Category Archives: UK Articles

Christine McVie, Fleetwood Mac, UK Articles

Rumours has it… Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie on making magic again | Mayfair Times

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After 16 years in the Kent wilderness, Christine McVie and Fleetwood Mac are creating magic once again… there’s even a new album in the pipeline. By Reyhaan Day

Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie offers me tea and a seat on a plush sofa. Among the things on her coffee table is a picture book called Crap Taxidermy. There’s a platinum record on the wall, and a stuffed dog looks out from under a side table next to a flickering fireplace.

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“Do you like my dog? I found him in an antique shop – he’s 100 years old and I call him Jarvis.”

McVie is a dog person – she had two until recently. “I had a lovely time with them, but do I miss having dogs? Dogs tie you down. Who’s going to look after them when I go on tour?” she says. “I thought about getting a bird – a parrot perhaps – and teaching it to talk.” But McVie doesn’t want to be held back any longer. “I want my freedom now.”

As one fifth of Fleetwood Mac, Christine McVie has helped define popular music since the late 1960s. With her bandmates, McVie has written songs that are loved across generations. With 1977’s Rumours, Fleetwood Mac became superstars, experiencing both critical acclaim and public adoration. She explains that there is something about the band’s music, and Rumours in particular, that appeals to all ages. “Parents played the album at home, but kids gravitated to the album as well; and now some of their children are turned on to Fleetwood Mac.” It’s something that McVie is still surprised by. “It’s really quite amazing, the dichotomy of people coming to see the shows – it ranges anywhere from 80 to eight. It’s very exciting.” Continue reading Rumours has it… Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie on making magic again | Mayfair Times →

Christine McVie, UK Articles

Moving On | The Sunday Times

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Hugh Graham
Published: 21 February 2016
The Sunday Times

Not quite going her own way

Million-pound drop: Christine McVie has reduced the price of her Kent home to £2.5m
Million-pound drop: Christine McVie has reduced the price of her Kent home to £2.5m

Fleetwood Mac’s fortunes may be reviving — the 1970s act’s 2014-15 reunion tour was a hot ticket, and their seminal album Rumours re-entered the Top 40 last week — but their resurgence isn’t helping Christine McVie sell her grade II listed Kent estate. The singer, 72, put the six-bedroom pile in Wickhambreaux on the market for £3.5m last year, but she’s just dropped the price to £2.5m (with nine acres, instead of the original 19).

McVie bought the estate in 1990, and quit the band to do it up — she was also afraid of flying. Yet it seems she’s not cut out for the quiet life: “I had this idea that I’d love the small village life, with the Range Rover and the dogs, and baking cookies,” she told The New Yorker magazine last year. “But then it got so boring. You couldn’t walk down the road without meeting two people related to each other. I missed the songs. And I missed the audience.”

Fleetwood Mac, UK Articles

Formula One coverage on Channel 4 to retain iconic Fleetwood Mac ‘The Chain’ title music | Daily Mail

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  • Channel 4 set to keep Fleetwood Mac’s ‘The Chain’ as intro music on their Formula One coverage starting this season
  • The BBC had used the track as its Formula One title music since 1978
  • Fleetwood Mac recorded the song for their Rumours album in 1976
  • Channel 4 will screen 10 live races and show highlights of the other 11

By Philip Duncan, Daily Mail
12 February 2016

Channel 4, the new terrestrial home of Formula One, will use Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain as its title music.

The song has become synonymous with the sport on the BBC since it was first adopted by the corporation in 1978.

Channel 4 tweeted on Friday: ‘F1 has a new home but some things just have to remain: we’re chuffed to announce that The Chain by Fleetwood Mac will be our title music.’

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Former McLaren driver David Coulthard has already made the switch from the BBC to Channel 4, but Suzi Perry, the presenter of the BBC’s F1 coverage following the departure of Jake Humphrey to BT Sport in 2013, last week ruled out joining him.

Channel 4 will show 10 races live – without commercial breaks – and screen extensive highlights of the remaining 11 races scheduled for the upcoming season which gets under way in Melbourne on March 20.

