STEVIE NICKS CLAPS BACK AT LINDSEY BUCKINGHAMS CLAIM

In response to Lindsey Buckinghams 3 most recent interviews with the New York Times, LA Times and Rollingstone, Stevie Nicks (and Fleetwood Mac's Manager Irving Azoff) respond to Lindsey's claims on why he was let go from the band. 

LA Times

NY Times

ROLLINGSTONE

STEVIE NICKS RESPONDS

“It’s unfortunate that Lindsey has chosen to tell a revisionist history of what transpired in 2018 with Fleetwood Mac,” Nicks wrote to “Rolling Stone.” “His version of events is factually inaccurate, and while I’ve never spoken publicly on the matter, preferring to not air dirty laundry, certainly it feels the time has come to shine a light on the truth. Following an exceedingly difficult time with Lindsey at MusiCares in New York, in 2018, I decided for myself that I was no longer willing to work with him. I could publicly reflect on the many reasons why, and perhaps I will do that someday in a memoir, but suffice it to say we could start in 1968 and work up to 2018 with a litany of very precise reasons why I will not work with him. To be exceedingly clear, I did not have him fired, I did not ask for him to be fired, I did not demand he be fired. Frankly, I fired myself.  I proactively removed myself from the band and a situation I considered to be toxic to my well-being. I was done. If the band went on without me, so be it. I have championed independence my whole life, and I believe every human being should have the absolute freedom to set their boundaries of what they can and cannot work with. And after many lengthy group discussions, Fleetwood Mac, a band whose legacy is rooted in evolution and change, found a new path forward with two hugely talented new members.

Further to that, as for a comment on “family” — I was thrilled for Lindsey when he had children, but I wasn’t interested in making those same life choices.  Those are my decisions that I get to make for myself. I’m proud of the life choices I’ve made, and it seems a shame for him to pass judgment on anyone who makes a choice to live their life on their own terms, even if it looks differently from what his life choices have been.”

Lindsey Buckingham his dismissal from Fleetwood Mac “It became a little bit like Trump and the Republicans”

Lindsey Buckingham Won’t Stop

Buckingham on his new solo album and why his dismissal from Fleetwood Mac was the result of the other band members cowering before Stevie Nicks: “It became a little bit like Trump and the Republicans”

By Stephen Rodrick - Rollingstone

Lindsey Buckingham will tell you that he isn’t about the drama. He leaves that to his former bandmates in Fleetwood Mac. 

Not everyone in his family subscribes to the same feeling. His son Will issued a declarative statement shortly after he was booted out of the band in 2018: “God, they ruined your life.” 

“No, not even close,” says Buckingham with a wan smile.

He’s right, in a way. Over the past three years, there have been other life ruination candidates. In short order, Buckingham nearly died, lost his voice, had an album repeatedly delayed, and suffered through a pandemic funk. 

Still, he insists, he is in a good place. Right now, Buckingham is in a Burbank rehearsal space preparing for a tour supporting his new solo album, a self-titled 10-song, 37-minute pop gem sprinkled with enough California melancholy, domestic uncertainty, and sunny hooks to satisfy a divorced Santa Cruz poet. The album has been done for three years, but because of the aforementioned hiccups it remained unreleased until last month. Combined with the best songs on his 2017 duet album with ex-bandmate Christine McVie, Buckingham has churned out an hour’s worth of pop masterpieces at an age when most contemporaries are having a hard time pushing back from the all-you-can-eat nostalgia buffet. The new record is just the latest in a startling late-career renaissance that, not coincidently, began shortly after consummate bachelor Buckingham married his wife, Kristen Messner, and his three children were born. 

LA TIMES INTERVIEW - Fleetwood Mac fired Lindsey Buckingham. So why won’t he let them go?

Fleetwood Mac fired Lindsey Buckingham. So why won’t he let them go?

BY AMY KAUFMAN - LA TIMES

This is the album that started all the trouble.

