Mick Fleetwood's "The Visitor" turns 43

As with any personal achievement worthy of public merit.  "The visitor" began as a dream. And it was Mick Fleetwood's belief in what he would find that finally moved five tons of musical and recording equipment to a little village in Ghana late last December (1980). Then, for the next six weeks, over 200 musicians from all over Ghana gathered in Accra to join with producer Richard Dashut, bassist George Hawkins, guitarist Todd Sharpe, and a Ghanaian percussion section in which the oldest player is 12 years. Mick Fleetwood's dream became a reality. "The Visitor" is Mick Fleetwood's triumph. But it is much more: it is a gift for the world from a place that never stops giving.

Mick Fleetwood "The Visitor"

Released June, 1981

Billboard Top 200 debut at No.140.

Peak Position No.43

14 weeks on the chart.

Singles Released: "You Weren't In Love" and "Walk a Thin Line" (Fleetwood Mac cover)

Ghana's Drumbeats Strike A Fleetwood Nerve

Billboard September 12, 1981

LOS ANGELES - With his first solo album, "The Visitor" which was made in Ghana with African musicians, Fleetwood Mac's Mick Fleetwood had at least two goals: to make an African-influenced album that mainstream Western pop audiences would listen to and to establish a link with Africa that will enable him to record there in future and produce African artists.

"The rest of Fleetwood Mac thought I was going to come back with howling in trees," laughs Fleetwood. "I wanted the album to be accessible. That was the point. If I had come back with a totally African album, I know it would have sat on the shelf in some little record store somewhere like some of these jazz albums. There's really no point in that."

Fleetwood, a fan of various types of percussion, had dreamed of going to Africa to participate with African musicians -for him, many of their rhythms are at the heart of rock music. He wanted to have selected African musicians perform Western songs mixed with traditional African songs. "I had a meeting with a Ghanain professor, a musicologist who was lecturing at UCLA on drum music," recalls Fleetwood.

"He played me tapes of stuff I could expect to hear and I played him stuff that I liked and had played on. I told him I wanted to go and be able to play around with material yet keep it pretty much as it was. We haven't taken any of the African songs and put English words to them or taken the melodies and worked in new words. These are their songs. I asked the professor if this was something he would find appealing or would the people be insulted?" 

With the go-ahead from the professor, Fleetwood prepared to go. The African material was chosen in Africa while the Western songs came from a variety of sources. The single, "You Weren't In Love," comes from Australia. He and coproducer Richard Dashut found it while resting in that country before heading to Africa. "We were in a bar and heard the song. It turned out to be a huge hit for the artist, Billy Fields, but at that time it was just a demo," he recalls. "We asked the bar owner about it and he said that Fields brought it in just for him to play at his restaurant. We looked Fields up the next day."

Traveling with Fleetwood were fellow Western musicians guitarist/vocalist Todd Sharp and bassist /vocalist George Hawkins. Former Fleetwood Mac member Peter Green contributes vocal and guitar overdubs on one track. He doesn't feel this overlaying of Western styles harms the African spirit. "I wanted to participate with them," he says. "I wasn't going to pretend that I was going to learn to play African drum rhythms in two weeks. I wanted to be Mick doing something somewhere else and have people I met do things I wanted to do. I wanted to have them confronted with playing 'Not Fade Away' or whatever."

Fleetwood's work stylistically fits in with what Talking Heads' David Byrne and producer Brian Eno have done in terms of incorporating African rhythms into pop music. However, Fleetwood feels his methods are different.

"Eno was there when I was there. He was up north at a drum festival and he produced a Ghanain hi-life (an electrified form of African music) band. The rest of the time I think he was sitting there with his tape recorder getting ideas. It's healthy but that's not what I wanted to do," he declares.

"I'm not putting him down. I'm sure he has all the good intentions in the world but when you see how easy it is to steal from a certain situation you say `somebody should be putting something back'." 

Part of his "putting something back" includes cutting the African musicians in on the royalties from "The Visitor" and lending credibility to the recently formed Musicians Union in Ghana. In return for the use of Ghana Film Studios, where the LP was recorded, Fleetwood and crew bought $15,000 worth of film for the financially ailing studio. The studio used it to document the Fleetwood trip and the film may air on PBS in the near future. 

