Category Archives: Fleetwood Mac

Article Archive Pages, Christine McVie, Fleetwood Mac, John McVie, Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, Release Info, Reviews, Stevie Nicks, Tour Info

Fleetwood Mac Return Without Leaving | CREEM Magazine

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Creem Magazine
September 1987
by J. Fordosh

Up in the hills of Bel Air is Lindsey Buckingham’s house, Lindsey Buckingham’s croquet-perfect lawn, Lindsey Buckingham’s pool, Lindsey Buckingham’s radio-controlled toy submarine that’s busted, but could be fun in the pool, Lindsey Buckingham’s home studio, The Slope-where the final work on Fleetwood Mac’s Tango In The Night was done-and, indeed, Lindsey Buckingham himself.

Lindsey, like everyone in Fleetwood Mac, will tell us something of this latest record-and something of this immensely popular band. Their times and their troubles, stuff like that.

Fleetwood Mac’s saga has been a strange one: since Lindsey and Stevie Nicks joined up in 1975, the band’s made five studio albums, including Tango. The first four have sold something like 33 million copies-about 20 million of those courtesy of 1977’s monstrous Rumours.

You can perceive that, despite their relatively sluggish output, this band has a lot of fans. As I write this, Tango is safely ensconced in the Top 10, where it may well remain for eternity or the next Fleetwood Mac album, whichever comes first. But, coming almost five years after Mirage, we can correctly assume that there’s a story behind the story, so let’s start here . . .

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Gypsies, Tramps or Thieves? The World According To Fleetwood Mac | CREEM Magazine

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Creem Magazine
Feb 1983
by John Mendelssohn

One day soon, there will be no more stuffed animals in the world. No stuffed koalas or pandas or ocelots or giraffes will remain for parents to bring their brave little tykes in the pediatric wards of hospitals. Pubescent girls will have no more stuffed leopards or ponies or lynxes to snuggle while they jabber on the telephone. And no stuffed teddy bears will be found in the rooms of Elvis impersonators who are intent on recreating every phase of the King’s life.

One day soon, all the stuffed animals in the world will have been presented to Stevie Nicks while she is on stage with Fleetwood Mac.
Or on stage without Fleetwood Mac. Industry insiders assure us that it won’t be long before Stevie Nicks goes her own way, for she has her own manager, who won’t let her talk to Rolling Stone, and a hit solo album and tour to her credit. Likewise, Lindsey Buckingham, the other half of the duo whose recruitment in 1976 transformed Fleetwood Mac from the blues band that time forgot into mega-platinum ultra superstars, makes no secret of the fact that he much prefers working on own projects these days. And John McVie gives the very distinct impression of not being long for this world, let alone the group. Which means that the time to get to know these five nice people who make nice music for nice people is right now, before they scatter every which way.

An electrician who did some wiring in her home assured CREEM that keyboard- ist Christine McVie, in marked contrast to her boyfriend at the time, Dennis Wilson, is as unaffected and gracious person as one might yearn to do wiring for, her deportment on stage serves to affirm this impression. The only time she gets stuffed animals or bouquets is when somebody who’s about to be throttled by a security gorilla despairs of getting Stevie’s attention. But she neither glowers or sulks about this, nor makes a spectacle of herself in an attempt to pilfer some of Stevie’s thunder. In doing so, she represents the English temperament at its noblest.

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Stevie Nicks Steals the Show – Atlanta Journal Review, 1980

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Atlanta Journal
August 11, 1980
By Andrew Slater

Standing in a backstage room at the Omni, Stevie Nicks stared longingly at a bowl of Cheetos cheese balls. “I love these things,” she said as a small group of anxious post-concert party guests waited their turn to talk with Fleetwood Mac’s lead singer. “These are great to eat when you’re not on a diet.”

“However,” she added with a sardonic whine, “I am on one, so keep me away from them.”

That was not a difficult task for Ted Cohen, the Warner Bros. Press liaison who is travelling with the group and who acted as ringmaster for Fleetwood Mac’s Friday night gathering. At this reception, following the band’s first Atlanta performance in almost two years, Miss Nicks was the centre of attention, after strolling into the room fashionably later than the other band members.

Manager/drummer Mick Fleetwood, bassist John McVie, and vocalist/keyboardist Christine McVie had been milling about the room, talking with members of local radio stations and Atlanta representatives from Warner Bros. Records. The trio has served as the muscular rhythm section and spinal chord for three incarnations of Fleetwood Mac: the first during the late ’60s, when the group was a British blues band with guitarist Peter Green; the second as early ’70s melody makers with California guitarist Bob Welch; and now with their most successful aggregation, featuring third-generation Mac guitarist Lindsey Buckingham and Miss Nicks.

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Fleetwood Mac – Can’t Go Home Again | Trouser Press

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April 1980
By Chris Salewicz

Of course, Fleetwood Mac is the American Dream. The band’s success story is the stuff of which the mytho-logy of modern day America is made: Mick Fleetwood, John and Christine McVie, down on their luck in the Oulde Country, make the decision to move to the Promised Land. Traveling as far west as possible, these humble immigrants settle on the most advanced technological frontier in the world, Los Angeles.

