Some years later Buckingham invited Nicks to join his band, Fritz, resulting in the two becoming romantically involved and eventually dropping out of their San Jose college to record demos at Buckingham’s father’s coffee plant, then pursue their musical future in Los Angeles. They had met at High School in the San Francisco Bay Area when Buckingham and his band were playing California Dreamin’ and Nicks joined in on the harmony. On December 31st 1974 Lindsey and Stevie joined Fleetwood Mac.
Mick Fleetwood tracked down Lindsey Buckingham, having been told that Lindsey would only consider joining Fleetwood Mac if his girlfriend, vocalist/songwriter Stephanie ‘Stevie’ Nicks, was included. The other half of Buckingham Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, was also on hand and he was introduced to Fleetwood, the two of them chatting politely, with no thought of anything further.Ī week later, Bob Welch, the longest-serving of the replacement Fleetwood Mac guitarist/vocalists, suddenly quit, looking to establish a solo career, which reduced the band to the core of Fleetwood and the McVies. At the same time, a waif-like blonde was singing in the adjoining studio, and he asked who she was. Engineer Keith Olsen played him a tape of Frozen Love from the debut album by Buckingham Nicks, which piqued Fleetwood’s interest, the guitar playing in particular. In one of the fortuitous incidents that punctuated Fleetwood Mac’s long career, Mick Fleetwood made an impromptu visit in December 1974 to Sound City Studios in Van Nuys, in the San Fernando Valley, California, while researching new recording locations. All the albums had charted in the US Top 100, and in 1974 the group had relocated to Los Angeles, so, since their most recent release Heroes Are Hard To Find had peaked at number 34, by the end of the year the band were in a reasonable position with the US public and their record label, although they had long since left their UK audience and their blues roots behind. She joined Fleetwood Mac after Peter Green’s departure and became the third consistent member throughout the following years.įleetwood Mac had recently signed to Warner Brothers Records, based in the US, and over a period of time, they managed to carve out a career there, in spite of losing guitarists Spencer and Kirwan, with a further three guitarists joining and leaving in the process of releasing six albums. Without their spiritual and musical leader, the core musicians recruited a succession of players, starting with John McVie’s wife Christine, who, as Christine Perfect, had been keyboardist and co-lead vocalist in Chicken Shack, another UK blues band, whose biggest single hit was Etta James’ “I’d Rather Go Blind”, sung by Christine. Their biggest success was with the Shadows-style instrumental “Albatross”, which hit number 1 in the UK in December 1968, but a further three Top 10 UK hits couldn’t temper the blow when Green abruptly quit the band in May 1970, apparently as a result of wanting to give up material things, exacerbated by the effects of LSD.
The quintet went on to develop into an exciting and melodic rock band, and had a string of Green-penned hits in the UK, including “Black Magic Woman” and “The Green Manalishi” (with the Two-Prong Crown), covered subsequently by Santana and Judas Priest respectively. Originally a quartet completed by Elmore James-style slide guitarist and singer Jeremy Spencer, the band subsequently added another star guitarist, Danny Kirwan from Boilerhouse. For those who don’t know, Fleetwood Mac, named after drummer Mick Fleetwood and bass player John McVie, were formed by Peter Green as a British blues band in 1967, after Green had replaced Eric Clapton in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, the others having been Bluesbreakers: McVie since 1964 and Fleetwood for five weeks in 1967.
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