Tag Archives: Fleetwood Mac

Fleetwood Mac, Solo Activity, Stevie Nicks

Vision Quest – Stevie Nicks | Performing Songwriter (June 2007)

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Stevie Nicks built a beloved body of work within and without Fleetwood Mac—but success had a steep price. As a new greatest-hits album chronicles her solo success, the mysterious superstar takes stock on her life and music.

By Chris Neal
Performing Songwriter
June 2007

The weather is grey, windy and, as Stevie Nicks notes, “a little creepy” outside her home overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

“I call it the ‘amoeba fog,” she says, looking out from the living room of her Los Angeles home. “It sticks right to the coast. You might as well be in Seattle or London for several months out of the year. It suit me sometimes, but after it’s been that way for a couple of week, I start to go, ‘OK, I’d like to see the blue sky.”

Nicks is well acquainted with both the clouds and the blue sky of L.A. A native of Phoenix (she also keeps a house there), she moved to L.A. from San Francisco with guitarist and then-paramour Lindsey Buckingham in 1971. On New Year’s Eve 1974, both were asked to join Fleetwood Mac—and alongside keyboardist Christine McVie, bass player John McVie and drummer Mick Fleetwood, they helped to turn a British blues-rock warhorse into one of the best-selling and most influential bands in pop history.

Nicks became the group’s breakout star, thanks to her striking beauty, dusky alto and magnetic stage presence—but perhaps most of all her talents as a writer. Songs like “Dreams,” “Rhiannon,” “Sara” and “Gold Dust Woman” rang out as evocative, impressionistic transmissions from a parallel world a little more vivid and romantic than our own. Through a poetic lens, she examined femininity, mythology and love—particularly the disintegration and aftermath of her relationship with Buckingham.

In the spring of 1980, Nicks began work on her first solo album. The intervening years have seen her build a persona, fan base and musical legacy that stands apart from the mighty Mac. Hits like “Edge of Seventeen,” “Stand Back” and “Talk to Me” provided a constant reminder that Nicks was a singer and songwriter whose talents went much father than her contributions to the band she could never completely abandon. Those songs and a bounty of others chosen by Nicks herself are now collected on a new compilation album, Crystal Visions… The Very Best of Stevie Nicks. As dusk settled over L.A. and the “amoeba fog” clung stubbornly to the coast, we asked Nicks, 58, to describe her creative process, recount her journey through music and predict the future of Fleetwood Mac.

Continue reading Vision Quest – Stevie Nicks | Performing Songwriter (June 2007) →
Lindsey Buckingham, Release Info, Solo Activity, UK Articles

MAC Daddy – Lindsey in Q Magazine (Apr 2007)

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The Mac Daddy

Lindsey Buckingham talks of going back to basics, Fleetwood Mac, and showing off.
By Paul Elliott
April 2007

“I have a genuine need to get all this music out,” says Lindsey Buckingham. Fifty-seven and a father of three, he could be talking it easy these days. It’s not as if he needs to work: his on-off tenure as guitarist, singer, songwriter and producer for Fleetwood Mac has seen to that. But Buckingham is as busily creative now as he’s ever been, having recently released his fourth solo album. Written, recorded and mixed in hotel rooms during the last Fleetwood tour, Under The Skin was both critically lauded and in harmony with neo-folkers like Vetiver or Devendra Banhart. He has its follow-up already written, and admits he’d like to make another Fleetwood Mac album too. But with the Mac on indefinite hiatus, Buckingham the free-standing artist is flourishing. “I love that innocent idea of presentation on those great old ‘70s records,” he muses.

How did you find time to make an album during that Mac tour?
Simple. We’re lucky if we do three shows in a week, because Stevie [Nicks] needs time to rest her voice. So we had a lot of days off, and there are only so many movies you can watch on the hotel TV.

