Category Archives: Fleetwood Mac

Fleetwood Mac, Obituary, Peter Green, UK Articles

Peter Green obituary | The Times

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The Times

Influential blues rock guitarist who co-founded Fleetwood Mac but quit the band as he struggled with drugs and mental illness

Fleetwood Mac in 1969, the year before Peter Green walked out after suffering a disturbing dream: from top left to right, John McVie, Danny Kirwan, Green, Jeremy Spencer, Mick Fleetwood
GETTY IMAGES

One night in 1970 after taking LSD, Peter Green had a demonic dream in which he was visited by a green hellhound that barked menacingly at him.

“It scared me because I knew the dog had been dead a long time,” he recalled later. “It was a stray and I was looking after it. But I was dead and had to fight to get back into my body.”

When he awoke Green concluded that the beast was the Devil and the dream had been telling him that money was the root of all evil. His first reaction was to write a song about his demons. The result was The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown) in which he described a satanic creature “Sneakin’ around,trying to drive me mad/ Bustin’ in on my dreams/ Making me see things I don’t want to see.”

The song was both brilliant and harrowing; its sinister riff, eerie howling and tormented lyrics made it one of the most disturbing hit singles to infiltrate the generally sunny terrain of the Top Ten. It was also the last song Green recorded with his band Fleetwood Mac, for his second reaction to his dream was to leave the group and give all his money away. He allegedly threatened to shoot his accountant unless he stopped sending him royalty cheques.

“It was a freedom thing,” he told The Times in 1997, when after long years away from music he was attempting a comeback. “I wanted to go and live on a commune. In the end I never did but I had to get away from the group. Acid had a lot to do with it.” Continue reading Peter Green obituary | The Times →

Fleetwood Mac, Peter Green, UK Articles

Peter Green, the Fleetwood Mac founder who dropped out, dies at 73 | The Sunday Times

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Rosamund Urwin and Grant Tucker
The Sunday Times

He was the musician who encouraged a generation of teenagers to pick up the guitar but Peter Green’s own career was marred by psychedelic drugs and mental illness.

To some music fans, Green was the best of the British blues guitarists
GEORGE WILKES/HULTON ARCHIVE

Last night, the world of rock and blues was in mourning after the death of the Fleetwood Mac co-founder at the age of 73. Green, nicknamed the Green God by fans, formed the band with drummer Mick Fleetwood and bass guitarist John McVie in London in 1967. He was so instrumental in the band’s early years that its original name was Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac.

Their greatest hits included Albatross, Man of the World, Oh Well and The Green Manalishi. After he left the band, he missed out on their biggest success, the 1977 Rumours album.

Fleetwood Mac enjoyed staggering success, with four hit albums. In 1969, the band sold more records than The Rolling Stones and The Beatles, combined, and Green became one of the most famous musicians in Europe. But he left the band at the height of its fame after a final performance in 1970. He said he was leaving the music business “for my freedom” but was also suffering from mental health issues, and was hearing voices. He later had schizophrenia diagnosed.

He had gone off the rails after taking LSD. In 1996, he admitted that the drug had left a lasting impression on him. “I’m still there. . . I never did come back off the trip. I guess I took one trip too many,” he told The Daily Telegraph.

While on tour in Munich, Germany, to promote their third album, Then Play On, matters came to a head. “Peter took some more drugs,” said Mick Fleetwood in the 2012 BBC documentary Man of the World, “and never really came back from that.”

Peter Green, far left, with other members of Fleetwood Mac
ARALDO DI CROLLALANZA/COURTESY OF ORANGE AMPS

Continue reading Peter Green, the Fleetwood Mac founder who dropped out, dies at 73 | The Sunday Times →

Fleetwood Mac, Peter Green, UK Articles

Fleetwood Mac co-founder Peter Green dies aged 73 | BBC News

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Fleetwood Mac co-founder Peter Green has died aged 73.

Solicitors acting on behalf of his family said in a statement: “It is with great sadness that the family of Peter Green announce his death this weekend, peacefully in his sleep.

“A further statement will be provided in the coming days.”

Blues rock guitarist Green, from Bethnal Green in east London, formed Fleetwood Mac with drummer Mick Fleetwood in 1967.

Green left the band after a last performance in 1970, as he struggled with his mental health. He was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia and spent time in hospital in the mid-70s.

He was among the eight members of the band – along with Fleetwood, Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, John McVie, Christine McVie, Danny Kirwan and Jeremy Spencer – who were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1998.

