Category Archives: Fleetwood Mac

Fleetwood Mac

Self-indulgence and acrimony: the making of Fleetwood Mac’s 1979 album ‘Tusk’ | Independent.ie

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Saturday 5 October 2019
The Independent.ie
John Meagher

It was 1978 and Stevie Nicks was having to get used to the business of being extremely famous. She had appeared on the cover of the previous year’s biggest selling album, Rumours, and her vocals were adorning some of the most played songs of the era. She had gone from relative obscurity to the big time on joining Fleetwood Mac with then boyfriend Lindsey Buckingham just a few years before and now, at the age of 30, she had the world at her feet.

But life was far from rosy for the Arizona-raised, California-adopted singer and her complicated love life would prove inspiring when it came to writing a song that would be the centrepiece of Fleetwood Mac’s next album as well as perhaps being the most emblematic of her entire career.

That song was ‘Sara’ and Nicks spent more time fashioning it than on any other – before or since. Months before the band reconvened for the marathon recording sessions of what would become the double-album, Tusk, Nicks had a nine-verse, 16-minute song on her hands. It would eventually be whittled down to just over six minutes on the original vinyl version of the album and trimmed further to four-odd minutes when released as a single.

‘Sara’ was inspired by a large number of things that were taking Stevie Nicks’ headspace at the end of the 1970s. It was, ostensibly, written about her friend Sara Recor and her relationship with Mick Fleetwood, one of band’s founding members and with whom Nicks had an intimate relationship after she and Buckingham had finished. And it’s a hirsute Fleetwood who appears on the Rumours cover, of course.

Despite the pair having broken up, and Nicks being in what would turn out to be a short-lived relationship with the Eagles’ Don Henley, she admitted to have been upset by her friend’s new romance with her former paramour. Fleetwood, she later said, had been a steadying influence during the acrimonious Rumours sessions and she immortalised him in the line, “And he was just like a great dark wing/ Within the wings of a storm”. Continue reading Self-indulgence and acrimony: the making of Fleetwood Mac’s 1979 album ‘Tusk’ | Independent.ie →

Fleetwood Mac, Release Info

Fleetwood Mac ‘Rumours’ Getting New Deluxe Edition

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Best Classic Bands

Fleetwood Mac are releasing a deluxe edition of their 1977 juggernaut, Rumours, to coincide with the band’s ongoing tour.

The 4-CD set, coming October 25 via Rhino, replicates the 2013 deluxe edition that included numerous previously unreleased takes from the album’s recording sessions and live performances from the subsequent world tour.

In recent years, the band have been methodically issuing deluxe editions of much of their 1970s and 1980s output. The new Rumours release raises eyebrows since the 2013 deluxe edition of the album is still in print. (The new edition omits the latter’s DVD and vinyl release of the studio LP.)

The 2019 deluxe edition of Rumours includes the original album and the b-side “Silver Springs,” a dozen live recordings from the group’s 1977 world tour, an entire disc filled with takes from the album’s recording sessions, and an additional disc of outtakes. Continue reading Fleetwood Mac ‘Rumours’ Getting New Deluxe Edition →

Christine McVie, Fleetwood Mac, TV Spot, UK Articles

What’s on TV tonight: Friday September 20, 2019 | The Times

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Fleetwood Mac’s Songbird: Christine McVie
BBC Four, 9pm

Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks in 1987
GETTY IMAGES

As always with BBC Four’s rock-doc tributes, the eulogies flow freely over introductory footage, in this case of Fleetwood Mac taking the stage at Wembley this summer. Anyone who was there will have been reminded how Christine McVie is the band’s not-so-secret weapon. Not only did she write their most beguiling hits (Songbird, You Make Loving Fun, Don’t Stop, Everywhere), her voice is a thing to cherish — a warm, bluesy thing, a world away from today’s bombastic divas. She is the longest-serving female member of any of the rock ’n’ roll acts that emerged from the 1960s, but this profile reminds us that she was famous before the Mac, as Christine Perfect, in the band Chicken Shack, singing their 1968 hit I Would Rather Go Blind. Then she saw Fleetwood Mac, met their bassist John McVie and the rest is rock history — mega-selling albums, cocaine, divorce, make-ups, seclusion in Kent, comeback glory. All covered in this rock-doc. Mrs McVie talks about how she was initially jealous of Stevie Nicks who took the spotlight while Christine was stuck behind the piano. Yet they also bonded as two women in rock’s boys’ club. “I told her, we will be a force to be reckoned with for all these men that surround us,” recalls Nicks. Christine talks of the infamous decadence during the Rumours era — she wrote You Make Loving Fun about the lighting guy with whom she was having an affair — one that was kept from John despite Christine singing the song on stage every night. At least the music was great. She also recalls her relationship with Beach Boy wild man Dennis Wilson, “really sweet man” but also a “nut”. Quite a life for an unassuming girl from Smethwick.

Catchup with the show on BBC iPlayer (UK viewers only)

Fleetwood Mac, UK Articles

Return of the Mac: Fleetwood Mac’s 20 greatest songs | Belfast Telegraph

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Marking the start of the European leg of Fleetwood Mac’s world tour, which kicked off in Dublin this week, Graeme Ross chronicles the legendary band’s 20 greatest songs

Graeme Ross
June 15 2019

Their story has been described as the ultimate rock soap opera. And, following the recent firing of Lindsey Buckingham and with new members Mike Campbell of the Heartbreakers and Neil Finn from Crowded House on board, it’s just one more chapter in the stranger-than-fiction career of Fleetwood Mac.

The band have just crossed the Atlantic to play three gigs as part of their latest world tour, having played the RDS in Dublin on Thursday and with two Wembley gigs tomorrow and Tuesday.

The NME, in a recent feature, concentrated solely on the Buckingham/Stevie Nicks post-1975 years for their greatest 20 Fleetwood Mac songs, as if the band hadn’t existed before, even if it was in a radically different guise.

This compilation goes all the way back to Peter Green’s blues-based Mac in 1967, with a couple of entries from the band’s “lost” years in the first half of the Seventies, reminding us that Fleetwood Mac were successful long before they morphed into laid-back West Coast soft rockers.

20 – Landslide
On joining Fleetwood Mac in 1975, Buckingham and Nicks brought several songs with them, including Landslide, one of Nicks’ most personal songs. When she wrote this emotional and reflective ballad the previous year, the duo’s sole album had bombed and their relationship was failing. Nicks stood at the crossroads of her life and poured all her doubts and fears into one cathartic song. Continue reading Return of the Mac: Fleetwood Mac’s 20 greatest songs | Belfast Telegraph →

Fleetwood Mac, Solo Activity, Stevie Nicks

How Stevie Nicks’ Lost Masterpiece ‘Ooh My Love’ Became a Cult Fan Favorite | Rolling Stone

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By Rob Sheffield
Rolling Stone
May 30th, 2019

Deep cut from 1989’s ‘The Other Side of the Mirror’ summed up what Nicks called a “magical time” in her career

Mandatory Credit: Photo by Ian Dickson/REX/Shutterstock (8289678b)
Stevie Nicks in concert, 28 November 1989
Stevie Nicks in concert, Wembley Arena, London, UK – 1980s

Happy birthday to Stevie Nicks’ best song ever, “Ooh My Love.” It’s a buried treasure in her legendary career — never a hit, not even a single. She’s never sung it live. Just a deep cut from her most tragically underrated solo album, The Other Side of the Mirror, released 30 years ago, in the last days of May 1989. The album fell through the cracks — nobody was really checking for solo Stevie in the late Eighties. But it’s prized by hardcore Stevie freaks, especially “Ooh My Love.” For some of us, it sums up everything that makes her the ultimate rock queen — her most soulful moment ever, with or without Fleetwood Mac. If I had five minutes to convince a jury she’s a genius, “Ooh My Love” is what I would play. When my time comes, bury me with this song in Stevie’s shawl vault.