Under The Skin is very much a solo album, just your voice and guitar.
I’m very happy with it, because in one sense it’s a departure, but in another sense it’s going back to an approach I was more in touch with before I was in Fleetwood Mac. On the last tour, I’d played simpler versions of some old songs like Big Love, and I wanted to translate that style to this record. It’s like Blue by Joni Mitchell. There’s so little on that record. There’s a real purity about it, a very intimate feel.

It’s markedly different to your previous solo records.
I went back and listened to them recently. I’m not crazy about the first one [Law And Order] but Go Insane is better, even though Roy Thomas Baker [producer] spent most of the time just barking orders. I’d have to smoke a big joint to be able to listen to all of it, and I haven’t done that in a long time. I hope nobody is listening in to this conversation… I’m clean, look in my bag!

Three solo albums in 25 years – and now, perhaps, two inside a year? And the next one a rock album?
Yeah, let’s rock! Well, that’s what some people are saying, haha. There’s maybe more interest in the idea of a conventional rock album, and it would certainly make the marketing strategy easier. But those things come second to doing something that’s true to myself.

Was that the thinking behind the autobiographical lyrics on Under The Skin, like when you speak of being a “visionary” on Cast Away Dreams.
That was inspired by a review in Rolling Stone of the first Fleetwood Mac albums that myself and Stevie were on. It referred to me as the misunderstood visionary. I don’t think of myself as that so much as someone who learned to be his own biggest fan.

In the same song you also reflect upon the impact your musician’s ego has on your family life.
That’s an overstatement for the drama of the song. But, I’ve seen my kids look disappointed and even now, they don’t always understand my work. They were with me on the Fleetwood Mac tour, and my youngest son said something about daddy showing off in front of all these people. I guess he had a point. I was playing a lot more rock guitar, and there was definitely more testosterone going on – well, what little I have left.

Have you seen the rest of the band since that tour ended?
I speak to Mick [Fleetwood] a few times a year. I saw Stevie a few months ago. She gave me a setlist of what we should play the next time we’re on the road. It’ll happen. But when, I’m not sure. We may make another record, but it’s difficult to tell.

Nothing is ever simple with Fleetwood Mac.
That’s true. But hey, that’s what makes it so interesting. We’ve never all been on the same page, taste-wise. We really have no business being in a band together.

Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Nicks

Stevie Nicks – Long Distance Winner

LONG DISTANCE WINNER – Surviving the 70s
ANDY CAPPER
Viceland.com
May 2005

I’m 56 now, but music still has the same effect on me as when I was 15. Every so often, I’ll hear a couple of songs that will just kill me and make me go instantly to my desk to write, and then straight to the piano to compose. That feeling is something that’s never gone away and I feel really blessed by that.

I know some people say they used to write better when they were younger, but I feel the greatest writing for me is yet to come. I’m always working on new material and I’m always inspired. At the moment, I’m going between preparing for a short residency at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas and composing a series of songs based on the books of Rhiannon, these Welsh legends that I really love. They’re such beautiful stories. It’s what the old Welsh people left behind to teach future generations about how to raise their children and how to deal with relationships—how to run their lives, basically.

Another thing that inspires me in my music at the moment is my niece Jesse. She’s 13 but she’s an inch taller than me, with black hair and blue eyes. Sometimes when I’m running on my treadmill and listening to music on my CD player, I’ll be singing and howling along while Jesse’s in the same room and I’ll make her listen to how the singer is singing. Jesse was with me when I wrote four songs for the last Fleetwood Mac album, and she even got to sing on the title track, “Say You Will.” That was fun. Continue reading Stevie Nicks – Long Distance Winner →

Fleetwood Mac, Mick Fleetwood, Stevie Nicks

Mick and Stevie at the 20th Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Ceremony I Mar 2005

nicks_rrhof2005

20th Annual Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony
Modern Guitarist
March 19, 2005
Words by Hugh Ochoa
Photographs by Hugh Ochoa and Sean North

The press room was behind the stage of the ceremony ballroom, and it was to this room the inductees and inductors were brought after an induction for photos and interviews. It was a pleasant surprise when Stevie Nicks and Mick Fleetwood arrived and agreed to a Q&A session and photo op in the press room.