Fleetwood has already featured several of the Ghanain drummers on German television and two tracks on which Ghanains participated may make it onto the next Fleetwood Mac album. No matter how "The Visitor" does, Fleetwood is planning to bring out an album of a concert Fleetwood participated in on his last day in Ghana. "I'm hoping my album will open the door and then I can present an album which is hard-core. I like to think we can play a little part in getting people to listen to more diverse stuff without being frightened off," Fleetwood comments.

So far, he is pleased with the reception the album has gotten. The album has gone top 50 in the U.S. "I wish more of the African stuff was getting played - comparatively little of it is," he bemoans. "If they started playing it, people would probably start phoning like crazy. If `You Weren't In Love' isn't a hit, it might well be worth going for one of the African songs as a single. At least, it would get played a little bit. It is refreshing, yet it's not like having to listen to jazz fusion in X, Y, and Z key or something. It's easy to listen to."

Warner Bros. didn't think so. Fleetwood Mac's label declined to release the package so "The Visitor" is on RCA. "I'm not angry at Warner Bros.," he says. "I'm quite happy with RCA. It's just one of those things. I was surprised and initially disappointed. But in retrospect, it's just business."

For the future, Fleetwood sees returning to Africa and bringing some of the musicians over here. "I wouldn't mind going there and just using the studio to make an album which might consist of something devoid of using African musicians. I would do it just to be there," he states. "I really hope though, I can bring some of the bands over. If I could just get them on a couple of talk shows. I know the effect would be amazing. If some of the bands from Jamaica can do it, I know it's possible." 

Mick Fleetwood (drummer with Fleetwood Mac) visiting and playing with master musicians in Ghana.  

Produced by Sunset and Vine of London for the BBC in 1982.

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.

MICK FLEETWOOD “I would love the elements that are not healed to be healed”

Mick Fleetwood Open to Reunion With Lindsey Buckingham, Imagines Fleetwood Mac Farewell Tour

“Fleetwood Mac is such a strange story,” says the drummer. “I would love the elements that are not healed to be healed”

By ANDY GREENE
Rollingstone

With the concert industry shut down for the foreseeable future and his bandmates spread to various spots around the planet, Mick Fleetwood truly doesn’t know what the future holds for Fleetwood Mac. But that hasn’t stopped the drummer from looking ahead and sketching out a possible farewell tour in his mind.

“I’m very aware that we’ve never played that card,” he tells Rolling Stone on the phone from his Hawaii home. “I think the vision for me, and I think it would be hugely appropriate, is that we actually say ‘this is goodbye’ and go out and actually do that. That has always been my vision and I’m a flatly confident that we can do that. We owe it to the fans.”

The comments appear to contradict Christine McVie’s recent statements to the BBC where she said that bassist John McVie was “a little bit frail” and no longer had “the heart for it.” She also said, “If we do it, it’ll be without John and without Stevie [Nicks], I think…I’m getting a bit old for it now. I don’t know if I can get myself back into it.”

McVie later walked back the comments, and Fleetwood says they shouldn’t be taken literally. “I think she got out of bed on the wrong side that day,” he says with a laugh. “She meant to say, ‘We’ve done so much. I don’t know whether or not we can keep going.’ Anything other than that, she can speak for herself. But I can assure you we are alive and well. And she has no regrets. She just got caught up in whatever she was saying and she also felt she had been misunderstood.”

Christine McVie also said that John McVie was focused largely on sailing the world on his boat, but Fleetwood says that’s never once stopped him from participating in band activities. “He’s always more interested in going sailing until you put it in front of his face,” he says. “He’s so not caught up in the drama of the workings of the band. That has always been my world. I’ve never not known John to answer the call and say, ‘Show me the gig and I’ll plug my bass in.'”

There hasn’t been any reason for McVie to plug his bass in since Fleetwood Mac ended their last world tour in November 2019. It was their first tour since parting ways with Lindsey Buckingham and bringing in Neil Finn of Crowded House and Mike Campbell of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers to fill the void. “It was a massive, really lovely world tour that was beyond successful in every way,” says Fleetwood. “And a happy tour.”