“Lindsey Buckingham,” the singer-guitarist’s seventh solo venture, was finished nearly four years ago. Upon completing the 10-song collection, he asked his bandmates in Fleetwood Mac if they’d be willing to slightly delay an upcoming tour so he could promote his new music. He’d made a similar request back in 2006 and was granted two years to tour behind back-to-back solo efforts. For his new album, he only wanted three months.

But Fleetwood Mac’s 2018 tour dates had already been sketched out. Still, Buckingham says, the majority of the group — drummer Mick Fleetwood, keyboardist-vocalist Christine McVie and bassist John McVie — seemed flexible. Stevie Nicks, the band’s primary lead singer and singular superstar, however, would not budge.

The tension between Buckingham and Nicks, who were an infamously volatile couple during Fleetwood Mac’s 1970s peak, only grew from there. In January 2018, when the group walked onstage to receive their MusiCares Person of the Year award, “Rhiannon” — a song written by Nicks — was playing, which Buckingham complained about. Then Nicks, who accepted the prize on behalf of the band, felt that Buckingham was mocking her for her lengthy speech.

“Ironically,” Buckingham says, “nothing went down that night that was [as contentious] as the stuff we’d been through for 43 years.” But within a week, he was fired from Fleetwood Mac.

It was a seismic shift in Buckingham’s life — one he is still struggling to accept today, at age 71. As it would turn out, it was only the first in a series of upheavals. Following his departure, Buckingham sued Fleetwood Mac for lost wages, including the $12 million to $14 million he claimed he would have made in just two months on that 2018 tour.

New York Times "Lindsey Buckingham Has Survived It All"

Lindsey Buckingham Has Survived It All

After a heart attack and (another) feud with Stevie Nicks, the former Fleetwood Mac guitarist returns with a new solo album.

By Lindsay Zoladz - New York Times

Sept. 8, 2021

LOS ANGELES — One day in early February 2019, Lindsey Buckingham woke up to a wallop of a surprise: He had just had a heart attack, followed by an emergency triple bypass.

The good news was that he’d had a cardiac event at arguably the best possible time and place, while under anesthesia for a minor medical procedure. (His older brother Greg, an Olympic swimmer, dropped dead from one alone in his backyard in 1990, at 45. A similar fate befell their father at 56.)

Buckingham found out the bad news when he tried to speak and realized he couldn’t raise his voice above a hoarse whisper: Someone had been “a little rough with the breathing tube,” as he put it, and damaged his vocal cords — not just any vocal cords, but those of the onetime Fleetwood Mac yelper responsible for such modern pop standards as “Go Your Own Way,” “Second Hand News” and “Never Going Back Again.” For months, he wasn’t sure if the injury was temporary or permanent. But fortunately, from his serene California living room one Saturday afternoon in August, Buckingham can now recall it all with a full-voiced laugh.

“Somebody in the hospital was going, ‘Oops! Hope he doesn’t find me!’”

Buckingham, 71, may be playing a bit on what he knows is his prickly, self-serious reputation — as parodied, however absurdly, by Bill Hader on “Saturday Night Live” — but throughout a series of conversations he was remarkably open and quick with the occasional self-deprecating joke. As he prepares to release “Lindsey Buckingham,” his first solo album in a decade, on Sept. 17, his edges seem to have smoothed a bit in the wake of a series of perspective-shifting events: the bypass and then the pandemic, of course, but also the July 2020 death of the Fleetwood Mac founder Peter Green, and Buckingham’s recent separation from Kristen Messner, his wife of 21 years and the mother of his three children.

Then there was the business, three years ago, when he got kicked out of Fleetwood Mac, a beloved group known as much for its timeless song-craft as its intra-band pyrotechnics and power struggles, and then sued his former bandmates.

Many of Buckingham’s solo releases have been pressure valves for when Fleetwood Mac was feeling a little too tense or controlled. After steering the group more left of center with the edgy and eclectic “Tusk” in 1979, the drummer and (in Buckingham’s words) “vibe master” Mick Fleetwood said they would have to reorient in a more commercial direction. Buckingham told him, “OK, well, I guess I’ve got to make some solo albums.”