When I interviewed her in 2014, I confessed “Ooh My Love” was my favorite. “That’s one of my favorites too,” she said. “In fact, The Other Side of the Mirror is probably my favorite album. Those songs were written right before the Klonopin kicked in. ‘In the shadow of the castle walls’ — that song was very important to me. I was lucky those songs were written when they were, before that nasty tranquilizer. It was a really intense record. People don’t talk about that record much, but it was different from all the others. It was a moment in time. I had gotten away from the cocaine in 1986. I spent a year writing those songs. I was drug-free and I was happy.” Continue reading How Stevie Nicks’ Lost Masterpiece ‘Ooh My Love’ Became a Cult Fan Favorite | Rolling Stone →

Fleetwood Mac, Fleetwood Mac 2018/19, Tour Info

Fleetwood Mac: ‘We’ll burn in hell if we don’t play Glastonbury one day’ | The Independent

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The Independent
27th April 2019

Cocaine, fights, love affairs and break-ups. Mick Fleetwood and Christine McVie speak to Chris Harvey about the success, the hardship and the torment of the band as they prepare to play Wembley in June

Left to right: Mike Campbell, John McVie, Stevie Nicks, Christine McVie and Mick Fleetwood ( AFP/Getty )

This strange, funny band is complicated,” says Mick Fleetwood. “It’s all about people, it’s not horrific.” I’m talking to the man who has been the only member of Fleetwood Mac to appear in every line-up of the band since they were formed. When they step out on stage at Wembley Stadium in June, that will be coming up to 52 years ago.

We’ve been chatting about the period when Fleetwood Mac moved from stars to superstars with the release of Rumours in 1977. It was during the era of Seventies rock excess, when band mythologies are wreathed in tales of groupies, sexual exploitation, drug addiction and death.

Fleetwood Mac were no strangers to drugs: LSD had cost the group its original leader, Peter Green, at the end of the Sixties, and cocaine was an integral part of the band’s Seventies. Fleetwood wrote in his autobiography that Rumours was written with “white powder peeling off the wall in every room of the studio”.

“I think we were damned lucky that our music never went down the drain because we went down the drain,” the 71-year-old drummer says now, “and I think in truth there are moments where you could have said we got pretty close, you know. Continue reading Fleetwood Mac: ‘We’ll burn in hell if we don’t play Glastonbury one day’ | The Independent →

Christine McVie, Fleetwood Mac, Fleetwood Mac 2018/19, Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, UK Articles

The Never Ending Story of Fleetwood Mac | MOJO Magazine

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“It Wasn’t About Replacing Lindsey Or Replicating Him In Any Way”

Minus the persona non grata and now-incapacitated Lindsey Buckingham, FLEETWOOD MAC truck on towards a date with the UK in June. Their new line-up is controversial, but they claim it’s working and, what’s more, it was ever thus. “If you look at the history of Fleetwood Mac,” Mick Fleetwood tells DAVE DIMARTINO, “it’s a miracle that it survived. A miracle.”

IT IS MID-NOVEMBER OF 2018, FLEETWOOD MAC are performing at Moda Center in Portland, Oregon, and Stevie Nicks is introducing Landslide.

“This song was written in 1973 in Aspen, Colorado,” she tells the rapt audience. “just me and my little guitar, deciding what I want to do with my life. I want to dedicate this to my cousins Sandy and Eddie, who are here, and also to Lindsey Wilkinson, an old friend. Another Lindsey that I also really loved, you know.” There is a brief, barely perceptible pause. “Not like that.” The crowd laughs at her mixture of candour and innuendo, that wee wisp of Harlequin romance paperback covers long gone, and the band plays Nicks’ classic note perfect, as if it were 1975 all over again. But of course, it isn’t 1975 again.