They initially planned on booking about eight stadium shows with other big artists the following year, but the pandemic made that impossible. Last July, Fleetwood Mac founding guitarist Peter Green died just months after Fleetwood staged a massive tribute concert in his honor at London’s Palladium.

It was a devastating blow to Fleetwood, but it also caused him to get back in touch with Buckingham after two years of bitter estrangement. “I’ve really enjoyed being re-connected with Lindsey, which has been gracious and open,” says Fleetwood. “And both of us have been beautifully honest about who we are and how we got to where we were.”

The reconciliation leads to an obvious question: Might Buckingham come back into Fleetwood Mac for the farewell tour that Fleetwood is plotting out in his mind? “Strange things can happen,” says Fleetwood. “I look at Fleetwood Mac as a huge family. Everyone plays an important role in our history, even someone like [early Seventies] guitarist Bob Welch, who was huge and sometimes gets forgotten. Lindsey’s position in Fleetwood Mac will, for obvious reasons, never been forgotten, as it should never be forgotten.”

“My vision of things happening in the future is really far-reaching,” he continues. “Would I love to think that [reunion] could happen? Yeah. I’d love to think that all of us could be healed, and also respect the people who are in the band, Neil Finn and Michael Campbell.”

The major impediment to a reunion with Buckingham is his relationship with Stevie Nicks, which had been strained for decades and finally reached a breaking point in early 2018. No reunion tour can proceed without the two of them arriving at some sort of detente. “I can’t speak for the dynamic with Stevie and him,” says Fleetwood. “I don’t even need to protect it. It’s so known that they’re chalk and cheese in so many ways, and yet not.”

For now, Fleetwood is just happy he’s back on speaking terms with Buckingham. “I know for a fact that I intend to make music and play again with Lindsey,” he says. “I would love that. It doesn’t have to be in Fleetwood Mac. And Fleetwood Mac is such a strange story. All the players in the play are able to talk and speak for themselves. Somehow, I would love the elements that are not healed to be healed. I love the fantasy that we could cross that bridge and everyone could leave with creative, holistic energy, and everyone could be healed with grace and dignity.”

Mick Fleetwood Sells Song Catalog To BMG

Mick Fleetwood Becomes Third Member of Fleetwood Mac to Sell Song Catalog

By Jem Aswad - Variety

BMG announced that it has acquired “outright” Fleetwood Mac co-founder Mick Fleetwood’s interests in the band’s recordings.

The deal gives BMG Fleetwood’s royalty interest in over 300 recordings, including the hits including “Dreams” — which enjoyed a massive resurgence due to recent popularity on TikTok — “The Chain,” “Go Your Own Way” and “Landslide” from albums including the multiplatinum albums “Fleetwood Mac,” “Rumours,” “Tango in the Night” and others. It includes Fleetwood’s interest in all of their recorded work apart from their first two albums.

While Fleetwood did not write any of the above songs and has relatively few songwriting credits, his recorded-music rights as bandmember and drummer on the tracks yield him royalties connected to album sales, downloads and streaming.

BMG already has a relationship with the band, re-releasing its classic 1970 album “And Play on” and the theatrical, record and mediabook release of Mick Fleetwood & Friends, 2020’s tribute event to legendary guitarist Peter Green and the early years of the band. Fleetwood and bassist John McVie cofounded the band with Green in 1967; its most commercially successful lineup formed when Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham — both of whom recently sold their publishing rights for undisclosed amounts, although Nicks’ is reported to be $100 million — joined in 1975.

BMG CEO Hartwig Masuch said, “Mick Fleetwood is the bedrock of one of the greatest bands in rock, he has a unique talent to bring together musicians of all genres and of course he is one of rock’s greatest drummers. BMG is proud to represent his greatest work and excited about the forthcoming launch of Mick Fleetwood & Friends.”

Mick Fleetwood said, “This is a wonderfully inspiring marriage between two creative partners that understand all aspects of the business. Foremost, BMG understands the artistry and puts the artist first. If this partnership is any indication of my past, and now future, working relationship with BMG, it’s that they truly ‘get it’.”