Lindsey Buckingham Releases New Single "On The Wrong Side"

Hear Lindsey Buckingham’s Sad But ‘Ebullient’ New Song ‘On the Wrong Side’

Fleetwood Mac-inspired track features on singer's upcoming self-titled solo album, out September 17th

BY DANIEL KREPS

Rollingstone

Lindsey Buckingham has shared his new song “On the Wrong Side,” the latest single from the former Fleetwood Mac singer’s upcoming self-titled album and first solo LP since 2011.

“On the Wrong Side” is both musically and lyrically inspired by Buckingham’s former band, with the lyrics dealing with his long journey with Fleetwood Mac as well as the road of life.

Buckingham, who likened his new single to Mac’s hit “Go Your Own Way,” added in a statement that “On the Wrong Side” is “not a happy song, subject-matter wise, but it was an ebullient song musically. This was sort of the same idea.”

Oddly, this isn’t Buckingham’s first song titled “On the Wrong Side.” A completely different song with dissimilar lyrics written and performed by Buckingham featured on the soundtrack for the 1994 film With Honors; it’s unclear why Buckingham opted to reuse the song title for the new track (maybe he forgot?). Hear that version of “On the Wrong Side” below:

Lindsey Buckingham, the singer’s first solo album since 2011’s Seeds We Sow, arrives September 17th; he previously shared “I Don’t Know” from the LP, which he wrote and recorded in his Los Angeles home studio.

“I wanted to make a pop album, but I also wanted to make stops along the way with songs that resemble art more than pop,” Buckingham previously said of the album. “As you age, hopefully, you keep getting a little more grounded in the craft of what you’re doing. For me, getting older has probably helped to reinforce the innocence and the idealism that hopefully was always there.”

Buckingham will also embark on a nationwide solo trek that kicks off September 1st in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

US TOUR DATES:

SEPTEMBER 2021

9/1/2021 The Pabst Theater – Milwaukee, WI 

9/3/2021 Mystic Lake – Mystic Showroom – Prior Lake, MN

9/4/2021 Four Winds Casino Resort / Silver Creek Event Center – New Buffalo, MI 

9/7/2021 Carnegie of Homestead Music Hall – Munhall, PA 

9/8/2021 Riviera Theatre – North Tonawanda, NY

9/9/2021 The Academy of Music – Northampton, MA 

9/11/2021 The Chevalier Theater – Medford, MA 

9/12/2021 The Music Hall – Portsmouth, NH 

9/14/2021 Warner Theatre – Washington, DC 

9/16/2021 The Town Hall – New York, NY 

9/18/2021 Tropicana Casino & Resort – Atlantic City, NJ 

9/19/2021 Santander Performing Arts Center – Reading, PA 

9/21/2021 Knight Theatre – Charlotte, NC 

9/22/2021 Woodruff Arts Center – Symphony Hall – Atlanta, GA 

9/24/2021 Bijou Theatre – Knoxville, TN 

9/26/2021 Ponte Vedra Concert Hall – Ponte Vedra Beach, FL 

9/27/2021 Ruth Eckerd Hall – Clearwater, FL 

9/29/2021 King Center for the Performing Arts – Melbourne, FL 

9/30/2021 Parker Playhouse – Fort Lauderdale, FL 

DECEMBER 2021

12/2/2021 The Theatre at Ace Hotel – Los Angeles, CA 

12/3/2021 Magnolia Performing Arts Center – El Cajon, CA 

12/5/2021 Fox Tucson Theatre – Tucson, AZ 

12/8/2021 The Paramount Theatre For the Performing arts – Austin, TX 

12/9/2021 Majestic Theatre – Dallas, TX 

12/11/2021 Smart Financial Centre – Sugar Land, TX 

12/13/2021 Von Braun Center – Mars Music Hall – Huntsville, AL 

12/15/2021 Uptown Theater – Kansas City, MO 

12/17/2021 The Criterion – Oklahoma City, OK 

12/18/2021 Orpheum Theatre – Wichita, KS 

12/20/2021 Boulder Theater – Boulder, CO

LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM NEW ALBUM OUT SEPT 17, NEW SINGLE "I DON'T MIND" OUT NOW

Today, Lindsey Buckingham has announced his forthcoming self-titled LP due out September 17, 2021 on Reprise, alongside the first single, “I Don’t Mind.” Lindsey Buckingham is his first solo release since 2011’s Seeds We Sow and follows his departure from Fleetwood Mac. As with the seven studio and three live albums he has released as a solo artist beginning with 1981’s Law and Order, the new project showcases Buckingham’s instinct for melody and his singular fingerpicking guitar style, reaffirming his status as one of the most inventive and electrifying musicians of his generation. Written, produced and recorded by Buckingham at his home studio in Los Angeles, CA, the album will be released via vinyl, CD and on all digital and streaming services. A limited-edition blue vinyl version is also available for pre-order via www.lindseybuckingham.com.

Pre-order Lindsey Buckingham HERE. Listen to “I Don’t Mind” HERE.

Says Buckingham of the meaning of the single, “‘I Don’t Mind,’ like many of the songs on my new album, is about the challenges couples face in long-term relationships.” He continues, “Over time, two people inevitably find the need to augment their initial dynamic with one of flexibility, an acceptance of each others’ flaws and a willingness to continually work on issues; it is the essence of a good long term relationship. This song celebrates that spirit and discipline.”

The new album is a welcome display of Buckingham’s instantly recognizable guitar work and vocal layering, particularly on songs such as “Power Down,” “Scream” and “Swan Song.” Elsewhere, Buckingham pays homage to ‘60s folk group the Pozo-Seco Singers’ hit single “Time,” a song he’s admired since he was a teenager and has long intended to cover. “I wanted to make a pop album, but I also wanted to make stops along the way with songs that resemble art more than pop,” he says. “As you age, hopefully you keep getting a little more grounded in the craft of what you’re doing. For me, getting older has probably helped to reinforce the innocence and the idealism that hopefully was always there.”

Buckingham will be returning to the stage with a 30-city 2021 U.S. tour, marking his first in-person shows following a life-saving open-heart surgery in 2019. He’ll kick off the extensive run of shows at Milwaukee’s Pabst Theatre on September 1st, with stops at The Town Hall in NYC, The Theatre at Ace Hotel in LA and more. Tickets go on sale June 11th at 10:00AM local time. Visit www.lindseybuckingham.com for more info. 

Over the last four decades, Buckingham has developed a radical sense of experimentation and an unrivaled savvy as a producer. He first honed these skills as a singer, guitarist, songwriter, producer and the musical visionary of Fleetwood Mac, for which he wrote and produced several Top Ten hits, including “Go Your Own Way,” “Tusk” and “Big Love.” Under Buckingham’s direction, Fleetwood Mac became one of the best-selling and most beloved rock groups of all time. As a solo artist, Buckingham often plays nearly every instrument himself; his complex arrangements and inventive production choices make his solo work thrilling to experience. Earlier this year, he appeared on “Caution,” the newest single from the Killers. He remains a highly sought-after collaborator, a maverick and a visionary.

US TOUR DATES:

SEPTEMBER 2021

9/1/2021 The Pabst Theater – Milwaukee, WI 
9/3/2021 Mystic Lake – Mystic Showroom – Prior Lake, MN
9/4/2021 Four Winds Casino Resort / Silver Creek Event Center – New Buffalo, MI 
9/7/2021 Carnegie of Homestead Music Hall – Munhall, PA 
9/8/2021 Riviera Theatre – North Tonawanda, NY
9/9/2021 The Academy of Music – Northampton, MA 
9/11/2021 The Chevalier Theater – Medford, MA 
9/12/2021 The Music Hall – Portsmouth, NH 
9/14/2021 Warner Theatre – Washington, DC 
9/16/2021 The Town Hall – New York, NY 
9/18/2021 Tropicana Casino & Resort – Atlantic City, NJ 
9/19/2021 Santander Performing Arts Center – Reading, PA 
9/21/2021 Knight Theatre – Charlotte, NC 
9/22/2021 Woodruff Arts Center – Symphony Hall – Atlanta, GA 
9/24/2021 Bijou Theatre – Knoxville, TN 
9/26/2021 Ponte Vedra Concert Hall – Ponte Vedra Beach, FL 
9/27/2021 Ruth Eckerd Hall – Clearwater, FL 
9/29/2021 King Center for the Performing Arts – Melbourne, FL 
9/30/2021 Parker Playhouse – Fort Lauderdale, FL 

