Category Archives: Fleetwood Mac

10 Questions for Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac | theartsdesk

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

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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

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

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

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

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

Fleetwood Mac: The Complete Illustrated History Book

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

Fleetwood Mac: The story behind Rhiannon | Classic Rock

04 Sep 2015 / by Bill DeMain

How a chance encounter with a fantasy novel inspired Stevie Nicks’ witchy hit and resurrected Fleetwood Mac

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It makes sense that what has become Stevie Nicks’s signature song was inspired by a kind of ancient magic. Bibliomancy, a mystical practice dating back to the 1700s, holds that if a book is picked up and opened to a page at random, the first word or sentence one sees will reveal some kind of epiphany. But the book that Nicks picked up in 1974 – one that would eventually help launch her into superstardom – didn’t exactly seem full of divine promise.

“It was just a stupid little paperback that I found somewhere at somebody’s house, lying on the couch,” Nicks says more than 40 years on. “It was called Triad [written by Mary Leader] and it was all about this girl who becomes possessed by a spirit named Rhiannon. I read the book, but I was so taken with that name that I thought: ‘I’ve got to write something about this.’ So I sat down at the piano and started this song about a woman that was all involved with these birds and magic.

Fleetwood Mac in 1975 (photo: Getty)
Fleetwood Mac in 1975 (photo: Getty)

“I still have the cassette tape of when I was first writing it,” she continues. “Lindsey [Buckingham, Nicks’s musical and then romantic partner] came in and I said: ‘We have to go to a park and record the sound of birds rising.’ And he looked at me like I was crazy. And I said: ‘Don’t you think Rhiannon is a beautiful name?’ And he said: ‘Yeah, it is a beautiful name.’” Continue reading Fleetwood Mac: The story behind Rhiannon | Classic Rock

Fleetwood Mac hope for album, 2-year world tour | Team Classic Rock

Team Classic Rock
by Martin Kiely
August 4th, 2016

Mick Fleetwood says there’s another album and world tour in store for Fleetwood Mac – if Stevie Nicks will commit

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Mick Fleetwood says Fleetwood Mac have another album and a tour in them – if Stevie Nicks will commit to both projects.

If it goes ahead, the record would be their first since 2003’s Say You Will, and the first since the return of Christine McVie to the band in 2013.

But while the road trip seems likely to happen in some form next year, recording plans are less certain.

Fleetwood tells Rolling Stone: “We’re all dedicated to getting together about a year or so from now and doing another two years of touring all over the world, probably.

“And we also have a huge amount of recorded music. A huge amount. None of it’s with Stevie, or very little. Some of it’s very, very old stuff that Lindsey Buckingham maybe did with her years and years ago. We’re not quite sure what will happen with it.”

He adds: “Doing this band is a huge investment. We’re only off the road for less than a year, and when you add in the time it takes to put a tour together, do rehearsals, get it up and running, the whole thing, it’s three years that you don’t do anything else.

“Stevie has her own life and career and I think she just doesn’t want to spend the time right now. We’re quietly saddened about that but also I sort of understand.” Continue reading Fleetwood Mac hope for album, 2-year world tour | Team Classic Rock

Mick Fleetwood Talks Maui Gallery, Fleetwood Mac’s Future | Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone Magazine
By Richard Bienstock
August 3rd, 2016

“There really are dozens of songs,” drummer says of possible new studio album from ‘Rumours’ lineup

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“People always say that corny thing: ‘Every picture tells a story,'” says Mick Fleetwood. “Well, they truly do! That’s what I love about them.” The 69-year-old Fleetwood, it should be noted, is certainly a fan of a good story. During a recent evening at Fleetwood’s on Front St., his restaurant and bar situated on the west Maui shoreline, the drummer regales Rolling Stone with an array of tales, from a dinner party with Willie Nelson at the island home of “supermensch” manager and agent Shep Gordon, to accompanying his daughters to a Justin Bieber concert (“He’s got some drum chops that I don’t have – a total shredder”) to a long-ago post-gig blowout in Honolulu that ended with Fleetwood, his mother and former Mac producer Richard Dashut covered in a whole lot of cake frosting – the aftermath of which is captured in a snapshot of a young Mick and mum drenched in buttercream that is hanging on a nearby wall.

