Fleetwood Mac was a legendary British-American classic rock band founded in London, United Kingdom in 1967. Initially a blues-based band known as Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac (Peter Green being one of the founding members of the band a great musical genius), the group turned towards a more pop-rock-, art pop-, and soft rock-oriented sound after a series of line-up changes which took place during the early-, mid-, and late 1970s. The founding members of this legendary classic rock band were Mick Fleetwood (drums and percussion), John McVie (bass), Peter Green (vocals and guitar), and Jeremy Spencer (slide guitar and piano). The origin of the name of the band is pretty simple and was ‘the brainchild’ of founding member Peter Green: he combined the family names of his two bandmates Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, thus resulting Fleetwood Mac.
Peter Green was a gifted visionary and a wonderful musician who established a clear blues-oriented direction for the band under his creative leadership throughout their early years. It was also during this period of time that the group had achieved both critical recognition and commercial success with a string of hits such as the touching song ‘Albatross’ (a number one single in the British singles chart in 1968 and a very dear favourite of mine throughout the passage of time), ‘Man of the World’, ‘Oh Well’, or ‘The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown)’ (the three aforementioned songs being top 10 hits in the British singles chart).
Founding member and musical genius Peter Green left the group in 1970 (due to a complex number of reasons and not only creative differences, such as, but not limited to, mental health problems or disillusionment with the rock star-based lifestyle). John McVie’s future wife, Christine McVie (then Christine Perfect), joined the group on both vocals and keyboards shortly thereafter (namely two months after Green’s departure which took place in May). Christine McVie was previously a session musician who contributed music for the band before becoming an official member in July 1970.
Guitarist Lindsey Buckingam and vocalist Stevie Nicks joined the band in the mid-1970s. The two previously worked together as a folk rock duo. This marked an important creative transition in the band’s history as their overall sound tilted more towards pop rock. This enabled them to reach global stardom with the studio albums Fleetwood Mac (1975) and Rumours (1977), two very beautiful studio albums.
Fleetwood Mac in 1977, with their most well-known line-up, from left to right: Mick Fleetwood (drums and percussion), Christine McVie (vocals and keyboard), John McVie (bass), Stevie Nicks (vocals), and Lindsey Buckingham (guitar). This photograph was taken from the June, 1977 issue of Billboard magazine and is an advertising photograph for the band’s iconic Rumours studio album released earlier that year in February. Image source: Wikimedia Commons (author: Warner Bros. Records)
They were initially active between 1967 and 1995 and then once more between 1997 and 2022 up until Christine McVie sadly passed away. The band was on two hiatuses during the second period of musical activity, the first one lasting from 1982 to 1985 and then the second one from 2019 to 2022). Throughout their long and amazing musical career, the legendary British-American group released a total number of 18 studio albums, one EP (i.e. extended-play), and 10 live albums, 23 compilations, and 62 singles. They sold over 120 million copies of their records worldwide, thereby becoming one of the best-selling musical acts in history. Their studio albums are the following ones (listed in chronological order):
- Fleetwood Mac (1968); then also known as Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac
- Mr. Wonderful (1968)
- Then Play On (1969)
- Kiln House (1970)
- Future Games (1971)
- Bare Trees (1972)
- Penguin (1973)
- Mystery to Me (1973)
- Heroes Are Hard to Find (1974)
- Fleetwood Mac (1975)
- Rumours (1977)
- Tusk (1979)
- Mirage (1982)
- Tango in the Night (1987)
- Behind the Mask (1990)
- Time (1995)
- Say You Will (2003)
Two important influences for the band’s music were represented by Welsh mythology and the book The Mabinogion, particularly with respect to the very beautiful and touching song ‘Rhiannon’ (one of my all time most favourite songs from their discography; the title is actually the name of an ancient Celtic goddess associated with the Celtic Otherworld, horses, fertility, sovereignty, the moon, and rebirth). They wont won Grammy Awards throughout their career, the first in 1978 in the category Album of the Year for their iconic studio album Rumours (released in 1977) and then the second in 2003, namely a Grammy Hall of Fame Award.
On a personal note, I must mention the fact that Fleetwood Mac’s music has been a very important part of my life and that through its magic and beauty (both the Peter Green-led era as well as the era with Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks on vocals) the masterpieces of this legendary British-American classic rock band enriched my life musically and culturally and for this great particular aspect I’ll always be grateful. Furthermore, their wonderful, bittersweet, and elegant music made me feel less alone as well, especially during rough times.
Below you can listen to some of my most favourite songs from their entire beautiful, touching, and amazing discography embedded via YouTube. I truly hope you will like my personal selection of most favourite songs. Thank you very much for your time, attention, and readership! All the best, take care, stay safe, and rock on!
Additional favourite songs (I just couldn’t help myself as my list of most favourite songs easily exceeds what I enlisted above):
Documentation sources and external links:
- The band’s page on www.britannica.com (the online version of Encyclopædia Britannica)
- The band’s page on www.wikipedia.org (in English)
- The band’s discography on www.wikipedia.org (in English)
- Rhiannon in Celtic Mythology on www.storytellingdb.com
- Why Peter Green quit Fleetwood Mac on www.faroutmagazine.co.uk
- Peter Green: troubled Fleetwood Mac founder leaves legacy of brilliance that shines still on www.theconversation.com