DECEMBER 2021

12/2/2021 The Theatre at Ace Hotel – Los Angeles, CA 
12/3/2021 Magnolia Performing Arts Center – El Cajon, CA 
12/5/2021 Fox Tucson Theatre – Tucson, AZ 
12/8/2021 The Paramount Theatre For the Performing arts – Austin, TX 
12/9/2021 Majestic Theatre – Dallas, TX 
12/11/2021 Smart Financial Centre – Sugar Land, TX 
12/13/2021 Von Braun Center – Mars Music Hall – Huntsville, AL 
12/15/2021 Uptown Theater – Kansas City, MO 
12/17/2021 The Criterion – Oklahoma City, OK 
12/18/2021 Orpheum Theatre – Wichita, KS 
12/20/2021 Boulder Theater – Boulder, CO

EUROPEAN TOUR DATES:

MAY 2022

5/17/2022 – The Helix, Dublin, Ireland

5/19/2022 – SEC Armadillo, Glasgow, UK

5/21/2022 – Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool, UK

5/22/2022 – The London Palladium, London UK

5/24/2022 – Capitole, Ghent, Belgium

5/25/2022 – La Cigale, Paris, France

5/26/2022 – TivoliVredenburg Grote Zaal, Utrecht, Netherlands

5/28/2022 – Theater am Potsdamer Platz, Berlin, Germany

5/30/2022 – Cirkus, Stockholm, Sweden

5/31/2022 – Folketeateret, Oslo, Norway

JUNE 2022

6/02/2022 – Heartland Festival, Kværndrup, Denmark

Fleetwood Mac Live: 3CD and 2LP Sets to be released

Fleetwood Mac Live: 3CD and 2LP Sets to be released separately. Available June 25, 2021

When Fleetwood Mac released their first live album in December 1980, it captured the legendary band’s most iconic lineup on stage demonstrating the full scope of their collective, creative powers. Recorded mostly during the world tour for Tusk, Fleetwood Mac Live delivered a double-album’s worth of exhilarating performances that included massive hits like “Dreams” and “Go Your Own Way,” “Rhiannon,” and “Don’t Stop.”

Back in April, Rhino gave the band’s live debut a much-deserved encore with a new 3-CD/2-LP collection that features a remastered version of the original release plus more than an hour of unreleased live music recorded between 1977 and 1982. Following this, Rhino will make the newly remastered live album available as a double vinyl on 25th June 2021 (vinyl doesn't include the previously unreleased material)

Rhino will also make available a separate 3-CD version which includes remastered version of the original 2-CD version, plus it will include a third disc of remastered previously unreleased version.

CD One (Remastered)
1 Monday Morning [3:55]  
2 Say You Love Me [4:18]  
3 Dreams [4:18]  
4 Oh Well [3:44]  
5 Over & Over [4:54]  
6 Sara [7:23]  
7 Not That Funny [9:04]  
8 Never Going Back Again [4:13]  
9 Landslide [4:55]

CD Two (Remastered)
1 Fireflies [4:25]  
2 Over My Head [3:37]  
3 Rhiannon [7:43]  
4 Don’t Let Me Down Again [3:57]  
5 One More Night [3:43]  
6 Go Your Own Way [5:44]  
7 Don’t Stop [4:05]  
8 I’m So Afraid [8:28]  
9 The Farmer’s Daughter [2:25]