When Nicks was asked about her up-coming “Vegas Tour” she replied, “Well, it’s not really a tour, it’s just four days. I am looking forward to it, because it’s a chance to play and do something where you don’t really have to travel. So for me, as an almost 57-year-old woman, this looks very good, because it means you can put all of your energy into the show as opposed to travelling all over the United States. So it would be a nice thing for me to be able to do till I’m a very old little old lady.”

“Where are you doing the shows?” Nicks was asked.

“I think Caesar’s. I’m not a gambler so I’m not really familiar with all that.”

When queried about her participation in the movie “School Of Rock” she replied, “Well I have to tell you, I actually watched that with a 15-year-old who didn’t know I was in it and I didn’t mention that. And it was so trippy and so much fun because though I’d seen it once it was wonderful to see it with someone that young. I felt very honoured to have been the only woman actually mentioned in that movie. So for me, I have to say, you know, it was the neatest thing ever to happen to me.

Mick Fleetwood stated in regards to the band, “The future of Fleetwood Mac…uhh…”

“We’re resting.” Nicks helps out.

“We’re resting.” Fleetwood concurs. “We had a long recording period and then went out and did the better part of 2 years work all over the world. So having a hiatus…”

“135 shows” Nicks interjects.

“…but there’s always a Fleetwood Mac story somewhere,” continues Fleetwood. “But I’m enjoying being at home to tell you the truth.” [laughs]

Nicks adds, “I think, you know, what happened is that we started “Say You Will”, in uh…I started with everybody on February 2, 2002 ,and then it took over a year to record and then 3 months of rehearsal and then 135 shows in a year-and-a-half of touring so we’re just resting right now because we feel that, as all wonderful things go, you come out, and you know, you make a big show of it, and then you go away for a little bit, and rest, so that when you come back, it’s all wonderful again”.

When asked if there was any chance of Christie ever coming back to perform with FM again, Mick replied in a very slow and solemn tone, “I think very, very slim next to nothing, so I will say, ‘No’. Ah, but we miss her.”

Nicks added when asked if they were going to perform or be on stage or if they are just fans, “We’re just here to watch, because we both feel that being in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame is our greatest honor and if we can possibly be here for whoever is being inducted, then we will be here. Cause it’s important and it’s our club and it’s very very special.”

Mick adds, “I’m overjoyed Mr. Buddy Guy is being inducted tonight. It’s just great to see a gentle man being inducted and I think Eric is gonna play with him, so I’m thrilled. A blues man at heart I am. So there you go.”

Finally, when asked about the most gratifying part of the band, Nicks concludes, “Well, the most gratifying part is to be a member of a band, especially a band that is as good, I think, as my band is probably the best thing that I’ve ever done in my whole life. Fleetwood Mac is the thing that I am most proud of, and I think that this man would agree that it’s something that we love really deeply and it’s wonderful that everybody loves it too, but for us, it’s like the most…it’s like our life, you know. It’s been our life since 1975 and for Mick even way before, when Fleetwood Mac was first formed. So it’s a long, incredible special, yellow brick road.”

 

Fleetwood Mac, Release Info

Fleetwood Mac back on track | USA Today

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By Edna Gundersen,
USA TODAY
Posted 2/4/2003 7:21 PM

Rumours confirmed Fleetwood Mac’s place in rock history. The question now is whether the storied ’70s band has currency in 2003.

Four of the five original members of Fleetwood Mac reunited for the recording of Say You Will, to be released on April 15.

A new Mac attack starts April 15 with Say You Will, the band’s first studio album boasting a quorum of core members since 1987’s Tango in the Night.