The sale of Mick Fleetwood’s recorded interests was brokered by his manager Carl Stubner of Shelter Music Group. Said Stubner: “For over 50 years Mick’s works continue to be introduced to legions of new fans while BMG continues to ensure its artists are paid their fair share. In an industry, not always known to look after its iconic artists, BMG continues to maximize their income streams.”

BMG EVP Group Strategy and M&A Justus Haerder said, “This acquisition highlights the value of timeless recordings in a streaming market which is increasingly benefitting established rather than newer artists. While recent acquisition activity in the music market has focused on music publishing, this is a pure recorded investment which will get the full benefit of streaming growth. Catalogues such as Fleetwood Mac’s which connect with every generation are benefiting disproportionately from that growth.”

MICK FLEETWOOD AND LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM RECONNECTED RECENTLY OVER PETER GREEN

Mick Fleetwood on viral video and whether Lindsey Buckingham will return 

By Nicki Gostin 

Page Six

Mick Fleetwood thinks it’s “cool” that his band’s classic tune “Dreams” is climbing the charts again.

Last month, Nathan Apodaca posted a TikTok video of himself skateboarding and chugging cranberry juice while lip-syncing to the Fleetwood Mac 1977 hit “Dreams.” The clip has been viewed over 30 million times, resulting in Apodaca being gifted a cranberry-hued truck from Ocean Spray and the Stevie Nicks penned song gaining over 8 million on-demand streams last week.

Fleetwood, 73, even made his own TikTok copying Apodaca and the two met up via a Zoom chat.

The British-born musician is humble about the video’s success chalking it up to a “moment of connectivity” that “just resonated.”

“It was a reach out with a smile,” he told Page Six from his home in Hawaii. “Here I am and here we go. It’s so what we need right now. And how cool is that?”

“It was sort of a huge accident. This is hugely gratifying and it’s fantastic,” he said.

Fleetwood Mac are as famous for their songs that defined the ’70s as much as their internecine squabbling, which has led to members leaving and returning.

The most recent was in 2018 when guitarist Lindsey Buckingham was fired.

Fleetwood, who says he spoke to Buckingham recently, “has no idea” if Buckingham will ever return.

He explained in a not very clear or succinct way: “I think the reality is without going into huge detail, one of the things I always say is that the disconnect happened and there were emotions that were somewhat not removable and there are personal things within the band and Lindsey’s world.

“All I can say is really openly is that Lindsey Buckingham and the work he has done with the band is never going to go away and we have a functioning band with the changes that we made. You know time heals and it was lovely to be able to talk with him.”

Fleetwood said the two spoke by phone after Fleetwood Mac founder Peter Green passed away age 73 in July.

“Lindsey said, ‘I know you’re really sad and of course, I was.’ And that’s what reconnected me and Lindsey. We had the greatest talk. It was like we’d just spoken five minutes ago.”

The drummer  is looking forward to a post-COVID time where he can perform again and “there has to be a positive outcome of stories to be told by all of us.”

 

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A post shared by FLEETWOOD MAC NEWS (@fleetwoodmacnews) on Oct 12, 2020 at 4:33pm PDT

MICK FLEETWOOD RECREATES VIRAL DREAMS VIDEO

Mick Fleetwood recreates viral "Dreams" TikTok; 

original video guy can now afford a car & place to live

The viral video of that guy on a skateboard lip-syncing to Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams" while swigging Ocean Spray juice has inspired the band's own Mick Fleetwood to recreate the scenario.

The drummer made his own TikTok, in which he glides along while drinking Ocean Spray Cran-Raspberry juice from the bottle and lip-syncing to the song that's, to date, his band's only number-one U.S. hit.  Mick captioned it, "@420doggface208 " -- the original guy's TikTok name -- "had it right. Dreams and Cranberry just hits different," and added the hashtag #CranberryDreams.

Posting the video on Instagram, Mick added, "Had way to[o] much fun with this!! More to come."

Ocean Spray commented, "Love this! Hope you enjoyed your juice. We have really enjoyed listening to Fleetwood Mac on repeat lately."