 
CD Three (Previously unreleased)
1 Second Hand News* The Forum, Inglewood, CA (10/21/82) [4:11]  
2 The Chain ** Richfield Coliseum, Cleveland, OH (5/20/80) [6:51]  
3 Think About Me ** Kemper Arena, Kansas City, MO (8/24/80) [3:15]  
4 What Makes You Think You’re The One ** Kansas Coliseum, Wichita, KS (8/23/80) [4:13]  
5 Gold Dust Woman *** The Forum, Inglewood, CA (8/29/77) [7:19]  
6 Brown Eyes * The Forum, Inglewood, CA (10/22/82) [4:26]  
7 The Green Manalishi (With The Two-Pronged Crown) *** State Fair Arena, Oklahoma City, OK (5/18/77) [6:21]  
8 Angel ** Richfield Coliseum, Cleveland, OH (5/20/80) [4:35]  
9 Hold Me * The Forum, Inglewood, CA (10/21/82) [4:13]  
10 Tusk ** Kemper Arena, Kansas City, MO (8/24/80) [6:25]  
11 You Make Loving Fun *** Tulsa, OK (5/19/77) [4:44]  
12 Sisters Of The Moon ** Omaha Civic Auditorium, Omaha, NB (8/21/80) [7:05]  
13 Songbird ** Omaha Civic Auditorium, Omaha, NB (8/21/80) [3:55]  
14 Blue Letter *** Little Rock, AK (5/20/77) [4:39]  
15 Bonus Track  
16 Fireflies (Remix - Long Version) (1981) [4:05] 
* Mirage Tour, 
** Tusk Tour, 
*** Rumours Tour

Lindsey Buckingham reinterprets his intricate solo masterpiece “Never Going Back Again”

Watch Lindsey Buckingham Perform New Version of “Never Going Back Again” In Fender’s New Re-Creation Series

Lindsey Buckingham reinterprets his intricate solo masterpiece “Never Going Back Again” using the newly released Fender Acoustasonic Jazzmaster in Fender’s Re-Creation video series.

The gorgeously filmed performance spends a lot of quality time focused on Lindsey’s left and right hand, giving guitarists a clear view of his alternate Travis picking technique. He adds a nice, improvised melodic interlude in the song’s middle section, using his classic ‘solo while holding down the rhythm’ style.

And the sounds! Let’s say this video, the first in Fender’s new series, may well win over anyone who wasn’t sure of the Acoustasonic’s acoustic tonal capabilities.

“Even though I’ve only been with this new Jazzmaster for a short time, I can see that it would have a lot of uses in the studio. I’m excited to give it more time to get to know it a little better.”

“Acoustic guitar has always been my soulmate and alter ego; it got me to a place where I guess I had my own style,” Buckingham said. “Anytime I can take that orchestral approach, I have. The American Acoustasonic Jazzmaster allows you to do just that.”

American Songwriter

INTERVIEW - MICK FLEETWOOD LA TIMES

Before Stevie and Lindsey, Peter Green was the soul of Fleetwood Mac. Just ask Mick Fleetwood

By ROB TANNENBAUM
MARCH 24, 2021 5 AM PT
LA TIMES

Before he founded Fleetwood Mac, guitarist Peter Green replaced Eric Clapton in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, a band that was a way station for many of the best white British blues musicians of the 1960s. In the Bluesbreakers, where he earned the nickname “The Green God,” Green wrote “The Supernatural,” an instrumental showcase in which, midway, he halts his stately pace and resolutely holds a single note for 4½ bars. Other guitarists wanted to prove how fast they could play; Green was proud to show how slowly he could.

“It’s a perfect description of Peter,” says drummer Mick Fleetwood, 73, a former Bluesbreaker who has been, for 53 years, the only constant original member of Fleetwood Mac. “That’s Peter’s adage that I inherited from him as a musician and as a friend: Less is more. Say something with one note, or with a perfect vibrato.”

There are musicians who rate Green ahead of Clapton, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck as the greatest British blues guitarist of the ’60s, due to his singular combination of tone, touch and taste. But Green isn’t as well known as his contemporaries, an injustice Fleetwood has often tried to correct, most recently with an all-star tribute concert.

