Fleetwood Mac vocalist wrapped up a year-and-a-half long tour with her band last November, but even as she’s begun rehearsing for a solo tour in support of 2014’s 24 Karat Gold that will launch in October, Nicks has yet to find herself on a better schedule.

“I’ve gotten into the habit of not going to sleep until somewhere between five and seven, and when I’m not working I can sleep until four [in the afternoon],” she reveals, blaming the tour routing schedule that had the band jumping between cities and time zones every other day. “I wish I had worked harder on it because now it’s gonna be harder for me to, but I’ll figure it out because I always do.”

Even though she doesn’t necessarily need to, the legendary vocalist and songwriter felt determined to get back on the road even after touring for so long with the Mac, who reunited with Christine McVie after a 16-year break. Just before McVie’s return, Nicks had finished recording 24 Karat Gold, based on a collection of demos from throughout her career that she had personally cut from the various Fleetwood Mac and solo albums they were originally intended to be on. She spent two and half months in Nashville with friend and producer Dave Stewart recording the songs, and the same day she turned the album into Warner Bros., she entered a rehearsal room with one of rock’s most iconic, formerly tempestuous line-ups. Continue reading Stevie Nicks on Secret to Fleetwood Mac’s Longevity, Touring Like Prince | Rolling Stone →

Fleetwood Mac, Solo Activity, Stevie Nicks, Tour Info

Stevie Nicks on Crafting a Setlist for 24 Karat Gold Tour, Possible Fleetwood Mac Album & Wishing She’d Performed With Prince | Billboard

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8th Sept, 2016
Billboard Online
by Keith Caulfield

Whenever I play ‘Stand Back’ from this day forward, Prince will be standing next to me.”

Stevie Nicks, photo by Danny Clinch
Stevie Nicks, photo by Danny Clinch

““I’m hoping that this will be as much fun for the audience as it’s gonna be for me,” Stevie Nicks tells Billboard about her just-announced 24 Karat Gold Tour. The two-month trek — launching Oct. 25 in Phoenix, with the Pretenders opening — supports her 2014 effort 24 Karat Gold: Songs From the Vault, which marked her sixth top 10 album on the Billboard 200 chart.

The album was comprised of tracks Nicks had written and made demo recordings for decades ago but had never been included on any of her previous albums. Then, in 2014, she and producer Dave Stewart headed to Nashville with the demos and recorded entirely new versions of the songs to produce 24 Karat Gold. “I think this [tour] is going to be great,” Nicks says. “I think that all the fans are gonna have a ball. And I hope that they totally just dress up — as Wendy Williams would say, ‘Dress to the nines.’ And come to party, and sing.”

Nicks says the setlist for the tour is still being shaped (it’s “about at 30 songs right now”) but will feature songs from 24 Karat Gold and possibly title cuts from some of her older albums, like “Bella Donna,” “Wild Heart” and “Trouble in Shangri-La.” She wants the show to “have its little explosions of fun” from the various parts of her career. Nicks also gives a hint to fans: “You know what, you might want to come to two shows, because you never know: There might be an alternative [set]list.” Continue reading Stevie Nicks on Crafting a Setlist for 24 Karat Gold Tour, Possible Fleetwood Mac Album & Wishing She’d Performed With Prince | Billboard →

Books, Fleetwood Mac, Reviews

Fleetwood Mac: The Complete Illustrated History Book

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Live In Limbo Literature
Mark Milner
September 6, 2016

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Few bands, if any, can lay claim to as colourful a history as Fleetwood Mac. Their founding guitarist went off the deep end, another quit to join a cult. Marriages splintered and relationships crumbled. And, just at the band looked to bottoming out, they literally stumbled on two performers who’d send them to their biggest successes.

Really, you’d think there’d be a Fleetwood Mac movie by now.

There’s about 50 years of Fleetwood Mac history to cover and in his new large-format book, Fleetwood Mac: The Complete Illustrated History, writer and music critic Richie Unterberger (Allmusic, Mojo, Uncut) tackles their long, twisting career.

There’s a lot to cover, both stylistically and historically. For example, you could argue Fleetwood Mac is something closer to three bands. They started as a straight up blues band, playing Chicago-style electric blues in mid-60s England. Later, as the band’s personnel became a revolving door, they turned into a fairly standard classic rock band. And finally, with the addition of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks in 1975, they became a commercial juggernaut whose infighting could fill another book. Each period has it’s own merits and drawbacks; each is really only tied to the other by the band’s rhythm section. Continue reading Fleetwood Mac: The Complete Illustrated History Book →