American Mcvie Mac Research Paper

Amber Miller
ENGL 1301-S73
Professor Gilleylen
May 8, 2012
Go Your Own Way They have been called blues, rock, pop, and folk, but one title that goes without question is legendary. Fleetwood Mac has been through many changes both personally and professionally through the years. Officially, it has been forty five years since the band was formed in London, England in 1967 although, if you were to view a concert of the original lineup, you would think that your eyes were deceiving you (fleetwoodmac.com). The original lineup of the band that has become so loved and well known around the world consisted of four men. They were a group formed at the dawn of the second “Blues Boom” to sweep over England (Evans 11). Mick Fleetwood, John McVie,
Jeremy Spencer, and Peter Green were four musicians brought together by the breaking up of their own separate acts. This four man lineup would morph over the years into the most common and most successful lineup consisting of Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Christine McVie (formerly Perfect), Stevie Nicks, and Lindsey Buckingham. From Fleetwood Mac’s formation, to their disintegration, through their resurrection they have remained one of the most successful rock bands ever and continue to show the music industry the true definition of a timeless act. The second “Blues Boom” in England holds credit for giving pop culture some of the most well known names in music. Eric Clapton, Rod Stewart, the Rolling Stones, and Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac are some of the biggest names that come to mind. The latter received its name from the marriage of one of the greatest rhythm sections in Rock n’ Roll history. Fleetwood Mac was named by Peter Green for a single that he, Mick Fleetwood, and John McVie recorded. When asked about the name, Peter Green said that he had titled the single after “his favorite rhythm section” referring to the drumming of Mick Fleetwood and the bass guitar of John McVie (Evans 24). It could be said that Green has amazing foresight as Fleetwood and McVie remain the only consistent members of the bands original lineup. Mick Fleetwood was born in Cornwall, England on June 24th, 1947 to a British Royal Air Force family (Furman 12). He did much traveling as a young boy which was capped off by a stay at the Rudolf Steiner School in Gloucestershire (Fleetwood, Davis 18-19). The Steiner school offered Mick something no other prep school he encountered had - a chance to explore his creativity and his love for the drums. Through his time at more traditional prep schools, Mick had struggled with an undiagnosed learning disability (Fleetwood, Davis 15). He would find out in adulthood that he was, in fact, dyslexic. Drumming seemed to be the one thing that made sense to him and the one thing that made him happy; however, even he says that the disability can cause problems with his musical ability. Speaking of his dyslexia in his autobiography Fleetwood My Life and Adventures in Fleetwood Mac, Mick Fleetwood says, “It’s very difficult for me to repeat anything the same way twice.” (15) After many struggles with a traditional education, it was in 1963 at the age of fifteen that Mick decided to leave Gloucestershire for London and begin his musical quest (Fleetwood, Davis 20). John McVie was born in Ealing, West London on November 26th, 1945 (Furman 13). John briefly played the trumpet as a child, but found his footing as a guitar player at the age of fourteen (Evans 13). While at Walpole Grammar School, he soon realized that all of his young friends had aspirations to be lead guitar players. With this knowledge, John made the fateful decision to remove the top two strings from his guitar and begin learning how to play bass. He learned by mimicking British legends such as Jet Harris of the Shadows and in 1962, just shy of his seventeenth birthday, he left school and set out for the London music scene (Evans 13). It was in London, through a twist of fate that Mick Fleetwood and John McVie met in 1963. Mick Fleetwood was playing with the band The Cheynes and John McVie with The Bluebreakers, and both bands were signed to the same label (Furman 15). Inevitably, John and Mick met at the studio and the bands were featured playing together in many London nightclubs. The Cheynes broke up in the spring of 1965 leaving Mick as drummer with no band to play with. He was recruited to play in the bands The Bo Street Runners, Peter B’s Looners, and Shotgun Express (with Rod Stewart), but it was in Feb. of 1967 that Mick was asked to join the Bluebreakers and the unbreakable bond between he and John McVie was formed. The Bluesbreakers were formed by John Mayell who is now considered one of the forefathers of British blues (Evans 14). Mick Fleetwood’s stint with the band was short lived as his affection for the drink was too much in the strict Mayell’s eyes. John McVie had always been fond of alcohol himself and having two heavy drinkers in the band was too much in Mayell’s opinion. Fleetwood was asked to leave just a few months after joining (Evans 21). This did not much alter the course of Fleetwood and McVie on their road to musical partnership. John Mayell himself, while being interviewed for Mick Fleetwood’s documentary Two Sticks and a Drum, called the pair “musical soul mates”. In June of 1967, McVie left the Bluesbreakers as well, and along with Mick Fleetwood, Jeremy Spencer, and Peter Green, went on to form Fleetwood Mac (Evans 24). The band made its debut playing the Windsor Jazz and Blues Festival in December of 1967 (Evans 32-33).