Singer/guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, who left after Tango and returned for Mac’s lucrative 1997 reunion, produced the album, which also features singer Stevie Nicks, bassist John McVie and drummer Mick Fleetwood. Singer/keyboardist Christine McVie retired.

The album, recorded in Los Angeles over the past 18 months, contains new songs written by Buckingham and Nicks. It also has a studio version of Bleed to Love Her, which had been included on 1997’s live reunion disc, The Dance.

Snippets of Say You Will can be heard in Fox promos for That ’70s Show.

That decade found Fleetwood Mac in peak form. Rumours, the top-selling album of 1977 and third-best in 1978, spawned hits Go Your Own Way, Dreams, Don’t Stop and You Make Loving Fun, and for a time it reigned as the biggest seller in history. It has sold18 million copies and ranks ninth among U.S. best sellers. The band sustained success in the ’80s when Nicks’ solo career also flowered, but splintered lineups in the ’90s led to decreased sales and airplay.

Although fans rallied for the 1997 reunion tour and chart-topping album, pop’s current climate tends to relegate veteran acts to the oldies circuit.

“It’s difficult to think of Fleetwood Mac making a bad album, but I’m not sure how much difference that would make,” says Anthony DeCurtis, Rolling Stone contributing editor. “The new music is entirely secondary. The best parallel would be Paul McCartney, who made a pretty good record (Driving Rain) in 2001. He had a huge successful tour, but the record didn’t do much.

“That’s the problem Fleetwood Mac faces. Obviously, they’ll do big business on the road. The larger issue is: Will radio play this record? It’s amazing to think that the band that helped invent FM radio may go begging to get airplay. Fleetwood Mac is imprisoned by its own gilded cage.”

Considering the success of tours by the Rolling Stones (three original members) and The Who (two), Christine McVie’s absence shouldn’t impede ticket sales, he says. “The version of Fleetwood Mac that most people know is 80% intact,” says DeCurtis, who predicts a box office gold mine. But in record stores, “these bands almost exist in a vacuum.”

DeCurtis says he doubts that the Dixie Chicks’ current hit cover of Nicks’ Landslide will fuel Mac interest. But Billboard director of charts Geoff Mayfield says, “I put that in the ‘it can’t hurt’ category.”

Recent sales patterns reveal increased interest in vintage rockers, he says. He notes that roughly 30 acts that appeal largely to older audiences, including McCartney, Bruce Springsteen and James Taylor, last year enjoyed their best sales weeks in the 12 years SoundScan has been tabulating data.

“People with gray hair are buying records,” he says. And unlike their younger counterparts, “they’re not burning CDs or file-swapping as much.”

Say You Will may not reach the sales of Rumours, but it could thrive even without much radio support.

“It’s not fair to expect another Rumours,” Mayfield says. “Considering the reunion album was their first No. 1 debut in a long while, the new record has a pretty good chance for a handsome start.”

Fleetwood Mac, Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, UK Articles

How We Met; Mick Fleetwood And Lindsey Buckingham | The Independent (UK)

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The Independent (UK)
8th May 1998
by Lucy O’Brien

Guitarist and songwriter Lindsey Buckingham (far right), 50, made his first album in 1973 with his lover, the vocalist Stevie Nicks. In 1975 the duo joined Fleetwood Mac, and helped transform the band from one rooted in raw British blues to the biggest-selling mainstream rock act of the late Seventies. In 1987 he went solo, and has a new album out later this year. He now lives in Los Angeles. Fellow LA resident and drummer Mick Fleetwood, 51, founded Fleetwood Mac in 1967 with Peter Green. After Green quit in 1970, the band went through several, famously stormy incarnations, before breaking up in 1995. The five members of the Seventies line-up were reunited for 1997’s ‘The Dance’ album and tour
1998 FLEETWOOD MAC ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME 1

LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM: I met Mick right before New Year’s Eve in 1974. Stevie and I were living in LA. We’d done an album on Polydor as a duo, which had come out without making much of a splash, and we were trying to figure out what the hell to do next. Anyway, we were doing demos of new tunes one day at Sound City studio in the San Fernando Valley. At one point I walked towards the control room. I heard a song of ours, “Frozen Love”, being played very loudly and I saw this giant of a man standing up, grooving to a guitar solo of mine. I thought, “What is goin’ on?”, and left them to it. That man was Mick.