Meanwhile, TMZ tracked down @420doggface208, whose life has now been completely changed by his video.  His name is Nathan Apodaca, and he says since the video went viral, people have sent him $10,000 in donations, which he can now use to get a proper place to live -- at the moment, he's living in an RV with no running water, parked in front of his brother's house.

In addition, Nathan, who works at a potato factory, plans to upgrade his car -- that's the reason he was on a skateboard in the first place.  He plans to give his mom $5,000, and he gave his girlfriend a washer/dryer and bought some clothes for his daughter. 

Nathan's also been contacted by Footlocker, and hopes to get some free clothes out of the deal -- but he tells TMZ he's still waiting for Ocean Spray to call.

By Andrea Dresdale - Abc News Radio

View this post on Instagram

Well played @mickfleetwoodofficial 😂😂😂 @doggface208 #tiktok #fleetwoodmac #mickfleetwood

A post shared by FLEETWOOD MAC NEWS (@fleetwoodmacnews) on Oct 4, 2020 at 1:38pm PDT

The original video that first went viral

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Here it is this took off today 2.3million views in 7hrs WOWZA!!!! #420souljahz #ec #high #skaterfoo #pothead #fleetwoodmac #king #stonerfoo #blazed #blazinforonenation #longboard

A post shared by @Doggface208 (@doggface208) on Sep 25, 2020 at 2:32pm PDT

Following the video going viral.... Sales and streams of "Dreams" spiked!

Fleetwood Mac's 'Dreams' Triples in Sales, Nearly Doubles in Streams in Days Following Viral TikTok Clip ... 

A whopping 43 years after its initial release, "Dreams" remains one of the most consumed rock songs in America on a regular basis. 

Billboard

Well, here Fleetwood Mac goes again with its signature classic rock hit that absolutely will not be kept down. "Dreams," the U.K.-meets-L.A. group's 1977 chart-topper -- their lone No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 -- has experienced another spike in sales and streams tied to a viral video.

This time, it's due to a TikTok video that took the world by storm late last week, with the enduring song soundtracking a middle-aged man in a hoodie seemingly being pulled on a skateboard, as he swigs from a bottle of Ocean Spray Cran-Raspberry juice and occasionally sings along with Stevie Nicks' lead vocal. The clip's incredibly specific vibe of melancholy chill and absurdity captured hearts across the Internet -- and inspired a massive hike in "Dreams" consumption in the days following its spread.

For the three-day period of Sept. 25 - Sept. 27, "Dreams" racked up 2.9 million on-demand U.S. streams and 3000 in digital download sales -- numbers up 88.7% and 374%, respectively, from their totals in the prior three-day periods, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. (The song also climbed as high as No. 24 on Spotify's US Daily chart on Sept. 27.)

The viral bumps are nothing new for "Dreams," which previously enjoyed gains in 2018 following a meme of Alcorn State University's Golden Girls dance team grooving to "Dreams" that took off on Twitter. The spikes two years ago were much more modest however, representing a 24% gain in on-demand streams and a 36% gain in download sales over the week following the meme's debut.

Even when not actively boosted by such social media spikes, "Dreams" has been a regular presence on the Billboard charts in recent years. The song has appeared on Billboard's Rock Digital Song Sales chart for each of the last six weeks, and for much of the year before that, climbing to a No. 5 peak in March. Meanwhile, it's held a place on the Rock Streaming Songs chart since February, hitting a peak of No. 6 in July. And the song has also appeared sporadically on Billboard's all-metric Hot Rock & Alternative Songs listing, reaching a No. 13 peak following the Alcorn State bump in April 2018.

A whopping 43 years after its initial release, "Dreams" remains one of the most consumed rock songs in America on a regular basis. Check back to next week's Billboard charts, dated Oct. 10, where the song is likely to hit new peaks on both charts following its TikTok journey -- and perhaps enter some new ones for the first time as well.