The concert made the band an overnight success and their debut album, aptly titled, “Fleetwood Mac” was released on February 24th, 1968. It peaked at number four on the UK charts and stayed in the top ten for seventeen weeks, prompting Melody Maker magazine to call it “the best English blues LP ever released here” (Evans 33). It was in a flurry of following tour dates that John McVie met a pianist from fellow blues outfit called Chicken Shack. Christine Perfect was born July 12th, 1944 in Birmingham, England (Furman 20). Christine was never a stranger to music as her father was a professional violinist in the Birmingham Symphony (Furman 20). Her introduction John McVie soon proved to be another pivotal piece in the making of Fleetwood Mac. The two began dating and were married in August of 1968 (fmlegacy.com). It was because of her marriage that Christine decided to quit Chicken Shack, despite being named Female Vocalist of the Year in 1969 and 1970 by Melody Maker magazine (fmlegacy.com). It was domesticity that Christine desired, but being married to John McVie left the music industry knocking at her door. She was constantly playing guest piano spots on their albums and even designed the cover of the album entitled “Kiln House” (fmlegacy.com). Peter Green’s departure in 1970 prompted Mick Fleetwood to ask Christine to join the band on a full time basis, - to which she
accepted. This set the stage for the band that would be known as Fleetwood Mac for the next five years, minus Jeremy Spencer who was lost to a religious cult called The Children of God during a 1971 tour in Los Angeles. Mick Fleetwood himself said in his documentary Two Sticks and a Drum that it was “ [a] very disorganized, survival period” for the band (Two Sticks and a Drum). The band had endured four years of almost constant work and touring when they decided to move to the United States in 1974, settling in Los Angeles (fmlegacy.com) It should come as no surprise that after coming to America, the band continued to face lineup changes and personal affairs that would lead to the eventual disintegration of one of the greatest musical acts of the time. The first major breakdown of the band occurred in January of 1974 when a fake Fleetwood Mac lineup was constructed by then manager Clifford Davis. Feeling he was the rightful owner to the name of the band, Davies accumulated a group of musicians and put them on the road to fulfill a group of tour dates (Evans 104). The real Fleetwood Mac banded together and obtained a restraining order to put a stop to the fake Mac (theuncool.com). Through future court battles it was determined that John McVie and Mick Fleetwood were the sole and rightful owners to the name and the band played on. It was through another twist of fate that the final two members of the band’s most successful lineup were discovered by Mick Fleetwood. While in Los Angeles, Fleetwood was shopping around for a new studio in which to record when was referred to a studio called Sound City (Evans 112). Mick was listening to recordings with producer Keith Olsen, who was displaying his producing talents, when they came upon a recording by a little know San Franciscan act called Buckingham Nicks. The duo consisted of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. Lindsey Buckingham born October 3rd, 1949 in Palo Alto, California, began playing guitar at age seven (Evans 115-16). Stephanie Lynn “Stevie” Nicks was born May 26th, 1948 in Phoenix, Arizona (Evans 118). The Buckingham Nicks duo met in San Francisco where they were students at Menlo Atherton High School, and both went on to attend San Jose State University (Evans 119). It was after one year of college that they both dropped out and hit the road for Los Angeles with a dream of superstardom. The exit of Bob Welch from the Fleetwood Mac lineup left a place in the band that now needed filling. Mick Fleetwood recalled a demo of the young guitar player and female vocalist that he had previously heard. It was a meeting with John and Christine McVie that sealed the deal and Buckingham Nicks were welcomed into the folds of Fleetwood Mac (Evans 122-23).