Green’s career and life are mysteries no one has solved. Fleetwood Mac debuted in August 1967 and within two years became the biggest band in Europe, outselling the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. A second guitarist, Jeremy Spencer, also wrote and sang, and Danny Kirwan soon joined and did the same, but the group’s success was chiefly due to Green’s songs, which varied between melancholy and menacing: “Black Magic Woman,” the U.K. No. 1 hit “Albatross,” “Man of the World,” “Need Your Love So Bad” and “Oh Well.”

In 1970, Green, who like many musicians had been taking LSD, came to believe that playing for money was immoral. He started wearing a white robe onstage (it made him look like Rasputin), gave away much of his money and tried to persuade the band to do the same. He quit and was later diagnosed with schizophrenia and spent time in mental institutions. His treatments included electroconvulsive therapy, during which doctors use electric currents to spark a brain seizure, and also narcotizing drugs. He moved to Israel and lived on a kibbutz, then returned to England, where he worked as a hospital orderly and a cemetery gardener. He was sent to prison after a 1976 incident in which he threatened to shoot his accountant. (In some accounts of this incident, Green is said to have demanded the accountant stop sending him money.)

Green toured and recorded now and then, but never again at a high level. “I just zombie around,” he told an interviewer in 1994, adding that his prescription meds made him fall asleep. His remarkable peak lasted less than three years, and some of his songs are known better for cover versions, notably Santana’s “Black Magic Woman,” Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ “Oh Well” and Judas Priest’s version of “The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown),” the haunted hard-rock song that was Green’s finale with Fleetwood Mac.

In the decades since Green left, the Fleetwood Mac lineup has changed regularly, which Fleetwood — sitting for a video conference from the kitchen of his home in Hawaii, wearing a black shirt and Kangol, and aviator glasses — calls “one of the most magical things about the band — the insanity of it.” And even after Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham joined and Fleetwood Mac became massive stars with the 1977 release of “Rumours,” Fleetwood kept reminding people that the band began with Peter Green.

His latest tribute is Mick Fleetwood and Friends Celebrate the Music of Peter Green and the Early Years of Fleetwood Mac, a concert that took place at the London Palladium on Feb. 25, 2020; the concert will stream at nugs.net starting April 24, followed the next week by Blu-ray, CD and LP releases. The guest performers include Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac, Pete Townshend of the Who, Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, Noel Gallagher of Oasis, Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, Kirk Hammett of Metallica and David Gilmour of Pink Floyd.

When I ask Fleetwood how long it took him to organize the concert, he replies, only half-jokingly, “most of my adult life, since Peter left the band.” For decades, he’s carried the responsibility of keeping Green’s name alive.

Tribute concert for Fleetwood Mac's Peter Green premiering April 24

A film documenting the star-studded London tribute concert that Mick Fleetwood organized last year celebrating Fleetwood Mac's early work and the group's original leader, singer/guitarist Peter Green, will premiere April 24 as an on-demand event that will be streamed on nugs.net.

Tickets for the flick, titled Mick Fleetwood & Friends Celebrate the Music of Peter Green and the Early Years of Fleetwood Mac, go on sale to the general public starting at 3 p.m. ET on the 24th, while Citi card members can access tickets now. The event will be streamed in HD and the 4K video format and will be available for viewing for five days.

Mick Fleetwood & Friends will then be released in multiple audio and video formats and configurations on April 30, including a box set featuring the concert on Blu-ray, two CDs and four vinyl LPs, and a 44-page hardbound book offering sleeve notes, photos and more.

As previously reported, the concert, which was held February 25, 2020, at the London Palladium, featured Fleetwood playing drums alongside a house band of respected musicians, with special appearances by a jaw-dropping lineup of guest artists. Among them were Pink Floyd's David Gilmour, The Who's Pete Townshend, Aerosmith's Steven Tyler, ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons, ex-Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman, Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett, Oasis' Noel Gallagher, and U.K. blues great John Mayall.