When he heard my guitar something obviously clicked in his mind, because after their guitarist Bob Welch left, I got a call from Mick asking if I wanted to join Fleetwood Mac. Originally they weren’t looking for a duo, but I said Stevie and I were a package deal.

Continue reading How We Met; Mick Fleetwood And Lindsey Buckingham | The Independent (UK) →

Christine McVie, Fleetwood Mac, Lindsey Buckingham

Rock Village Interview with Christine McVie and Lindsey Buckingham

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By Gary Graff (January 29 1998)

Nobody proclaimed hell would have to freeze over before the members of the Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac got back together. It’s been a decade since this particular fivesome — singer Stevie Nicks, guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, keyboardist Christine McVie, drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie — recorded together, and a decade-and-a-half since they last toured. But, thanks to a bit of maturity, some squelched drug habits and a few lukewarm solo careers, the Mac is back. And so is the audience that has scooped up some 26 million copies of Rumours since its 1977 release. Fleetwood Mac’s recent live album, The Dance, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard chart and the ensuing tour sold-out arenas across North America. But the success continued into 1998. Mac was recently inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame, and The Dance is up for a Grammy. In this chat with RockVillage, Buckingham and Christine McVie show they don’t stop thinking about tomorrow.

RockVillage: Are you surprised at how successful this project has been?

Lindsey Buckingham: The album coming in at No. 1, that was really strange, I don’t know what that means. It’s just nice to know there’s so much of a pull for us to be up there together.

Christine McVie: I’m not now, no. But I was. Now I’m just happily sort of grooving along with it. It’s been terrific fun. I was shocked we did get together in the first place. I didn’t believe it would happen. 

Continue reading Rock Village Interview with Christine McVie and Lindsey Buckingham →
Article Archive Pages, Fleetwood Mac, Release Info, Stevie Nicks

A Time to Dance, Fleetwood Mac is Back | BAM Magazine

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Never Break The Chain

Jeff McDonald talks to Fleetwood Mac singer and pop-culture icon Stevie Nicks about old rumours, the new dance and her life as a “living adjective”

WHEN I FIRST RECEIVED THE ASSIGNMENT TO interview Stevie Nicks — who’s my all-time rock n’ roll idol, not to mention a pop-culture icon of legendary status — I was nervous. But upon my arrival at her West LA home, I found Ms. Nicks not to be the mystical, witchy, other-wordly pop diva I’d expected, but rather a casual, articulate and very down-to-earth person. As she opened the door barefoot wearing a thrift-store-type vintage dress, she invited me into her home and offered me fresh cherries and ice-water. Immediately, I got the feeling that if I had needed a place to stay, Stevie would’ve let crash on her couch. She’s a very cool woman. As you know, Stevie Nicks is Fleetwood Mac’s charismatic lead vocalist, who brought ballet (along with Freddie Mercury, that is) and brilliant pop poetry to the masses. On the 20th anniversary of their mega-platinum-selling album, Rumours, Fleetwood Mac have reformed for the most-anticipated tour of the year. Along with this nationwide string of appearances, the band which includes guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, keyboardist Christine McVie, bassist John McVie and drummer Mick Fleetwood- have just released a new CD, The Dance, which is a live recording of their already legendary MTV special.

I’m not a rock journalist so I’m a little nervous.
Don’t be nervous.

When I get nervous I get chapped lips.
Want some Chap-Stick?

I think I’ll be OK.
Are you sure? We’ve got a whole house of women here, we’ve got everything.