Absent from the stage is guitarist/singer and one-time Nicks musical and personal partner Lindsey Buckingham, who with Nicks joined the band at the tail end of 1974 and helped guide them to an unparalleled level of fame. He’s not only gone, he’s really gone: a month previously Buckingham had filed suit in the Superior Court of Los Angeles claiming to have been unjustly booted from the band. Thus this long-planned, lucrative tour — which extends through 2019 and includes the States, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland, the UK, Australia and New Zealand — now features replacements Neil Finn, of Crowded House, and Mike Campbell, of Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers, and no Lindsey Buckingham. Continue reading The Never Ending Story of Fleetwood Mac | MOJO Magazine →

Fleetwood Mac, Lindsey Buckingham, UK Articles, Video Clip, Website Content

20 years of this website celebration, download the Ultimate Lindsey Buckingham Visual Collection

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As part of the 20th anniversary of this website being active, we are sharing a rare collection of promo videos and live clips from Lindsey Buckingham and Fleetwood Mac.

This collection was curated by me many years ago onto DVD from various live and promo video clips, I cannot recall exactly when this collection was put together, but I suspect around 2003 and the Say You Will era from the latest collection of clips on this compilation.

I had traded this DVD many times in the years of snail mail trades and I have seen this collection being sold on auction sites in the past (tut tut), but this is the first time that I have put this collection out for download, and being the 20th anniversary of this site and Lindsey’s current health complications, now seems a  pretty good time to share. Continue reading 20 years of this website celebration, download the Ultimate Lindsey Buckingham Visual Collection →

Christine McVie, Fleetwood Mac, Fleetwood Mac 2018/19, Tour Info, UK Articles

Christine McVie: inside the world of Fleetwood Mac, then and now | Harper’s Bazaar

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By Ella Alexander
Mar 21, 2019
Harper’s Bazaar

As the band prepares for its UK return in June, Christine McVie talks Glastonbury, rock ‘n’ roll and retirement

June 2019 will be a big month for music fans for two reasons – an under-the-radar, little-known festival called Glastonbury and the return of Fleetwood Mac, the band’s first UK dates in six years. Sadly, this year at least, the two aren’t linked, but lead vocalist and songwriter Christine McVie says any decision to perform at Glastonbury isn’t down to the band itself.

“It isn’t up to me, it’s up to the management,” said McVie. “It’s their decision and down to logistics. I can’t say yes or no to Glastonbury, but I’d like to – so long as I don’t have to wear wellington boots on stage. Or maybe I’d just have to roll with it – wellie boots with mud.”

For now, fans will have to make do with two UK gigs at Wembley (the first time that McVie has performed in the UK with the group since officially rejoining), one of which sold out so fast that the band added a further date. Over 50 years after the band were first formed, appetite for Fleetwood Mac shows no signs of waning.

“Maybe people are just wondering when the first one of us is going to pop off because we’re not youngsters anymore,” laughs McVie. “Maybe people want to see us because they think it’s the last chance. We’re a young band at heart; you’d never think we are the age we are. We’re never static. It’s going to be fantastic.”

Continue reading Christine McVie: inside the world of Fleetwood Mac, then and now | Harper’s Bazaar →

Fleetwood Mac, Fleetwood Mac 2018/19, Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, Tour Info, UK Articles

“It was too challenging”: Fleetwood Mac say Lindsey Buckingham left after feud with Stevie Nicks | NME

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Nick Reilly

“A parting of company took place, and it had to take place.”

Fleetwood Mac have confirmed that Lindsey Buckingham left the iconic rock group after reigniting his feud with Stevie Nicks.

The singer left the band in acrimonious circumstances last year and said he had been fired by Stevie Nicks, who reportedly became enraged after he was seen “smirking” while she delivered a speech at a benefit concert.

While Stevie reportedly refused to ever share a stage with Lindsey again, founder Mick Fleetwood told Mojo that it was Lindsey who ultimately received his marching orders.

“Support really could not be given to ask the situation to continue. It was too challenging,” he explained. Continue reading “It was too challenging”: Fleetwood Mac say Lindsey Buckingham left after feud with Stevie Nicks | NME →