Operating within rock ‘n’ roll’s picaresque tradition, a surprise encounter teams up the three Britishers with two down-and-out American natives, Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. Within a year, following closely the WASP work ethic, their fortunes change for the better.

Within three years of moving to America they have become part of the aristocracy to which you are granted entry in the United States by virtue of your material rather than your blood. In Washington Fleetwood Mac is invited to the White House for social chit-chat with President Jimmy Carter.

By now they are so rich that Mick Fleetwood tells a friend he knows he need never work again in his life. It’s like a good made-for-TV movie!

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Rumours reaches the magic million in Canada | RPM

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RPM MAGAZINE – May 20, 1978
by J.J. Linden

Warner Bros. album Rumours by Fleetwood Mac, this year’s Juno Award winner as top selling international album, has become the first album in history to ever sell one million units in Canada. The milestone was announced recently by WEA Music of Canada, who noted, “This unprecedented accomplishment of 1,000,000 units not only reflects the unparalleled artistry of Fleetwood Mac, but also reflects the enormous potential of the Canadian market to those who can fully tap it.”

The album was released in February of 1977. At that time, WEA Music quickly implemented a full-scale marketing program, with promotion and sales teams throughout the country working full-force to national exposure gain and visibility for the album. The sales force concentrated on obtaining prominent displays from tiny independents to the largest chain stores. The promotion and publicity team embarked on a virtually unequaled media campaign to break the album in Canada.

The company’s marketing efforts began to pay off almost immediately. Go Your Own Way, the first single released from the album, became a major hit across the coun try. It was followed quickly by three more hit singles, Dreams, Don’t Stop and You Make Lovin’ Fun. As each subsequent hit showed the commercial value of the album, sales began to increase rapidly. WEA’s national promotion manager Larry Green notes, “We were very conscious of the possibility of the album going five or six times platinum by the second single. The Eagles do it and Queen does it – we really saw this thing flying bỳ the second single. By the third single, it was a pretty tremendous growth situation, and by the fourth single…

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Big Mac……..Over 8 million sold | Rolling Stone

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Rolling Stone Magazine (issue 256)
January 12, 1978
By Dave Marsh

There is nothing mysterious about Fleetwood Mac sweeping Rolling Stone’s 1977 Readers’ Poll. Rumours, the album that topped the charts for six months, has sold almost 8 million copies and still sells over 200,000 copies weekly. Released in February, Rumours sold enough copies at its peak to go gold twice a month, platinum every thirty days. (They’ve also got a platinum eight-track and gold cassette.) Four of the album’s eleven songs have become hit singles: “Go Your Own Way,” “Dreams,” “Don’t Stop” and most recently, “You Make Loving Fun.” Over in Burbank, the biggest problem the band has created for its record company, Warner Bros., is deciding whether to release a fifth single. Should it be “The Chain” or “Second Hand News,” or should they forget about it altogether to avoid saturating the market?

Multimillion monsters have become commonplace in the record business. Consider the history of the gold and platinum awards the industry (through the Recording Industry Association of America) makes for LPs that move heavy tonnage. Prior to 1969, only gold records (for $1 million in sales, about 450,000 copies) were awarded. That year, Atlantic gave Cream’s Wheels of Fire the first unofficial platinum record (for sales of one million units or more). Unsanctioned platinum awards appeared sporadically for the next several years despite RIAA protests. But in 1975 the RIAA raised the gold standard to 500,000 units to compensate for increases in wholesale record prices, and because of the increasingly large market was forced to officially sanction platinum. Platinum has replaced gold as confirmation of star status, and record companies advertise LPs as double, triple and soon (who knows?) octuple platinum.  

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The Making of Rumours

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The Recording of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours

Memories of the Making of Rumours

Richard Dashut (co-producer)
I’d worked with Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks since their debut album, Buckingham-Nicks. After they joined Fleetwood Mac, Lindsey invited me to do their live sound. They started recording Rumours in Sausalito, across the bay from San Fransico, with the Record Plant’s engineer, but they fired him after four days for being too into astrology. I was really just around keeping Lindsey company, then Mick takes me into the parking lot, puts his arm around my shoulder and says, Guess what? You’re producing the album. The funny thing was, I never really wanted to be a producer. I brought in a friend from wally Heider’s studio in Los Angeles, Ken Caillat, to help me, and we started co-producing. Mick gave me and Ken an old Chinese I-Ching coin and said, Good luck.

Cris Morris (recording assistant):
I’d helped build the Record Plant. I knew every nail, because I’d driven most of them in. I’d helped make what became known as Sly Stone’s Pit, a control booth sunk into the floor, so the musicians could sit and play around it. When we recorded Sly there, he had his own personal tank of nitrous oxide installed, and that was still there.

Mick Fleetwood (Fleetwood Mac):
It was a bizarre place to work, but we didn’t really use Sly Stone’s pit. It was usually occupied by people we didn’t know, tapping razors on mirrors.