I had a little problem with Chap-Stick-I got addicted to it so I’ve had to give it up, but thanks anyway. Let’s start with the MTV performance that you taped earlier this spring. Unfortunately, I couldn’t go, but a friend of mine who went told me her hair actually stood up on her arms. And I know that Courtney Love cried three times during the concert. It was so unfair that I had to miss it.
I’m sorry you had to miss it, too.

I did see one song, “The Chain,” on video. It sounded so cool, so vital. Not at all “oldies” music.
From the first day on April 1st, I said to myself, if I go up there and it feels like some kind of retro thing, I’m off the stage, I’m out of the hall, I’m not going to do this. But it never felt like that. It felt like we were getting back into rehearsal, just starting up again. Like maybe we’d been off for a year. That’s how it felt.

Continue reading A Time to Dance, Fleetwood Mac is Back | BAM Magazine →
Article Archive Pages, Fleetwood Mac, John McVie, Release Info

A life with Fleetwood Mac – John McVie | Bass Player

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Bass Player
May/June 1995
By Alexis Sklarevski

John McVie has been an integral part of several revolutions in popular music. Born on November 26, 1945, McVie grew up in England. He started playing in a group called the Krewsaders while still in school – and he’s never stopped. In the 1960s, he laid down the bottom for the seminal blues-rock band John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, which paved the way for groups like Cream, Led Zeppelin, and the Jeff Beck Group. Then, in the ’70s, he helped Fleetwood Mac to become one of the biggest and most successful pop acts in the world. McVie’s approach to the bass may not be considered “technical” or “schooled” – but there’s no denying that he can inject more heart and soul into one not than more modern “whiz kids” can summon up on an entire record.

Over the past 30 years, partnered with rock-solid drummer Mick Fleetwood, McVie has provided one stellar bass line after another for an astounding array of Fleetwood Mac hits, such as “Rhiannon”, “Say you love me”, and “Dreams”. I had the opportunity to interview John before the start of a Fleetwood Mac recording session in Hollywood, where the band is preparing to add yet another album to its long and colorful history.

What’s the new Fleetwood Mac lineup?

There are actually two entities right now. There’s the road band, with Dave Mason and Billy Burnette on guitar, Bekka Bramlett (Delaney and Bonnie’s daughter) on vocals, Mick, and myself. Then there’s the recording band, which has (singer/keyboardist) Christine McVie in it. This new band has a little more edge to it, and it’s bluesier than before. Bekka’s playing is very R&B, Billy is rock & roll and rockabilly, and Dave is… Well, Dave! The combination seems to work really well; I’m very happy with it.

Continue reading A life with Fleetwood Mac – John McVie | Bass Player →
Archive News, Lindsey Buckingham, Reviews, Solo Activity

LIFE AFTER MAC : At the Coach House, Lindsey Buckingham Will Be Playing His First Concert Since His Old Band Broke Up | LA Times

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By Mike Boehm 

Lindsey Buckingham is scheduled to lose his virginity tonight at 8 in front of 500 people. He says he isn’t nervous.

Before defenders of the public virtue take alarm, it should be noted that Buckingham’s rite of passage, while it may involve some loud noises and sweating, will be purely musical.

At 42, Buckingham is no blushing bride in the world of rock ‘n’ roll. To the contrary, he is a tremendously savvy pop-rock craftsman whose contributions as a singer, songwriter, guitarist and, most crucially, as an arranger and recording studio auteurwere indispensable in transforming Fleetwood Mac from a dogged band of hard-luck barnstormers to a paragon of pop success. This is one guy who chased after musical fame and fortune and found out what it was like to go all the way.

However, he has never played a show in which he had to go all the way on his own. That will change at the Coach House tonight, when he will play the first concert of his life in which he’ll be leading a band by himself (he and the band will be back again Friday). Continue reading LIFE AFTER MAC : At the Coach House, Lindsey Buckingham Will Be Playing His First Concert Since His Old Band Broke Up | LA Times →