Mick Fleetwood Releases New Music/Video - 'These Strange Times'

Rock & Roll Icon Releases New Recording of  
“These Strange Times”

Available on Spotify and Apple

Mick Fleetwood Official Website

September 25, 2020 -- Rock & Roll Hall of Fame drummer Mick Fleetwood released today a new recording and video for Mick Fleetwood’s Da*da*ism “These Strange Times,” available on Rhino Records. Originally released on Fleetwood Mac’s 16th studio album Time in 1995, the song was re-recorded adding thirty seconds of Peter Green’s “Albatross” to the end of the song and set to a brand-new video.

Inspired by an eighteenth-century painting, the newly released video and accompanying single artwork are centered around the idea of something greater than us, which lies at the core of our very human struggle to be our best selves.

“The project is about the energy of choice, of deciding if you want to be a part of the dark or the light when push comes to shove, which seems very apropos at this moment in history,” Fleetwood says. “It’s about how you read things, which is very important today. Everyone needs to be carefully paying attention to the information coming our way. There is subtext to everything and we need to be aware of that. When I first encountered the painting that inspired the photoshoot, it was a soul-searching exercise that I was driven to do but I didn’t know when would be the time to release it. Now I know why: the when is now.”

The spoken-word poem at the center of the song finds the narrator, Fleetwood, questioning his feelings and his thoughts, as he has found himself stuck between the dark and the light. The video is meant to be as thought provoking as the song is hypnotic, as the lyrics detail the struggle of the narrator.

“I hope the song conveys that life is about choice,” Fleetwood says. “God is everything, no matter what your belief system is. Being in love is God, no matter your creed. There’s a rejoicing at the end of the song when the narrator chooses the side of the light. The song is about all of us making that choice ourselves and the relief we feel when we are no longer caught in the middle.”

“This is something I wrote many years ago,” Fleetwood says, “and I want it to be nothing more than thought provoking. I want people to see and hear what they will in it. My hope is that by haring these thought-provoking moments in my world that I can somehow open the eyes of others to things in their world and to the existence we all share, which is more and more endangered with each passing day.”

Song Credits:

Title: These Strange Times

Artist: 

Mick Fleetwood’s Da * da * ism  
Composers: 

Mick Fleetwood, Ray Kennedy and Peter Green
Executive Producers:  

Mick Fleetwood and Carl Stubner
Produced by: 

Lynn Peterson, Mick Fleetwood, John Jones and Ray Kennedy
Recorded and Mixed by:

Lynn Peterson and John Jones
Additional Engineering: 

Jimmy Hotz 
Recorded in the USA 
 
Vocals: 

Mick Fleetwood & Bekka Bramlett
Lead Guitars: 

Rick Vito
Acoustic Guitars, Drums & Percussion: 

Mick Fleetwood
Bass Guitar:  

John Jones 

Keyboards: 

Ricky Peterson & John Jones 
Background vocals:  

Lucy Fleetwood

GOD IS NOWHERE/GOD IS NOW HERE

This statement is the essence of the artistic journey at the heart of Mick Fleetwood’s new single, “These Strange Times.” The song isn’t about God in any conventional way according to the tenets of any particular creed. Rather, God represents the divine, in other words, the idea of something greater than us, which lies at the center of every religious belief in one way or another and is at the core of our very human struggle to be our best selves. “The project is about the energy of choice, of deciding if you want to be a part of the dark or the light when push comes to shove, which seems very apropos at this moment in history,” Fleetwood says.

Inspired by an eighteenth-century painting, the photographical homage included in the album art addresses subtext and language. The phrase “God is nowhere” has been drawn on a blackboard by a devil-disguised Fleetwood, but interpreted by his pupil, an innocent child, as “God is now here.”

“It’s about how you read things, which is very important today,” Fleetwood says. “Everyone needs to be carefully paying attention to the information coming our way. There is subtext to everything and we need to be aware of that. When I first encountered the painting that inspired the song and the photoshoot, it was a soul-searching exercise that I was driven to do but I didn’t know when would be the time to release it. Now I know why: the when is now.”

