Fleetwood Mac Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

Stevie Nicks turns 70 May 26

“Back when she and Buckingham were just another struggling pair of hungry songwriters in San Francisco, Nicks used to visit a downtown store called the Velvet Underground.”

When the tease for Fleetwood Mac appearing on CBS This Morning aired on April 25, with Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks, but NO Lindsey Buckingham, I had to record it and watch it that evening.

Fleetwood said that Buckingham “would not sign off on a new tour they’d been planning for a year and a half.” Nicks, who joined the band with Buckingham in January 1975, agreed with the decision.

She said, “This team wanted to get out on the road. And one of the members did not want to get out on the road for a year. We just couldn’t agree. And you know, when you’re in a band, it’s a team. I mean I have a solo career, and I love my solo career, and I’m the boss. Absolutely. But I’m not the boss in this band.”

The band is replacing Buckingham with two performers, Neil Finn of Crowded House and former member of the Heartbreakers Mike Campbell, who was recruited as lead guitarist a few months after Tom Petty’s death.

The revised Fleetwood Mac is touring starting in October, and they’re coming to Albany on March 20, 2019. Will I go? Peut être.

Listen to all (by Fleetwood Mac unless otherwise indicated):

Rhiannon (from Fleetwood Mac, 1975), #11 in 1976 – inspired by a book she read, Nicks made the protagonist into what she thought was an old Welsh witch

Landslide (from Fleetwood Mac)

I Don’t Want to Know (from -Fleetwood Mac) – one of her compositions written before she joined the group

Dreams (from Rumours), #1 in 1977 – “Nicks’ mystical assessment of her dying relationship with Buckingham”

Gold Dust Woman (from Rumours)

Sara (from Tusk, 1979), #7 in 1980 – she had a relationship with Don Henley of the Eagles

Storms (from Tusk) – “Nicks’ lament for her brief, messy affair with Fleetwood.”

Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around – Stevie Nicks with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, #3 for six weeks in 1981. Nicks, Campbell and Petty co-wrote this. From her #1 solo album Bella Donna.

Leather and Lace – Stevie Nicks and Don Henley, #6 in 1982

Gypsy (from Mirage, 1982), #12 in 1982 – “Back when she and Buckingham were just another struggling pair of hungry songwriters in San Francisco, Nicks used to visit a downtown store called the Velvet Underground, where Janis Joplin and Grace Slick shopped, and fantasize about being able to afford the clothes.”

Seven Wonders (from Tango in the Night, 1987), #19 in 1987

Silver Springs (from The Dance, 1997) – “Nicks intended this simmering requiem for her romance with Buckingham to be her crowning moment on Rumours… But the song (which originally ran almost 10 minutes) was too long to fit on the finished LP and was dropped.” A shorter version does appear as the B-side of Go Your Own Way in 1977.

Music throwback: Magnet and Steel

“I happened to be behind a metal flake blue Continental with ground effects and a diamond window in back.”

Blasting from someone’s car radio last summer, I heard the familiar strains of Magnet and Steel by Walter Egan, a song from his Not Shy album. It reached #8 on the Billboard Hot 100 (US) and #9 in Canada. “It spent 22 weeks on the American charts.” It was featured in the movies Boogie Nights (1997), Overnight Delivery (1998) and Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo (1999).

I’m a sucker for tracks that serve as the title of the album but only via the lyrics. For instance, the Nirvana album Nevermind contains the hit Smells Like Teen Spirit, which features the word Nevermind.”

Likewise, Magnet and Steel has the lyric:
With you I’m not shy, to show the way I feel
With you I might try, my secrets to reveal
For you are a magnet and I am steel…

As is true of a lot of Fleetwood Mac-related songs, this has a complex story. From Songfacts, Egan explains:

“In 1976 I was living in Pomona, California and I had a notion to write a song with the ‘stroll’ beat… and so began the rough outline of what was tentatively called ‘Don’t Turn Away Now.’ Now, this was also at the time of putting together my first album, Fundamental Roll, and my two new friends and producers, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks and I were starting the recording process.

“On the night when Stevie did the background vocals for my song ‘Tunnel o’ Love,’ my nascent amorous feelings toward her came into a sharper focus – I was smitten by the kitten, as they say. It was on my drive home at 3 AM from Van Nuys to Pomona that I happened to be behind a metal flake blue Continental with ground effects and a diamond window in back. I was inspired by the car’s license plate: “Not Shy.”

“By the time I pulled into my driveway I had formulated the lyrics and come up with the magnet metaphor. From there the song was finished in 15 minutes.

Egan and Nicks dated briefly when Nicks and Buckingham had broken up.

“It was especially satisfying to have Stevie sing on ‘Magnet,’ since it was about her (and me).”

