- Their roots dig deep into the blues. Long before the catchy pop hits of the seventies, incredibly talented guitarist Peter Green formed Fleetwood Mac in 1967 as a gritty British blues band.
- The band’s name combines two members. Peter Green named the group after drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie. Funny enough, those two are the only members who stuck around through every single iteration of the band.
- Two legendary members joined entirely by accident. Mick Fleetwood originally only wanted to hire guitarist Lindsey Buckingham. Lindsey absolutely refused to join unless Fleetwood included his girlfriend and musical partner, Stevie Nicks, in the deal.
- The drama literally fueled the music. The band recorded their masterpiece album, Rumours, while both couples in the group navigated incredibly painful breakups. The famously tense studio sessions produced raw emotion that resulted in one of the greatest records ever made.
- The Chain was a rare true group effort. Out of all the legendary tracks on Rumours, The Chain stands as the only song that credits all five band members as writers. They essentially stitched the track together from different discarded instrumental pieces and lyrics.
- The band left a masterpiece on the cutting room floor. Stevie Nicks wrote the hauntingly beautiful track Silver Springs for Rumours, but the group left it off the final tracklist simply because the physical vinyl record lacked enough room. The song eventually became a massive hit two decades later during their live reunion.
- Those iconic hanging balls have a weird origin. On the iconic cover of Rumours, Mick Fleetwood wears two dangling wooden balls on his pants. He actually stole these lavatory pull chains from an English club years prior and treated them as a personal good luck charm.
- A paperback novel inspired Rhiannon. Stevie Nicks wrote the hit song after reading a book called Triad, which featured a character named Rhiannon. She later found out the name belonged to a Welsh mythological figure and thought it fit her song’s mystical vibe perfectly.
- Midnight inspiration struck Christine McVie. She woke up in the middle of the night with the beautiful ballad Songbird fully formed in her head. She had to stay awake and play the song on the piano until morning so she would not forget the melody before reaching the recording studio.
- They recruited a massive marching band for a single song. For their highly experimental track Tusk, the band recorded the University of Southern California Trojan Marching Band playing live at Dodger Stadium. This remains one of the most unique and ambitious recording sessions in rock history.
- A revolving door of musicians defines their history. Over the decades, a staggering eighteen different musicians officially joined the Fleetwood Mac lineup, and each person brought completely different sounds to the group in each era.
- A presidential endorsement boosted their comeback. Bill Clinton used their upbeat track Don’t Stop as the official theme song for his 1992 presidential campaign. He even convinced the classic lineup to reunite and perform the song live at his inaugural ball.
- Stevie Nicks made rock history. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted her twice, making her the very first woman to achieve this milestone. The organization honored her first with Fleetwood Mac in 1998, and then recognized her again as a solo artist in 2019.
- Their founder walked away from it all. Peter Green left the band he created in 1970 after struggling significantly with his mental health. He eventually gave away a large portion of his massive rock star fortune to charity because he preferred a much simpler, quiet life.
- They practically invented reality TV. Decades before cameras followed celebrities around, the unfiltered emotional honesty in their lyrics gave fans a front-row seat to their personal lives. They literally wrote hit songs complaining to and about each other, and fans eagerly sang every single word.
Sources & References
Rolling Stone: https://au.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/silver-springs-inside-fleetwood-macs-great-lost-breakup-anthem-1968/
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: https://rockhall.com/inductees/fleetwood-mac/