The spoken-word poem at the center of the song finds the narrator, Fleetwood, questioning his feelings and his thoughts, as he has found himself stuck between the dark and the light, a condition he regards as a living hell. The beautiful video that accompanies the song juxtaposes images from nature evoking light and dark, the best and worst elements of man’s impact on Earth and the legacy we are leaving for future generations. It is as thought provoking as the song is hypnotic, as the lyrics detail the struggle of the narrator, lost and yearning to be in love, as he is led to the light in the end by the angelic voice of a child showing him that God is in fact now here.

“I hope the song conveys that life is about choice,” Fleetwood says. “God is everything, no matter what your belief system is. Being in love is God, no matter your creed. There’s a rejoicing at the end of the song when the narrator chooses the side of the light. The song is about all of us making that choice ourselves and the relief we feel when we are no longer caught in the middle.” 

We are caught in strange times indeed, growing stranger and harsher with each passing day. It is a time for looking within to find answers, and to make sense of the world around us. “This is something I wrote many years ago,” Fleetwood says, “and I want it to be nothing more than thought provoking. I want people to see and hear what they will in it. My hope is that by sharing these thought provoking moments in my world that I can somehow open the eyes of others to things in their world and to the existence we all share, which is more and more endangered with each passing day.”

Mick Fleetwood Releases Apt Video for ‘These Strange Times’

Nineties Fleetwood Mac track gets new recording featuring sample of “Albatross”

ROLLINGSTONE

Mick Fleetwood shares new version of ‘These Strange Times’

"I didn’t know when would be the time to release it. Now I know why: the when is now”

NME

Peter Green, Fleetwood Mac Founder has died at 73

Blues guitarist Peter Green, a co-founder of the band Fleetwood Mac, has died at the age of 73.

Representatives from the firm Swan Turton released a statement from Green's family on Saturday saying, "It is with great sadness that the family of Peter Green announce his death this weekend, peacefully in his sleep. A further statement will be provided in the coming days."

Green was known for his blues guitar sound even prior to the forming of Fleetwood Mac. He replaced Eric Clapton in John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers in 1965. Just a couple years later in 1967, Green and fellow Bluesbreakers members, drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie, formed Fleetwood Mac, along with guitarist Jeremy Spencer.

Mick Fleetwood released a statement on Saturday noting Green's fundamental place in the band's history.

"For me, and every past and present member of Fleetwood Mac, losing Peter Green is monumental! Peter was the man who started the band Fleetwood Mac along with myself, John McVie, and Jeremy Spencer. No one has ever stepped into the ranks of Fleetwood Mac without a reverence for Peter Green and his talent, and to the fact that music should shine bright and always be delivered with uncompromising passion!!!

Peter,

I will miss you, but rest easy your music lives on. I thank you for asking me to be your drummer all those years ago. We did good, and trail blazed one hell of a musical road for so many to enjoy.

God speed to you, my dearest friend.......

Love Mick Fleetwood"

Green's direction can be heard on the group's early albums including their self-titled debut in 1968. He wrote "Albatross," the group's only No. 1 hit on the United Kingdom's singles chart. Green was also behind "Oh Well," "Man of the World," and "Black Magic Woman," the last of which Santana popularized with a cover version.

Green left the band in 1970 following a period of erratic behavior and drug use. His behavior was later diagnosed as schizophrenia and he was hospitalized for some time. Green returned to music in the late '70s, composing and recording albums on his own.

Green was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998, alongside seven other members of Fleetwood Mac.

In February, before the coronavirus shut down large scale gatherings, Mick Fleetwood held a tribute concert for Green in London, featuring a lineup of artists who were influenced by Green's work.

Fleetwood told Rolling Stone that he put the tribute concert together because "I wanted people to know that I did not form this band — Peter Green did. And I wanted to celebrate those early years of Fleetwood Mac, which started this massive ball that went down the road over the last 50 years."

Wynne Davis - NPR

Statement from Stevie Nicks

Mick Fleetwood Will Host Concert Honoring Peter Green and Early Fleetwood Mac

Mick Fleetwood Announces Concert to Honor Peter Green and Early Fleetwood Mac

Mick Fleetwood will host a one-of-a-kind concert honoring the early years of Fleetwood Mac and its co-founder Peter Green on February 25th at the London Palladium.

