Fleetwood Mac
3
Due to the fact that this corporation actually represents many distinctively different entitities and was in fact, several different groups sharing the same name, it is only fair that we dissect each of it's parts in order to give the entity it's collective rating. To begin with, the group that became known as Fleetwood Mac which went on to world wide fame for their psuedo-post-hippie pop/rock during the mid-late 70's got their start in late 1966 from an amalgam of young British blues rockers led by the incomperable guitar genius, Peter Green. Green, who had more than capably replaced the seemingly irreplacable Eric Clapton as resident guitarist for John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, formed the nucleus of what at first was called Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac with fellow Mayall alumni Mick Fleetwood and John McVee. Beginning as a trio under Green's leadership and impeccable guitar work, the group began to get bookings via their celebrity in England, soon adding Jeremy Spencer and later a very young, but clever picker, nineteen year old Danny Kirwan. Though billed as an authentic British blues band, this early band was actually three groups, with three separate lead singers sharing each other as backing band. The Peter Green version featured straight up ballsy blues songs either crafted ordeftly recreated by Green and his incredible guitar. Though long forgotton or completely unknown to fans of the more famous Buckingham/Nicks Mac, this was the real Fleetwood Mac. Talents as remarkable as Green's are few and far between, and Green rose like a comet, burning a bright flash in the sky before being destroyed by drugs and his own personal demons after three notable years. His guitar stylings & prowess had a great influence on all the "Mac's" that were to follow and his classic 'Black Magic Woman' made a lifetime fan and became a huge FM hit for Carlos Santana. The diminutive Jeremy Spencer was one part Buddy Holly, one part Elvis, and, in his best entity, one part Elmore James. His near perfect 50's style rockers brought an ease in the tension created by Green's smouldering blues introspection and his slide guitar work while covering the late, great Elmore James made you wonder if he (or any of the others, for that matter) were really the pasty white English schoolboys they seemed to be in the pictures or the ghosts of Black southern Americans. The cheribic Danny Kirwan added his own blend of blues tempered with a folksy coolness that often outshone, or at least, equalled, his fellow axemates. The original Mac (happily re-discovered due to the age of the compact disc) was at least as good as the best of the British blues bands (early Stones, Savoy Brown, Mayall..) and, in my own opinion, the best of the lot. The exodus of the the three principle's (Due to drugs, religeon, and the business itself) left the rhythem section searching for ways to continue. Crossing the ocean to California, Fleetwood and Mcvie (Who had added the former Christine Perfect from another British blues act, Chicken Shack, as keyboardist.) enlisted Bob Welch to take over the direction of the band, producing the radio hit 'Hynotised' before being tossed out of the group for dubious reasons. Fleetwood got wind of a talented guitarist/singer/songwriter named Lindsey Buckingham who wowed the Englishman with his talents and joined the band on the condition that his girlfriend (Stevie Nicks) be welcomed aboard also. The combination clicked, Nicks became every schoolboys sultry wet dream and, following the release of Fleetwood Mac in 1975 and the colossal selling Rumours in 1977, a legend was born. Led by Buckingham's guitar, the band's rhythemic backing, but featuring the vocal stylings of the two female singers (Christine McVee, and Nicks) the group dominated airplay that had long since become controlled by hip speaking corporate "suits" who knew a good thing when they saw it and milked it til it's udders ran dry. Nearly every cut on the two previously mentioned albums was included in the regular play lists of almost every American radio station and the group was rewarded so handsomely that it continues to rear it's head to appreciative, aging baby-boomers despite the fact that the once lovely and petite Stevie Nicks has seen her voice go the way of Marianne Faithful and appears visually very much like Piper Laurie's portrayal of Sissy Spacek's crazed mother from the horror classic "Carrie." The one common bond that has lasted the near forty years of this many headed hydra that is known collectively as Fleetwood Mac is the ryhthem section of Mick Fleetwood and John McVee. Not a bad track record for a couple of backing musicians who were lucky enough and good enough to have met and played with the "Green God".