Now came the time for the new band to prove itself. It was in February of 1975 that the new Fleetwood Mac went into the studio to record what would be its tenth album, and as they stood, it was also the tenth lineup change for the band (Evans 123). Fleetwood Mac did not disappoint, and the release of the self titled album Fleetwood Mac became the best selling LP Warner Bros. had ever seen (LaBlanc 59). It was with this success that the pressure really mounted for the group, and it began to take its toll. When the band returned to the studio to record 1977’s Rumours, there was turmoil all around. John and Christine McVie’s marriage was on the outs, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks were in the middle of a tense breakup, and Mick Fleetwood’s marriage was falling apart. It was through this emotional turmoil that the band faced the studio and turned out what would become the ninth best-selling album of all time (LaBlanc 60). The album also won the Grammy in 1977 for album of the year (Evans 157). On the making of Rumours, Lindsey Buckingham said, “A big part of the appeal of Rumours was that it is a musical soap opera” (Two Sticks and a Drum). With all of the turmoil occurring at the bands core, it is easy to see how such a statement could be made. The band released another successful album titled Tusk in 1979, but it was not met with the same success as Rumours, although a success such as that of Rumours is hard to duplicate. With the bands success came one inevidible issue: money.
The band could now seemingly afford anything they wanted and what most of them wanted was an escape. Unfortunately for many of the band members, this came in the form of cocaine, as it seemed that the coffee was no longer effective against their grueling work schedule. When speaking of the bands past abuse, Christine McVie told Rolling Stone “it was quite natural to walk around with a great sack of cocaine in your pocket,” Stevie Nicks agreed in Spin magazine saying that drugs were “just the friendly, fun thing to do” (Furman 101). The band’s breakups and make ups, combined with everyone’s drug seemed to be leading to an unavoidable end. The absolute breaking point appeared to come after the Tusk tour of 1979-80. A month after the tour concluded, the band sat down with their respective attorneys and accountants (Fleetwood, Davis 238). It seemed as though the thirteen month long effort had hardly been worth it. After all of the work and travel, the tour had netted next to nothing for the band members. All fingers seemed to point at Mick as he was acting manager and it appeared as though there were large sums of cash that were simply unaccounted for (Evans 181-82). It was at this point in the words of Christine McVie that the band, “…felt that we deserved a break, and we took that break. We took a long break!” (Evans 182). The turn of the decade also allowed members Stevie Nicks, Mick Fleetwood, and Lindsey Buckingham
the opportunity to pursue solo endeavors. As the heart of Fleetwood Mac’s stage performances, the transition to a solo career was a fairly easy one for Stevie Nicks. Notably, she is also the one who garnered the most success outside of the band. Stevie had ambitions to record a solo album long before the dream of her album Bella Donna came true. She had formed her own record company in 1976 and called it Modern Records. Fleetwood Mac, says Stevie was always her primary concern. She was quoted saying in Fleetwood Mac The Definitive History, “You don’t call in sick to Fleetwood Mac!” (Evans 194) It was during the break after the Tusk tour that Stevie was finally able to see some of her musical aspirations come to fruition. The problem with Fleetwood Mac was that there were more writers (Buckingham, McVie, and Nicks) writing more material than the band would ever be able to use (Evans 194). Stevie had an entire arsenal of material that she was eager to record. Bella Donna was released in July of 1981 and was an instant success. Mick Fleetwood had perhaps the most interesting hiatus from the band. He chose to travel to the west coast of Africa, more specifically Ghana. Mick was eager to explore the roots of the western music he had grown to love. He spent a good portion of 1980 recording The Visitor with local Ghanaian acts and fellow musicians (Evans 186-90). It was through this album that Mick in his autobiography Fleetwood My Life and Adventures in Fleetwood Mac said he. “…gained a tremendous sense of how little I actually needed to consider myself doing OK” (Fleetwood, Davis 246). The Visitor was met with little to no fanfare and had almost zero impact on the charts (Evans 190). Regardless of this, Mick Fleetwood said in the album cover of The Visitor that, “…being a visitor to Ghana will be a heartfelt memory with me for the rest of my life”.