In February this year, artists including Fleetwood, Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons and guitarists Jonny Lang and Andy Fairweather Low performed at the London Palladium in a gig celebrating the early years of Fleetwood Mac and its founder, Green.

Originally posted on July 25, 17:10 at this link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53539989 

 

Fleetwood Mac, Peter Green, Press Kits, Release Info, Website Content

Fleetwood Mac Early Years CD And LP Collections Available On September 4 From Rhino

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FLEETWOOD MAC’S EARLY YEARS SPOTLIGHTED IN TWO NEW BOXED SETS

8-CD Set Fleetwood Mac 1969-1974 Includes Remastered Versions Of Seven Studio Albums Plus An Unreleased 1974 Concert

4-LP Fleetwood Mac 1973-1974 Collection Features Penguin, Mystery To Me,

And Heroes Are Hard To Find, Plus 1974 Concert And A 7” Single Limited Edition, Colored-Vinyl Edition Available For Pre-Order Now exclusively From Rhino.com

All Three Sets Will Available On September 4

LOS ANGELES – After Mick Fleetwood, Peter Green, John McVie, and Jeremy Spencer started Fleetwood Mac in 1967, they quickly found an audience eager for their British-style blues. Over the next seven years, the band would sign with Reprise Records, release seven studio albums, and release many classic tracks that are still beloved today. Fleetwood Mac’s early rise to fame takes centerstage on two upcoming Rhino releases that spotlight the group’s deep-blues roots.

The first release is an 8-CD boxed set that includes remastered versions of all seven studio albums the band recorded between 1969 and 1974, several bonus tracks, and an unreleased 1974 concert recorded just a few months before Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined the band. On September 4, FLEETWOOD MAC 1969-1974 will be available on CD for $54.98.

The set covers a five-year time frame that encompasses several different band lineups, from founding members Fleetwood, Green, McVie and Spencer; to later additions like Danny Kirwan, Christine McVie, Dave Walker, Bob Welch, and Bob Weston.

The collection includes seven studio albums: Then Play On (1969), Kiln House (1970), Future Games (1971), Bare Trees (1972), Penguin (1973), Mystery To Me (1973), and Heroes Are Hard To Find (1974). Those records fueled Fleetwood Mac’s early popularity in the U.K. and propelled them into the Top Ten with singles like “Man Of The World,” “Oh Well – Pt. 1,” “The Green Manalishi (With The Two Prong Crown),” and the #1 hit “Albatross.” Continue reading Fleetwood Mac Early Years CD And LP Collections Available On September 4 From Rhino →

Fleetwood Mac, Solo Activity, Stevie Nicks

Stevie Nicks on Her Life in Isolation: ‘We Have to Believe’ | Rolling Stone

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April 30, 2020
Rolling Stone
by Brian Hiatt

Group chats with Fleetwood Mac, listening to Harry Styles and more snapshots from Nicks’ quarantine life

Mandatory Credit: Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP/Shutterstock (10182025e)
Inductee Stevie Nicks performs at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony at the Barclays Center, in New York
2019 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony – Show, New York, USA – 29 Mar 2019

Stevie Nicks had always intended 2020 to be a relatively quiet year, but not quite this quiet. She’s been battling a case of Epstein-Barr virus since January, and has been safely holed up in one of her California properties with three friends and her dog Lily for weeks now. She was in good spirits in a late-night phone conversation not long ago, where she answered our quarantine questions and more. “You really do start to understand, maybe, what our parents went through in World War Two,” she says. “You start thinking of all the things that have happened that have caused people’s lives to just turn upside down.”

How are you holding up emotionally through all this?
I had planned to take this year off. We’ve been on the road one way or another, whether it was me or whether it be with Mac, since basically since 2009. I had seven months off in 2016. That’s the only vacation I had, and I worked at home doing all kinds of different stuff during that seven months. It’s been solid touring ever since. So last year I made a pitch to everybody that when this Fleetwood Mac tour is over. I’m taking next year off because I want to work on my “Rhiannon” book/movie [based on the original Welsh myth that inspired her song]. And I want to maybe work with some different producers… I don’t know what I want to do! I just know that I don’t want a tour! So I think it’s not as hard for me as it is for the bands that had a tour coming up this year. Because they’d be getting ready to go into rehearsal right now. So not only is your tour canceled and your rehearsal cancelled, but you’re quarantined to your house? Continue reading Stevie Nicks on Her Life in Isolation: ‘We Have to Believe’ | Rolling Stone →

Fleetwood Mac, Lindsey Buckingham, Obituary, Stevie Nicks, UK Articles

Keith Olsen obituary | The Times

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The Times

Producer who turned Fleetwood Mac into superstars only to have a falling out when he banned them from taking drugs in the studio

Fleetwood Mac: Mick Fleetwood, Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, Christine McVie and John McVie in 1975
GAB ARCHIVE/REDFERNS

On the last day of 1974, Keith Olsen received a phone call that was destined to change the face of popular music.