A number of other current and former Fleetwood Mac members also performed, including Christine McVie, Crowded House's Neil Finn, and founding guitarist Jeremy Spencer.

The show's house band included Who touring drummer Zak Starkey, and Jonny Lang and ex-Fleetwood Mac member Rick Vito on guitar.

Green didn't attend the event and, sadly, passed away in July 2020 at age 73.

Visit MickFleetwoodandFriends.com for more details.

Tribute: Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie

Women’s History Month Tribute: Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie

by Rozzi

When I was in seventh grade, Christine McVie was like a friend, probably because I had so few. It was one of those cruel middle school mysteries: I left sixth grade popular, the first girl in class to wear eyeliner, but when I returned from summer vacation, everything had changed. As I learned of loneliness, music took on a new role. My mother must have given me the CD—Rumours with a “u”—the spelling of it alone excited me. I used to play it every morning before school, while my cat Mr. Moon walked between my legs. A late bloomer, my hands were still childlike; I can see them in front of me now, red nail polish chipped at the edges, pulling the CD out of the sleeve and placing it in my parent’s old boombox. At first, I listened to Fleetwood Mac because no one else in my class did and, while I also secretly knew the words to the entire Christina Aguilera album, I preferred the feeling of rejecting whatever it was that everyone else accepted. But even then, I knew the band was magic. 

“Songbird” was the first song I learned. I used to sing it to myself in my bedroom mirror with a hairbrush in my hand. On a family trip to Colorado, I hung back on hikes and played it on repeat in my head while imagining myself in a romantic montage with a boy from middle school. That was my first taste of Christine’s romanticism, and perhaps my first taste of romanticism at all. “I wish you all the love in the world, but most of all I wish it from myself” is a lyric so deeply loving that I recently begged my brother to let me sing that song at his wedding. But the friendliness of Christine’s vocal allowed 12-year-old me to connect to it just as powerfully.

Christine is melodically brilliant (can anyone not readily recall the tune to “Everywhere”?) and her voice is rich and soulful, with an expert stability, and pervasive sexiness. But what I love most about her is her accessibility, her willingness to make songs for everyone. If Stevie Nicks is a spiritual deep thinker like John Lennon, then Christine McVie is a Paul McCartney-like optimist. She has a pulsing excitement for the moment she’s in, a belief in miracles, and she appears to fall in lust constantly. 

As a kid, this mirrored my passionate hope for the future, but as a young woman, it is her bravery that inspires me most. Sometimes I imagine her sitting down at the piano to play with her band (that included her bass player husband) “You Make Loving Fun,” a tune about her illicit affair with the group’s lighting director. When I write lyrics, my motto is if I’m embarrassed to put it in the song, I’m on the right track. In this pursuit, Christine is a guiding light—her loyalty to her art, and her paramount love for music, showing me the way.

My best friend and I went to see Fleetwood Mac at the Forum [in L.A.] a few years ago. Our seats were wedged into the stage right corner, and we spent the better half of the night pacing back and forth to the sections with better views until the security guards got wise to our plan. The band played hit after hit, but I went home thinking about Christine’s joy. And maybe that’s what first drew me to her as a lonely seventh grader: We shared a soulmate. For all her love songs, music appears to be the love of her life, at least she sings like it is. I didn’t know it then, but at 12 years old I was in the process of making the same lifelong commitment.

As I write this, “Say You Love Me” comes on and I hear it as if it’s brand new: the restrained confidence of her vocal, the enthusiastic piano at her fingertips, and the joyful honesty of her lyrics. Once again, I feel as if I’m with an old friend, pulled to the moment I’m in, and head over heels in love.

Rozzi is an L.A.-based singer/songwriter with new music to come in 2021.

Spin Magazine

Photo: Davidson/Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Fleetwood Mac "LIVE" Red Vinyl Set For Release

 

Barnes and Noble have an exclusive release available for pre-order. Release date is July 16, 2021. Doesn't indicate whether 1LP or 2.

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