Can You Hear The Drama? The Story Of Fleetwood Mac
The recent release and success of Daisy Jones and the Six had me thinking about how hard it must be, despite how rewarding it is, to play music with others. I think this is why bands are so respectable, because creative differences have to be mended in the process of making music together. It has to be hard playing with your friends, surely it must start some sort of rift in your relationship? So, if you wind up despising everyone you play with, how do you continue to work together for what could be another fifty years, as you grow to be one of the world’s most legendary bands? Fleetwood Mac is probably one of the most dysfunctional groups to enter the historical rock scene, but this did not stop them from selling over 100 million records. However, I have only recently come to know about the past that the band has shared, despite being a decently familiar fan. This wasn’t until after I read (and loved) Daisy Jones and the Six, at which point a friend told me it was inspired by Fleetwood Mac.
Formed in England, 1967, the original members were Mick Fleetwood, John McVie and Peter Green. In fact, the band was called Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac until Green himself insisted on changing the name to something we are all more familiar with: Fleetwood Mac. He didn’t see himself staying in the band for too long anyway, and like all great rock stories, drugs definitely influenced the antagonist’s actions. Green left the band in 1970 due to his LSD addiction, leaving McVie and Fleetwood to kickstart (what would come to be) a long history of treacherous staffing changes. John’s wife at the time, Christine McVie was a talented singer and songwriter, and was invited to join the band indefinitely. Jeremy Spencer, the part-time keyboardist, left in 1971, after which guitarist Danny Kerwin left a year later due to backstage battles with the other guitarist, Bob Welch. Dave Walker, a third guitarist, was fired a year later after Mick deemed him ill-fitting for the band. Nevertheless, this cycling through of musicians was not that unheard of in rising music groups, especially in the 70s. The beginning of the end was when Bob Weston, a replacement guitarist, had an affair with Mick’s wife, Jenny Boyd, in 1973. Weston actually stayed with the band till the end of their tour that very year.
Adding onto their first shared heartbreak, another band in America took the exact same name as Fleetwood Mac, thanks to the original manager of the group, Clifford Davis. The real Fleetwood Mac had to move to the States at this point to fight Davis in court, who also owned the copyrights to the band’s music catalogue , with about $2700 to their name. In the end, Fleetwood managed to get Davis’ group banned from collecting any royalties, and their group had to give up the name. Right after this, Welch left the group, due to his drinking problem, in late 1974. At this point, the band was desperate to find stable and talented musicians that could handle the long hours, which led the group to Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham.
Stevie Nicks had a proper musical background, the kind that starts when you're young because your family instills it deep within you. She was the granddaughter of country singer Aaron Nicks, who built a guitar for Stevie and taught her to sing. Nicks inevitably followed in her grandfather’s footsteps, and with her highschool friend Lindsey Buckingham, they created Buckingham-Nicks in 1971. However, Buckingham refused to work, and had never held down a job before. As a result, Nicks was faced with taking on three jobs to support the both of them. When they met Fleetwood Mac, the terms seemed too good to turn up. Nicks said, and I quote, “from that day we joined, to June of that summer, we were famous.”
Fleetwood Mac brought a lot of Nicks’ songs to life in the way the original couple couldn’t, such as Landslide and Rhiannon that are confirmed to be large factors in the multi-million sale of Rumors. However, despite their outward appearance and skyrocket to fame, the personal lives of the band members went awry. Could that have been the reason for a title with such a messy connotation? I will let you decide.
Christine McVie, as you will recall, John McVie’s wife, ended up having an affair with the band’s lighting director. In fact, this resulted in the song “You Make Loving Fun”, despite telling John that the lyrics were about a dog. After their divorce, Nicks and Buckingham also split, leading to the famed affair between Nicks and Fleetwood himself. Despite the intricacies between the bandmates, they were writing history in the making with Rumors, and no one could quit under those conditions.
In 1977, Rumors was released and needless to say, it was a huge hit. It rose to the top of the Billboard charts and stayed on those charts for 353 weeks, despite being such a personal album about tumultuous relationships between the members themselves. Their subsequent albums did not have the hold that Rumors did, and maybe that was because much of the heat between the members simmered down. Nevertheless, the question remains: is that what it takes to make good music? The worst times in their relationships resulted in the best music of the decade. They hated each other, physically fought amongst themselves backstage, and still played each show. The split in 1987, at Christine McVie’s house, resulted in physical altercations between the members, after which all the band members pursued solo careers. In 1997, they got together again for the Rumours line-up, even touring later again in the 2000s. Their documentary was released in 2009, and Nicks says,"Maybe when we're 75 and Fleetwood Mac is a distant memory, we might be friends."
Sources:
https://www.elle.com/culture/music/a42977664/fleetwood-mac-timeline/
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Fleetwood-Mac
Header by: Valerie Letts