On the line was Mick Fleetwood, the drummer with Fleetwood Mac, calling from a payphone at Los Angeles airport. Olsen was booked to produce the struggling English band’s next album in the new year but Fleetwood had some bad news to impart. His services would no longer be required because Bob Welch, the group’s guitarist, singer and main songwriter, had quit and Fleetwood Mac were facing extinction.

The two put their heads together in search of a rescue plan. Olsen had recently discovered a talented young guitarist named Lindsey Buckingham and his girlfriend Stevie Nicks. They wrote songs together and Olsen had produced an album for them. The record had flopped and “sold bupkis”, as he put it: at the time of Fleetwood’s phone call the duo were without a recording contract and Nicks was working as Olsen’s house cleaner for $250 a month.

However, Fleetwood had heard their record and was one of the few to be impressed. Perhaps, he suggested, Buckingham might be persuaded to join Fleetwood Mac? Olsen told him that he thought it was unlikely and, in any case, they wouldn’t be split up and he came as a pair with Nicks.

“Well, maybe that will work. Can you see if you can convince them to join my band?” Fleetwood asked. Abandoning his new year plans, Olsen drove to the couple’s apartment, taking with him “the obligatory bottle of bad champagne”. Continue reading Keith Olsen obituary | The Times →

Fleetwood Mac, Release Info, UK Articles

Fleetwood Mac – The Alternate Rumours to be released on vinyl on Record Store Day 2020

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RECORD STORE DAY 2020 Fleetwood Mac – The Alternate Rumours

Release Date: 9/26/2020 (postponed from 4/18/2020)
Format: LP
Label: Rhino/Warner Records
Quantity: 16000
Release type: RSD Exclusive Release

The album of alternate takes mirroring the original album, from the Rumours deluxe edition. Alternate takes include early versions and alternate versions for “Gold Dust Woman”, “The Chain”, “Don’t’ Stop”, “Dreams” and “Second Hand News”. On vinyl for the very first time.

Side 1 – 1.  SECOND HAND NEWS (Alternate) 2. DREAMS (Alternate) 3. NEVER GOING BACK AGAIN (Acoustic Duet) 4. DON’T STOP (Alternate) 5. GO YOUR OWN WAY (Alternate) 6. SONGBIRD (Alternate)

Side 2 – 1. THE CHAIN (Demo) 2. YOU MAKE LOVING FUN (Alternate) 3. I DON’T WANT TO KNOW (Early Take) 4. OH DADDY (Early Take) 5. GOLD DUST WOMAN (Early Take)

Fleetwood Mac, Mick Fleetwood, Peter Green, Solo Activity, UK Articles

Mick Fleetwood’s All-Star Peter Green Tribute review — a ‘dream come true’ celebration | The Times

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James Jackson
The Times

★★★★★

It’s not often that you get members of Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, the Who, Aerosmith, Metallica and Oasis jostling about on the same stage. In fact, this never happens. Except, that is, when it’s Mick Fleetwood organising a “dream come true” celebration of his onetime bandmate and mentor, Peter Green. The drummer clearly has quite an address book.

Former bandmates Mick Fleetwood and Jeremy Spencer on stage together for the first time in 50 years

It’s not just Fleetwood who reveres Green either. The Syd Barrett of blues burnt briefly but brilliantly in the late 1960s before LSD triggered mental collapse (Green is an elusive presence today, but by all accounts more content). As with the best guitarists, you could always hear something deeper in his playing, some indefinable evidence of a fragile soul.

No one could quite capture that magic, not even the top-tier musicians on this night, but several came close. Not least the former Mac member Rick Vito, who took charge of the breezy opening numbers Rollin’ Man and Homework. From there the star cavalcade began: Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top added a Texas shuffle to Doctor Brown, John Mayall gave some vocal welly to All Your Love (at 86 he still has the blues) and Steven Tyler of Aerosmith brought rock-star charisma to Rattlesnake Shake.

