Scott Lapatine
Streogum.com
December 10, 2018

“It certainly has been … a surprising year,” Lindsey Buckingham joked from the stage at Manhattan’s Town Hall last week. Fleetwood Mac’s erstwhile singer and guitarist is playing shows in support of Solo Anthology, a career-spanning collection that’s somehow his first-ever hits package 37 years into a successful solo career.

The just-released 6xLP version of the set marks the first time some of his most beloved songs have been available on vinyl, too. But the big surprise this year is that Fleetwood Mac are also on tour, without him.

Buckingham and his fans were shocked when, following an all-star tribute concert in January, he was unceremoniously kicked out of the band via a phone call from manager Irving Azoff at Stevie Nicks’ behest. Neil Finn and Mike Campbell were hired to replace him and consequently Fleetwood Mac shows now include songs by Crowded House, Split Enz, and Tom Petty. The silver lining is that Buckingham was freed up to do this solo tour featuring some tunes he had never before played live.

From 1981’s Law And Order to last year’s collaborative LP with Mac bandmate Christine McVie, along with a handful of movie soundtrack contributions, Solo Anthology is an overdue showcase for the more adventurous side of Fleetwood Mac’s principal songwriter and arranger, not to mention his blazing fingerstyle guitar work. While he was in NYC, I sat down with the 69-year-old father of three at a restaurant near Central Park to learn the stories behind a selection of his solo tracks, get an update on his lawsuit against Fleetwood Mac (he revealed it was settled a few weeks ago), and find out what’s next for one of rock’s most gifted guitarists.

“Trouble” (1981)

STEREOGUM: “Trouble” was your first solo single. You played basically everything on Law And Order, but “Trouble” had George Hawkins on bass and a drum loop from Mick Fleetwood.

BUCKINGHAM: It was probably a departure from much of that album, and much of what I am not as much a fan of about it now is that it was kind of a reaction to the political climate in a post-Tusk environment. In a moment when I realized the only way I was going to explore the left side of my palate was to do solo work, Law And Order was a bit, shall we say, sarcastic as a body of work, a bit camp, maybe a bit too camp, almost verging on a comedy album in some ways in terms of the irony that was there and the sensibility. “Trouble” was a song that was very absent of that, and that’s probably one reason that they picked it out as a single. Continue reading Lindsey Buckingham Reveals Stories Behind His Solo Songs And Whether He’ll Ever Rejoin Fleetwood Mac | Stereogum →