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Fleetwood Mac Goes Back To Where They Once Began | Circus Magazine

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Circus Magazine
July 21, 1977
Mick Houghton

LONDON: Their current world concert tour has taken Fleetwood Mac to Great Britain and Europe for the first time in five years, and will bring them to Japan and Australia for the first concert tour before this year is out. In their adopted homeland, American fans have been swarming to Fleetwood Mac shows. The June 29 and 30 gigs in New York’s Madison Square Garden were sold out more than a month in advance. While the current U.S. touring is an expected success, their return to the continent is to reintroduce the group to a home country that had largely forgotten that Fleetwood Mac ever existed.

Promotional visits often seem to achieve little, for Fleetwood Mac the trip home paid big dividends. The year-old ‘Fleetwood Mac’ album which had till their return sold less than 10,000 copies, crept into the album charts. A few months later, the follow up album, ‘Rumours’, leapt straight into the top ten. The single “Go Your Own Way” even gave the group their first chart entry since “Green Manalishi” in 1970, when Peter Green was still with the group. And, a major hit single seems likely before the year is out if the critical and popular reaction to their sell-out tour is anything to judge by.

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Best Fleetwood Mac Ever – An Interview With Mick Fleetwood | Hit Parader

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May 1977
Hit Parader
by Jim Girard

Speak about Fleetwood Mac these days and you are liable to set off a series of long-winded, laudatory extrapolations about how diverse, fussy, complex and inspiring the five members really are. All that from people who have probably never even seen the band play live. This is especially true in the music business (within these very pages over the last several issues, thousands of words have been written about the band). This is a time when rock writers and music business people are cramming for finals — just trying to brush up on their Fleetwood Mac history. It is, you see, quite unhip to NOT be aware of the band that rose to unparalleled heights this past year, after knocking around the minor leagues (so to speak) in various. aggregations for the past nine years. Rock writers especially get insecure about not being aware of the varied past this band led by Mick Fleetwood and John McVie has had.

Currently, Christine McVie (a member of the band for the past four and a half years), Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks are the other members of the band. It is this lineup that produced last year’s monster album, entitled FLEETWOOD MAC, and has recently released their second album RUMOURS. Mick Fleetwood has considered using his gold records for doorstops, as the continued success of the band is inevitable.

In the following interview, leader and drummer Mick Fleetwood tells HIT PARADER about his band, his longtime relationship with bassist. John McVie (the “Mac” in Fleetwood Mac) and the various things that make Fleetwood Mac an entity in and of itself:

* * * * *

HP: Now that the band has finished RUMOURS, could we talk about the how and why of the album taking so long to finish?
Mick: Well, when we started the album RUMOURS there were a lot of things going on in the band — for everybody involved. Needless to say, it was a very strange time. Things weren’t all that bad with all the personal problems, but needless to say, things just took a lot longer than expected as a result. Lindsey and Stevie broke up, John and Christine had broken up and I was going through some changes too. Then, after two months of laying down basic tracks, we went back on tour for a white. Luckily, sometimes when you overwork at something and don’t get away from it, you get to a point where you lose it. That didn’t happen with us this time; everything we did just kept getting better and better. Since all of the original tracks were done in the first two months, the initial vibe of the album is still there. The energy isn’t gone. It hasn’t been tampered with. Mainly, there were a lot of strong feelings going on in the band, and then on the album. Unwittingly, the songs and moods on RUMOURS are connected to what various people in the band were going through. From that point of view, this is a very emotional album; more than the last one.

HP: RUMOURS was amazingly expensive to record I hear.
Mick: We worked on the album for over six months physically, but we worked on it for over ten months in total. We spent a lot of time on the album and it cost us a lot of money, yeah. However, we didn’t compromise anything on the album. We got past the point of worrying whether or not things cost too much. We didn’t want to quit until everything was as right as it could possibly be. One reason we were able to work on RUMOURS as long as we did was because the FLEETWOOD MAC album was selling so sensationally and it allowed us to keep working on the new one. If we would have put out the new album when we were supposed to, we would have killed the sales of the FLEETWOOD MAC album and there was no point in doing that. It is still selling a lot, although it is starting to drop off now.

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Fleetwood Mac mentions in Rolling Stone, April 21st, 1977

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pg. 6 & 9 ~ Correspondence, Love Letters, and Advice

On behalf of my ancestors, the ancient Celts, I am compelled to set the record straight concerning an unfortunate though understandable injustice to the heritage: Rhiannon was hardly a Welsh witch. On the contrary, she was a beautiful, shrewdly intelligent, brave and popular British goddess. I dare say, the early Christianizers of Britain certainly did their job well. Just as Arthur and Merlin, the greatest and most powerful of all British gods, were mistakenly characterized as king and magician respectively, so now Rhiannon is revived from the shadow-filled past as a mere witch. I refer Stevie Nicks (and all others interested) to a book by Charles Squire, recently republished under the title, Celtic Myth and Legend (Newcastle Publishing Company). Miss Nicks has an innate sense for the highly mystic Celtic Spirit and I am sue she doesn’t want to risk the wrath of the old powers.

Robert Slorby

Minot, North Dakota

—

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