Regarding his interest in photos, Fleetwood is here to discuss his newest endeavor, a partnership with the Morrison Hotel Gallery that has brought an outpost of the New York–based rock photography showroom to Maui. The new space, which opened in late June with a showing from acclaimed lens man Henry Diltz, is housed below the restaurant and adjacent to Fleetwood’s General Store (where one can purchase plenty of signed Mac memorabilia, among other items). “It makes sense to me to have it here,” Fleetwood says of the gallery. “Because it’s so connected to where I come from. Morrison Hotel is all about music.” Continue reading Mick Fleetwood Talks Maui Gallery, Fleetwood Mac’s Future | Rolling Stone

Fleetwood Mac – Mirage Deluxe Reissue Review | Uncut

Sam Richards
July 25, 2016
Uncut Magazine

The weakest album produced by the Rumours line-up? Or an essential chapter in the Fleetwood Mac story…

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By the end of the Tusk world tour in August 1980, Fleetwood Mac were in meltdown. The separate limos were just one example of the lengths to which they would go to avoid each others’ company. Ironically, it was that very extravagance – and, perhaps, a sense of loyalty to their bearded leader Mick Fleetwood – that forced them back together less than a year later to begin work on a new album that would placate the accountants still counting the cost of giant inflatable penguins and hotel suites furnished with white pianos.

With Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks in the process of launching ambitious solo careers, it was inconceivable that they would reserve their best songs for Mirage. Christine McVie recently confessed to Uncut that the album lacked passion, while Buckingham admitted he was “treading water”. And yet the fact that its principals had one eye elsewhere only seems to enhance Mirage’s flimsy, diaphanous charm.

Nicks’ response at being cajoled back into the studio with two of her ex-lovers was to retreat, profitably, into nostalgia. “Gypsy” wistfully invokes her pre-fame existence of second-hand lace and mattresses on the floor, creating a powerful affirmation of the Nicks brand. The melody may be slight but it’s kept airborne by some classic Mac magic: sighed harmonies, a chiming riff and Nicks’ stunning vocals contoured by a decade of arena tours and emotional turmoil. Continue reading Fleetwood Mac – Mirage Deluxe Reissue Review | Uncut

Lindsey Buckingham releases “BIG LOVE (LIVE)” off of official ROADIES soundtrack

LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM RELEASES “BIG LOVE (LIVE)” OFF OF OFFICIAL ROADIES SOUNDTRACK, AVAILABLE TO STREAM NOW ON APPLE MUSIC

LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM TO BE FEATURED IN UPCOMING EPISODE OF SHOWTIME®MUSIC SERIES ROADIES

ROADIES OFFICIAL SOUNDTRACK ALBUM ARRIVES AUGUST 26TH FROM REPUBLIC RECORDS & STARDOG RECORDS

NEW YORK, NY (July 8th, 2016) – Today, Republic Records and Stardog Records unveil the third track from the ROADIES official soundtrack album (“Music From the Showtime Original Series Roadies”)—Lindsey Buckingham’s “Big Love (Live)”. Listen to it exclusively on Apple Music HERE.

The legendary guitarist and GRAMMY® Award-winning Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee delivers a stunning new rendition of the Fleetwood Mac classic for the soundtrack. In addition, he appears on the next episode of ROADIES to perform “Big Love” and “Bleed to Love Her” Sunday, July 10, 2016 on Showtime.

The full, 16-song tracklisting for the Roadies Official Soundtrack Album, which will be released August 26th, will be revealed soon. ROADIES airs Sundays at 10 p.m. ET/PT on air, on demand and over the internet.