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THE CHAIN

‘The Chain’ was the seventh track on Fleetwood Mac’s February 1977 album ‘Rumours’ having been created the previous year.

It was created by combining segments from previously rejected songs and therefore is the only song on the album to be credited to all five band members of the time – Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, Christine McVie, John McVie and Stevie Nicks.
The bass section at the end of ‘The Chain’ was created by Fleetwood and John McVie, then combined with lyrics written separately by Nicks. She and Christine McVie then reworked the first part of the song.

To complete the song, Buckingham recycled the intro from an earlier duet with Nicks called ‘Lola (My Love)’ from their self-titled 1973 album.

The song became highly recognisable in the United Kingdom when the BBC adopted it for their Formula One coverage in 1978 until 1997. It returned when the BBC regained the broadcast rights in 2011.

At that time, as a result of a campaign to get ‘The Chain’ to No 1 in the UK chart, it peaked at No 81.

A 1997 re-release of the track on a live album ‘The Dance’ topped at No 30 in the American charts.

 

Fleetwood Mac, Release Info, UK Articles, Website Content

Fleetwood Mac’s TUSK is getting a new remaster with the deluxe, expanded treatment

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Release information has just appeared on Spin CDs in the UK, where they list three new versions of the Fleetwood Mac’s multi-platinum Tusk album remastered by Lindsey Buckingham ** (needs to be verified). The album is listed as being available on Dec 4th, 2015 and the set is listed to be released in three editions:

  • Tusk (Deluxe Edition 5CD/1DVD-A/2 Vinyl
  • Tusk (Expanded 3CD Digi-pack)
  • Tusk (1CD Jewel Case – 2015 Remaster)

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The information listed on the website is as follows…

Posted on October 23, 2015

TUSK will be available on December 4.

  • Fleetwood Mac Tusk (Deluxe Edition 5CD/1DVD-A/2 Vinyl) £54.99,
  • Fleetwood Mac Tusk (Expanded 3CD Digi-pack) £12.99,
  • Fleetwood Mac Tusk (1CD Jewel Case – 2015 Remaster) £9.99

Fleetwood Mac builds on its formidable legacy as one of rock’s most legendary acts as they re-visit their most ambitious album with deluxe and expanded editions of TUSK. Originally released in 1979, the GrammyAward-nominated, double-album sold more than four million copies worldwide, and reached number 1 in the UK album charts, and included hits like “Sara,” “Think About Me,” and the title track. Continue reading Fleetwood Mac’s TUSK is getting a new remaster with the deluxe, expanded treatment →

Fleetwood Mac, Tour Info, UK Articles

Glasto your own way as Fleetwood Mac set to sign for music festival | Daily Mirror

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19th Oct, 2015
Halina Watts
Daily Mirror (Uk)

Glastonbury organisers are in the final stages of signing Fleetwood Mac , we can reveal.

Fleetwood back: Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham
Fleetwood back: Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham

It comes after they headlined Isle Of Wight festival last year as a UK exclusive.

But now having kept that promise to Isle of Wight bosses, they are free to Go Their Own Way.

A festival source at Q tells us: “Glastonbury was always on the cards and they wanted to do it last year but they couldn’t because of the deal they have signed with Isle Of Wight organisers. Now they are free of that they can do what they want.”

It is not yet known how much Glastonbury mastermind Michael Eavis has offered the British-American rockers.

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Fleetwood Mac performing at IOW

But it will be significantly less than what Isle Of Wight organiser John Giddings splashed out to get them last year.

Giddings said he managed to get the five stars – including Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham – by showing them the dollar.

Apparently Michael Eavis was blown away by their tactics. Giddings revealed: “Michael Eavis said, ‘How did you get Fleetwood Mac?’ I said, I paid them!”

He said he had to invest in a show-stopping headline act to fill the festival.

