Mick Fleetwood is more than the man behind the band’s name. He’s the reason Fleetwood Mac survived its highest highs and lowest lows.
In the band’s early years, Mick was constantly rebuilding the lineup as members cycled in and out. By the late 1970s, he’d become the glue holding the group together through drug abuse, infidelity and betrayals playing out among his bandmates.
The band started out as a blues combo, led by guitarist Peter Green. He, like Mick and bassist John McVie, had come up playing in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers.
When Peter named the group, he was already thinking about leaving it. “Because I knew I was probably going to leave,” he later recalled, per BBC. “I always wanted Mick and John to have a job.”
The band scored several hits in the late 1960s, including “Albatross,” “Oh Well,” and “Black Magic Woman.” The latter would later become an international hit for Santana.
At the same time, Peter’s life was unraveling. His song “The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown)” hinted at the drug-induced psychosis that would soon end his time in the band.
“I don’t know why I left the group in the end,” Peter wrote in Mick’s book, Love That Burns. “I know that people looked at me like I was in a dream. I could tell that, even at the time.”
After he departed, Fleetwood Mac went through several lineup changes. Eventually, the band brought in John’s wife, Christine McVie, who’d already made a name for herself with the blues band Chicken Shack.
She’d go on to write several of the band’s most beloved songs, including “Songbird,” “Don’t Stop,” “Over My Head” and “You Make Loving Fun.”
The band’s next turning point came in 1974. While visiting Sound City Studios in Los Angeles, Mick heard “Frozen Love,” a track from the album Buckingham Nicks.
Impressed by Lindsey Buckingham‘s guitar work, Mick quickly offered him a spot in the band. Lindsey agreed, but only if his musical partner and girlfriend, Stevie Nicks, came along too.
The duo officially joined Fleetwood Mac on December 31, 1974. It didn’t take long for the Buckingham-Nicks lineup to change Fleetwood Mac’s trajectory.
The band’s 1975 self-titled album sold more than 500,000 copies in its first year, driven by songs like “Rhiannon,” “Say You Love Me,” and “Over My Head.”
“Landslide” wasn’t initially one of those hits, but it would become one of the band’s signature songs.
With the five members of its classic lineup finally together, Fleetwood Mac found the combination that would define its sound. Lindsey, Stevie, Mick, Christine and John would soon turn the band’s rock-and-pop blend into a worldwide phenomenon.
But the band’s success was soon shadowed by the end of Lindsey and Stevies’ relationship. The two split in 1976, just as Fleetwood Mac was about to begin recording Rumours.
Their breakup became part of the music, with the tension between them surfacing in “Dreams,” “Go Your Own Way,” “The Chain” and “Silver Springs,” which was left off the original album.
Released in 1977, Rumours has since sold more than 40 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling albums in music history.
Over the years, the lineup changed as members came and went. Lindsey left in 1987 and returned a decade later, while Stevie took breaks to focus on her solo career.
Despite the ups and downs, Mick’s gamble on two relatively unknown musicians created something far greater than he could have imagined — and fans are grateful he took the chance.
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