With respect to these luminaries, early on it was Jonny Lang’s earthy solo attacks and Vito’s slide-playing on Love That Burns that offered the most mesmeric moments — far more so than Noel Gallagher’s attempt at acoustic blues or even the windmilling Pete Townshend’s demonstration of the link between Won’t Get Fooled Again and Station Man. Continue reading Mick Fleetwood’s All-Star Peter Green Tribute review — a ‘dream come true’ celebration | The Times →

Fleetwood Mac, Fleetwood Mac 2018/19, Mick Fleetwood, Peter Green

Mick Fleetwood on His Peter Green Tribute Show, Future Plans, and Lindsey Buckingham | Rolling Stone

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By Andy Green
Jan 28, 2020
Rolling Stone

“Lindsey’s legacy is alive and well, and as it should be,” says the drummer. “It will never be taken away, and never be down-spoken by any of us.”

phone via: Randee St. Nicholas

Mick Fleetwood should be relaxing. He just wrapped up a 13-month world tour — Fleetwood Mac’s first since parting ways with Lindsey Buckingham and replacing him with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell and Crowded House frontman Neil Finn — but the 72-year-old drummer is already deep into planning his next project: a tribute concert to Peter Green, who co-founded Fleetwood Mac and wrote many of the group’s early classics before being sidelined by mental illness and addiction issues. The show is set for February 25th in London, with special guests David Gilmour, Christine McVie, John Mayall, and Steven Tyler. “I wanted people to know that I did not form this band — Peter Green did,” Fleetwood says. “And I wanted to celebrate those early years of Fleetwood Mac, which started this massive ball that went down the road over the last 50 years.”

Peter Green hasn’t been seen much in public over the past decade. When is the last time that you and he spoke?
It was about a year and a half ago. I went out with my girlfriend, and spent the day with him. He’s not the Peter that I knew, clearly. But he plays acoustic guitar. He loves painting, and fishing is his hobby. It’s no secret that he took a left turn and never came back, but he’s OK. He also has really little or no ego at all, which is unbelievable. You want to go, “Do you realize what you did?” “No, no. Yeah, I suppose so.” He has no ego about what he did. Continue reading Mick Fleetwood on His Peter Green Tribute Show, Future Plans, and Lindsey Buckingham | Rolling Stone →

Christine McVie, Fleetwood Mac

“Finally, Fleetwood Mac’s unsung hero Christine McVie is getting the spotlight she deserves” | Stylist

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Posted by Christobel Hastings
28 Dec 2019

She’s the longest-serving female member of Fleetwood Mac, and the group’s most successful singer-songwriter, but Christine McVie has always been overshadowed. But in a BBC documentary profile, Fleetwood Mac’s Songbird, the unsung hero of one of the world’s biggest bands finally gets to take the spotlight

There is one quiet moment of reflection in the BBC documentary, Fleetwood Mac’s Songbird, that perhaps sums up its subject more than anything else in the 90-minute retrospective of rock music history. It comes when Christine McVie, the longest-serving female member of Fleetwood Mac, and the group’s most successful singer-songwriter, speaks affectionately about her longtime friend, Stevie Nicks: “I could no more do twirls in chiffon than Stevie could do blues on the piano.” As she acknowledges her friend’s affinity for the spotlight, she showcases her brilliant talent for saying so much with so few words. It was this gift, we discover, that was intrinsic to the band’s success, and one that has ultimately allowed Fleetwood Mac to connect with people all around the world for over five decades.

Fleetwood Mac’s Songbird: Christine McVie in 1975

How and why the driving force behind one of the world’s best-selling bands was overlooked for so long is a question that is slowly unravelled in this fascinating profile of the legendary singer-songwriter, which traces McVie’s early beginnings in Birmingham, the British blues explosion in 1960s London, and her first foray into music. We learn that McVie was working as a window dresser in the department store Dickins & Jones, until she moved back to Birmingham to join her old friends Andy Silvester and Stan Webb in a blues band called Chicken Shack. Although she was initially tasked with playing keys and singing background vocals, when the band scored a hit with a cover of Etta James’ I’d Rather Go Blind with McVie on lead vocals, it quickly became evident that she was destined for greater things. Continue reading “Finally, Fleetwood Mac’s unsung hero Christine McVie is getting the spotlight she deserves” | Stylist →