“Glastonbury are in a privileged position, whereby they sell out in advance,” he explained. Continue reading Glasto your own way as Fleetwood Mac set to sign for music festival | Daily Mirror →

Christine McVie, UK Articles

Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie puts Kent mansion on sale for £3.5m | Daily Mail (UK)

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By Sophie Jane Evans for MailOnline
Published: 07:42 EST, 24 September 2015

Christine McVie, 72, has been spending an increasing amount of time in London since rejoining Fleetwood Mac

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So now, she has decided to put stunning Grade II-listed country home in Kent village of Wickhambreaux on sale

She is selling the mansion – where she wrote some solo material following band’s disintegration – for £3.5million

It boasts six bedrooms, four reception rooms, a three-bedroom outhouse, two cottages and sprawling gardens

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Stunning: Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie has put her sprawling Grade II-listed country home (pictured) in Kent on sale for £3.5million

She has been spending an increasing amount of time in London since rejoining her rock band for a global tour.

So now, Fleetwood Mac singer Christine McVie has decided to put her sprawling Grade II-listed country home in Kent on the market.

The 72-year-old, who penned some of the group’s biggest hits including Don’t Stop and Little Lies, is selling the mansion for a whopping £3.5million.

She is planning to ‘upsize’ in the capital – where she has been spending a lot of time with her bandmates – and ‘downsize’ in the country. Continue reading Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie puts Kent mansion on sale for £3.5m | Daily Mail (UK) →

Christine McVie, Fleetwood Mac, John McVie, Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, Peter Green, Stevie Nicks, UK Articles

Introducing… Fleetwood Mac: The Ultimate Music Guide – Uncut

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“There’s blood and guts and disagreements still to this day…”

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Early 1969. California has been hit by a series of destructive floods, so bad that the international telephone operator is sceptical a connection can be made between London and Los Angeles. When the call goes through, however, the NME’s Nick Logan has a few demanding questions for the first leader of Fleetwood Mac, Peter Green. One is how Green’s band will sustain their reputation as blues purists in the wake of a big hit single, the expansive “Albatross”. Will their next single be another change from what their fans have come to expect?

“I don’t really care,” says Green, yawning. “I never have done really. We’ve never done what was expected of Fleetwood Mac – we’ve always done the opposite. We just do what we want to do.”

Thus begins the remarkable story of Fleetwood Mac – a saga unparalleled in rock, as our new Uncut Ultimate Music Guide dedicated to the band makes clear (on sale in the UK on Thursday Sept 10, but available to order now at our online shop). Over the next four and a half decades, the band’s history has often read like an infinite series of surprise plot twists, where radical upheavals arrive with every new album. Key members come and go, lost to religious cults and mental breakdowns, victims of multiple romantic traumas. Musical directions and locations change as frequently as the lineup: the blues evolve into the apotheosis of sophisticated pop; and a remote Hampshire commune is swapped for the LA highlife.

As the revealing features collected in this Ultimate Music Guide prove, the journalists of Uncut, NME and Melody Maker have been alongside Fleetwood Mac every step of the way. They documented the rise and fall of Peter Green’s band, the emergence of Christine McVie, the transitional lineups of the early ’70s, the dramatic arrival of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, and the glory and devastation that soon followed. “Being in Fleetwood Mac is more like being in group therapy,” noted the mostly redoubtable Mick Fleetwood in 1977, as he contemplated the seismic impact of “Rumours” and laid bare – not for the last time – the private lives of its key players

Continue reading Introducing… Fleetwood Mac: The Ultimate Music Guide – Uncut →

Fleetwood Mac, Original Content, Tour Info, UK Articles, Website Content

Fleetwood Mac in the UK over the last six weeks: A few thoughts…….

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Fleetwood Mac completes the European leg of the On With The Show tour tonight in Dublin, Ireland at the 3 Arena.

Thinking back over the last six weeks we have seen many highs, with their first UK festival appearance since the early 70s at the Isle of Wight festival, six nights at the O2 in London and lots of positive reviews in the press.

However we have also seen some lows, the cancellation and non re-schedule of the Manchester show was poor form from the logistics team, we understand that illness can cause last minute cancellations, but this date should really have been rescheduled as the cancelled Birmingham date was, so not to disappoint thousands of loyal fans who had paid an enormous amount of hard earned money on travel arrangements and hotel stays, the reimbursement of the ticket cost is only one element of the overall cost.