(Evans, 190) Similarly to Stevie, Lindsey Buckingham seemed to constantly be creating more songs than Fleetwood Mac could ever play. During the bands hiatus Lindsey made use of his time and material, recording his first solo effort titled Law and Order (Evans 191). Lindsey viewed himself as truly a one man band, playing all of the guitar, keyboards, bass, percussion parts and taking on the lead vocals (Evans 191). While Lindsey’s album fared better than Mick’s solo effort (reaching number thirty-two on the American charts and going all the way to number one in Australia), nobody could touch the machine that had become Stevie Nicks (Evans 194). There were other albums for Fleetwood Mac such as 1982’s Mirage and 1987’s Tango in the Night, but for all intensive purposes, The Mac was on an extended break from one another. Getting Fleetwood Mac together during this period always proved to be a challenge. After the release of Tango in the Night in 1987, the members had agreed to a ten week tour, even though this toke more time away from everyone’s solo efforts. At the last minute, it was Lindsey Buckingham who pulled out of the tour stating it was something, “…that he simply could not cope with” (Evans 241). This is what ended up being Lindsey’s last recordings with Fleetwood Mac, or so fans thought. (Furman 191). The presidential inaugural ball of 1993 brought about an interesting reunion opportunity for Fleetwood Mac. It was this opportunity that laid the ground work for the band’s eventual resurrection. Bill Clinton had chosen Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 anthem “Don’t Stop” for his 1992 presidential campaign (Evans 261). After his election, President Clinton personally invited Fleetwood Mac to play at his inaugural gala on January 19th, 1993. While it seemed this would be the push the members of the band would need to get back together, it was not so. There would be one more album Time in 1995 which consisted of a rebuilt Fleetwood Mac while Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks were off pursuing solo careers. It was at a one-time private engagement that four fifths of the lineup was assembled, minus Lindsey Buckingham (Evans 267). Stevie Nicks said of this reunion, “We had our separate lives and careers, but the chance to work together again … was hard to resist.”(Evans 267) Lindsey eventually came around and the band was set to perform for MTV on May 22nd and 23rd. What unfolded was a live album that had Fleetwood Mac back at the top of the charts for the first time in fifteen years, and exposure to a whole new generation of listeners. The Dance shot to the top of the US charts, and when a VHS tape was released almost a month after the album, it too was met with success and a number one spot (Evans 272). On January 12th, 1998 Fleetwood Mac, along with former members Peter Green, Jeremy Spencer and Danny Kirwan, were inducted in the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame Museum in New York City. Although 1997 and 1998 were amazing years, they also hinted at sadness. The award shows and hall of fame inductions proved to be the last time Christine McVie would play with the band. She officially retired from the band in 1998 to return to England and be with family (Evans 273). The band would have two more successful tours in 2003’s Say You Will and 2009’s Unleashed. Both engagements were met with sold out venues (FleetwoodMac.com).
In addition to sold out tour dates, perhaps the greatest compliment paid to Fleetwood Mac came in the form of a May 2011 episode of the Fox series “Glee”. The show featured songs off of the Rumours album and for the first time an entire “Glee” episode was dedicated to a single album (MTV.com). This yet again pushed Fleetwood Mac onto yet another generation of fans and sales of the original Rumours album jump to #11 on US charts thirty four years after its release (Wikipedia.org).
To me, there is no more definitive musical outfit than that of Fleetwood Mac. Through all the trials they have encountered, they have stayed true to each other and true to their roots. Blues is where their foundation is and there are heavy blues undertones on all of their albums. In Mick Fleetwood’s autobiography included is a poem that was written by his father on the day he and his mother left their then fifteen year old son at the train station in pursuit of his musical dream. Mick’s dad says in his poem, “He seeks his fortune, with eyes full of fun. To conquer the world, with two sticks and a drum.” (Fleetwood, Davis 21) Music fans all over the world should be grateful for a talent like Mick Fleetwood, and for two parents brave enough to let such a young child go. If it were not for this and the young boy with his dream, Fleetwood Mac might never have been. It is amazing that, forty-five years after the formation of the original Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac, there are modern shows like “Glee” exposing The Mac to new generations. It is truly through the bands foundation, disintegration, and resurrection that they have stayed committed to the passion that ignites the music as well as the fans. Mick Fleetwood promised fans during the last concert in New Zealand on the bands Unleashed tour, “We love you, and remember The Mac will be back” (Evans 281). Fans the world over are hoping Mr. Fleetwood holds true to his promise, and I for one know that I will be the first in line.