From creator, executive producer, writer and director Cameron Crowe, ROADIES offers a look into the reckless, romantic, funny and often poignant lives of a committed group of roadies who live for music and the de facto family they’ve formed along the way. Luke Wilson, Screen Actors Guild® Award nominee Carla Gugino, Imogen Poots, Rafe Spall, Academy Award® nominee Keisha Castle-Hughes, Peter Cambor, Colson Baker a.k.a. Machine Gun Kelly, and Ron White star in the ensemble cast. Luis Guzman, Jacqueline Byers, Finesse Mitchell, Branscombe Richmond and Tanc Sade guest star. Emmy® and Tony® nominee Winnie Holzman serves as writer and executive producer, along with Emmy® winner J.J. Abrams, Crowe, Len Goldstein and Emmy® winner Bryan Burk. Kathy Lingg is co-executive producer. ROADIES is produced by Bad Robot Productions, Vinyl Films and Dooley & Company Productions, in association with Warner Bros. Television. Continue reading Lindsey Buckingham releases “BIG LOVE (LIVE)” off of official ROADIES soundtrack

Fleetwood Mac’s Mirage set for Deluxe Reissue | Press Release

FLEETWOOD MAC’S MIRAGE SET FOR DELUXE REISSUE

May 12 2016

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3CD/5.1 Surround Mix/LP Set Features Newly Remastered
Sound, Rare And Unreleased Recordings, And More

2-CD Expanded Edition Also Available

Both Versions Set For Release on Sept 23rd From Warner Bros. Records

71-34ppJqQL._SL1500_Fleetwood Mac’s streak of five consecutive multi-platinum albums began in the Seventies and continued in 1982 with Mirage, the follow-up to the band’s 1979 double-album, Tusk. During the summer of 1982, Mirage topped the album chart and added to the band’s already impressive canon of hits with “Hold Me,” “Love In Store” and “Gypsy.”

Following last year’s deluxe edition of Tusk, Fleetwood Mac continues chronologically with the deluxe edition of MIRAGE. Available on July 29, (Sept 23) this new edition expands on the original album with newly remastered sound, a selection of rare and unreleased recordings, as well as the stories and pictures behind the album. Three formats available:

  • Deluxe: Three CDs, DVD and LP. Original album remastered, plus b-sides and rarities; the original album on LP; live performances; and a 5.1 mix on DVD.
  • Expanded: Two CDs. Original album remastered, plus a disc of b-sides and rarities.
  • Remastered: Original album remastered.
  • Digital versions of the Deluxe and Remastered formats will also be available.

In 1982 Fleetwood Mac topped the U.S. Album Chart for five weeks with MIRAGE. Along with instantly recognizable smash hits like “Hold Me” and “Gypsy,” MIRAGE also features great album tracks like “Oh Diane,” a Top Ten hit in the UK, and “Straight Back,” a Top 40 hit on the Billboard Rock Chart.

The new deluxe and expanded editions of MIRAGE both include a second disc that has 19 tracks dedicated entirely to outtakes and rarities. Among the unreleased gems are early versions of several album tracks – “Empire State” and “Book Of Love” – along with outtakes for songs that didn’t make it to the album: “If You Were My Love” and “Smile At You.” There is also an unreleased cover of the Fats Domino classic “Blue Monday,” as well as the rare, extended mix for “Gypsy” that was used in the music video.

Exclusive to the deluxe edition of MIRAGE is a third disc that has more than a dozen live performances recorded in Los Angeles during Fleetwood Mac’s 1982 U.S. tour. Along with early hits – “You Make Loving Fun” and “The Chain” – the collection includes performances of MIRAGE standouts like “Love In Store,” “Eyes Of The World” and “Gypsy.”

The DVD-Audio disc contains both the 5.1 Surround and 24/96 Stereo Audio mixes of the original album. The set also includes a vinyl copy of MIRAGE. Continue reading Fleetwood Mac’s Mirage set for Deluxe Reissue | Press Release