But my gripe with this leg of the tour is not with the band or the tour, but with the UK TV and radio media, there has been next to nothing mentioned on the main channels in the UK on the momentous re-joining of Christine McVie and her first live appearances in the UK since 1990, or the first time that the Rumours-five had played in the UK since 1979 and the TUSK tour.

I would have thought that the BBC would have lapped this up with a new TV special that chronicled this ‘never thought would happen’ event. The tour stops were sell-outs, the band was playing their hearts out, celebrities from music, TV, and film were attending the shows, the MAC was well reviewed in the national press, but for radio and television next to nothing. We did get a bare minimum appearance on Sky Arts of four live songs and a small interview with Stevie and Mick from the Isle of Wight Festival, but that was it! Continue reading Fleetwood Mac in the UK over the last six weeks: A few thoughts……. →

Stevie Nicks, UK Articles

Going Her Own Way: Stevie Nicks | Saga Magazine

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Saga Magazine, June 2015
Words: Brian Hiatt

As the rock goddess returns to the UK, touring as part of Fleetwood Mac’s classic line-up for the first time in 16 years, she dares to dream of life beyond the band

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Stevie Nicks got to sleep at home last night for once, her skinny, half-blind, half-hairless 16-year-old dog, Sulamith, snuggling at her feet, in a four-poster bed too tall for either of them. ‘I have to take, like, a running jump to get up there,’ says Nicks, who, for all the potency of her presence, is five feet one without heels. She lives in an Oceanside condo in Santa Monica, a ‘space pad’ with floor-to-ceiling views of half of Los Angeles County. Her bedroom decor is spare: a Buddha statue on the polished hardwood floor, a vintage globe on a stand, a modest flatscreen, a rack of stage clothes in the corner the only reminder that she’s actually still on tour.

Nicks got back from a Fleetwood Mac show at the Forum around 4am, managing six and a half hours of sleep. She has another concert tonight, with no day off in between. Her back hurts. ‘We’re tired,’ Nicks says, brightly, ‘because we’re very old.’

Today’s show is in an Anaheim arena, an hour away. Nicks, her long blonde hair wrapped in plastic curlers, has flopped onto a well-worn black leather massage chair, feet up. We’ re in her backstage dressing room. In a couple of hours Nicks has to be back onstage in her black corset and skirt, harmonising once more on The Chain with a guy she dumped when Gerald Ford was US president. Continue reading Going Her Own Way: Stevie Nicks | Saga Magazine →

Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Nicks, UK Articles

Top ten Fleetwood Mac tracks from the Stevie Nicks era | Saga Magazine

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By Andy Stevens,
Wednesday 20 May 2015

From Rhiannon to Silver Springs, our round-up of the top ten Fleetwood Mac tracks from the Stevie Nicks era. Plus, read our in-depth Stevie Nicks interview in Saga Magazine.

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Fleetwood Mac became – and remain – giants of transatlantic adult-orientated rock. In fact, if that genre was patented, they could confidently lay claim to owning the term. But the band are defined by two distinct, successful eras.

First, there were the (arguably) hairier, hippier British blues-rock years of Fleetwood Mac’s late Sixties incarnation, led by Peter Green. Here, the band variously plugged-in, progged-up and blissed-out with hits including Albatross, Man Of The World, Oh Well and the memorably-titled The Green Manalishi (with the Two Prong Crown).

But Fleetwood Mac’s career banked high into the commercial stratosphere in the mid and late Seventies when American singer Stevie Nicks flounced onto the scene to transform the band into global stadium fillers, her voice at once ethereal and earthy while oozing western promise.

Fleetwood Mac’s gazillion-selling 1977 Rumours album remains a credible counterweight to the punk era in its biggest and noisiest year, and is recognised more so as years pass.

And here’s a thing: take a straw poll of first generation punks and we bet many would have had a copy of Rumours in their record collections at the time, a heavily-played guilty pleasure lurking behind The Clash and Sex Pistols’ first albums.

We’ve picked out ten of the best tracks from Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks era for your listening pleasure here. And we’ve done so with the shamelessly commercial premise in mind that some of the most popular and biggest-selling songs become both of those things for a reason. Continue reading Top ten Fleetwood Mac tracks from the Stevie Nicks era | Saga Magazine →