Listen to Magnet and Steel:

Walter Egan here or here

Matthew Sweet here with Buckingham on guitar

Third World here

Mick Fleetwood is turning 70

I have an irrational affection for pop songs about days of the week

Yeah, I know about those earlier iterations of Fleetwood Mac, going back into the late 1960s, fronted by Mick Fleetwood and John McVie. I alluded to the group’s evolution in a post from three years ago.

Still, most of my favorite songs were from the version represented in the 1975 eponymous album (not be confused with the 1968 album of the same name), when Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined Christine McVie and the two guys for whom the band is named.

In no hard order except the first two. Chart action refers to the Billboard pop charts in the US. Links to all:

20. Save Me (Behind the Mask), #33 in 1990
19. What Makes You Think You’re the One (Tusk – T), 1979 – some referred to Tusk as the band’s “white album”. It was a double LP, the band was fractured, and some of the songs were kind of weird
18. Dreams (Rumours – R), #1 in 1977. It’s difficult for someone not living through it to understand how dominant Rumours was. 19 weeks at #1.
17. Skies the Limit (Behind the Mask), 1990 – Buckingham was gone at this point; he would return. Rick Vito and Billy Burdette were in the band
16. Everywhere (Tango in the Night – TitN), #14 in 1988

15. Over My Head (FM), #20 in 1976
14. Little Lies (TitN), #4 in 1987
13. You Make Loving Fun (R), #9 in 1977
12. Tusk (T), #8 in 1979 – there’s a live version with the USC marching band that’s even sillier
11. Say You Love Me (FM), #11 in 1976 – this first part of the list is heavy with Christine McVie songs, I just noticed; always thought she was the glue of the group

10. Monday Morning (FM), B-side of Say You Love Me – I have an irrational affection for pop songs about days of the week, from Ruby Tuesday to Monday, Monday
9. Oh Well (Then Play On), 1970 – from the Peter Green days
8. Landslide (FM), 1977
7. I’m So Afraid (FM), B-side of Over My Head – and I believe Lindsay is
6. Gypsy (Mirage – M), #12 in 1982

5. Rhiannon (FM), #11 in 1976
4. Hold Me (M) , #4 in 1982
3. Don’t Stop (R), #3 for two weeks in 1977 – the inauguration song for one William Jefferson Clinton
2. Go Your Own Way (R), #10 in 1977 – a great breakup song
1. The Chain (R), 1977 – written by all five members; given all the romantic and musical breakups over the years, SOMETHING must be holding them together

Happy birthday, Mick Fleetwood.

M is for the McVies of Fleetwood Mac

in January 2014, it was announced that Christine McVie had rejoined Fleetwood Mac.

Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, Mick Fleetwood, Christine McVie, John McVie

The group Fleetwood Mac was named for drummer Mick Fleetwood, who helped found the band in 1967, and bassist John McVie, who, I did not know until recently, actually declined to join the group initially, but eventually came on board. The early iterations of the band were of classic British blues.

Early on, one Christine Perfect joined the band, initially as a session musician, and after marrying John McVie, as a full-fledged member. The band continued to have a revolving membership until Americans Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham joined the group, two strong singer-songwriters. However, I’m going to limit the songs here to those written, or co-written, by Christine, only because it fits the family group motif.

The first album together, 1975’s Fleetwood Mac, had several hit songs, with Over My Head [LISTEN to the very first FM song to hit the Top 20 (just) in the US. Say You Love Me [LISTEN], made it to #11.

“In 1976 [Christine] McVie began an on-the-road affair with the band’s lighting director, which inspired her to write You Make Loving Fun [LISTEN], a [#9] hit on the landmark smash Rumours, one of the best-selling albums of all-time.” It spent an amazing 31 weeks at #1 and spawned a number of other top 10 songs, including Don’t Stop [LISTEN], which went to #3, and later became a theme song at Bill Clinton’s 1992 inauguration. “By the end of the Rumours tour, the McVies were divorced.” Nicks and Buckingham had also ended their romantic relationship, and Mick Fleetwood would be getting divorced from his wife.

The double album Tusk followed, including Think About Me [LISTEN], #20 in 1980. 1982’s Mirage, featured Hold Me [LISTEN] (a #4 hit) and Love In Store [LISTEN] (#22), with co-writers from outside the band.

Tango in the Night, from 1987, contained Little Lies [LISTEN], another #4 hit, co-written with her new husband Eddy Quintela, and Everywhere [LISTEN], which went to #22.

Eventually, Christine McVie, Nicks, and Buckingham all left at different points. Yet the classic band found its way back together in 1997 for an album and tour, the year before the five of them, plus former Mac guitarists Peter Green and Danny Kirwan were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Christine departed again, but in January 2014, it was announced that she had rejoined the band, and in March, a reunion tour was scheduled.

We’ll end this with The Chain [LISTEN] from Rumours, written by all five of the members at that point, because, despite it all, there is something holding these five people together.

ABC Wednesday – Round 14