Fleetwood has enlisted an all-star cast of musicians to perform, including Billy Gibbons, David Gilmour, Jonny Lang, John Mayall, Christine McVie, Zak Starkey, Steven Tyler and Bill Wyman.

“The concert is a celebration of those early blues days where we all began, and it’s important to recognize the profound impact Peter and the early Fleetwood Mac had on the world of music,” Fleetwood said in a statement. “Peter was my greatest mentor and it gives me such joy to pay tribute to his incredible talent. I am honored to be sharing the stage with some of the many artists Peter has inspired over the years and who share my great respect for this remarkable musician.”

Fleetwood will act as the house band alongside Andy Fairweather Low, Dave Bronze and Ricky Peterson, and producer Glyn Johns will be the executive sound producer for the concert. The event will be filmed for eventual release and directed by Martyn Atkins.

Exclusive pre-sale tickets go on sale Wednesday November 13th at 10 a.m. GMT while public tickets go on sale Friday November 15th at 10 a.m. GMT via Ticketmaster. A donation from the event will go to Teenage Cancer Trust, a U.K. charity dedicated to providing specialist nursing and emotional support to young people with cancer.

Green co-founded Fleetwood Mac in 1967 alongside Fleetwood, John McVie, Jeremy Spencer and Danny Kirwan. Fleetwood told Rolling Stone in 2017 that there was little possibility of the original lineup of the band reforming down the road.

“I went there many years ago,” he said. “We got into it and we were going to put a whole thing together at the [Royal] Albert Hall. This is years and years and years ago. Probably about 15 years ago. And right at the last minute, Peter, in the world that he lives in, just suddenly pulled out. … Suddenly it was not a good idea. And we had put a whole bunch of things together, I had even booked the venue. So I would never do that again.”

Adding Neil Finn to Fleetwood Mac has been a huge and lovely success

DON’T STOP
The New Zealand Herald
Sept 12, 2019

 From the September 12, 2019 edition of Time Out

New Zealand Herald

Mick Fleetwood talks to Karl Puschmann about the new-look band and touring with Neil Finn Downunder

Adding Neil Finn to Fleetwood Mac has been a huge and lovely success, Mick Fleetwood tells Karl Puschmann.

IF, AT times, it’s been a particular torture being in Fleetwood Mac, is it then safe to assume that joining Fleetwood Mac is also painful and fraught?

“Oh yeah,” Mick Fleetwood says. “We hung him up by his toenails.”

We’re talking, of course, about Neil Finn, the newest recruit to one of pop music’s greatest and most enduring bands, Fleetwood Mac. Finn was brought in, along with Mike Campbell, former guitarist for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, to join the Mac last year as replacements for long-term member Lindsey Buckingham, who left under fairly acrimonious conditions.

Today, however, Fleetwood’s in a chipper mood. He’s full of beans and excitement for tonight’s show in Sydney.

“It’s a show day,” he says, when I ask how he’s going, “It’s a circus.”

And, just like a circus, the show must go on. That means there’s not much time for talking, so I cut to the chase. The big question everyone in New Zealand wants to know is how Neil Finn came to join Fleetwood Mac.

It turns out Fleetwood’s been a Finn fan for more than 20 years.

“I’d always been a huge fan of his, unbeknown to him,” he says.

“Not only the artiste in him, but the songwriter and the singer in him is — for me and many other people, and especially for you folks there in New Zealand — something very special. But I always followed him as an artist and loved his songs.”

The fan eventually met his hero after they both played a benefit gig for Paul McCartney’s wife Linda, who had recently died.

“I met him at an after-party and we spent the whole night chit-chatting,” he says.

“I actually said, way back then, ‘One day, it’d be great to be in a band together’.”

Prophetic, perhaps, but not immediately meant to be.

“That was that; we went off into the night and never saw each other for another 18 years until I bumped into him backstage at an awards show in Auckland,” Fleetwood says, referencing the 2015 New Zealand Music Awards that he attended as a surprise guest. “Ever since then we’ve remained very close family friends.”

Soon after, Fleetwood returned and spent about six months in the studio with Finn and his son Liam, drumming on their excellent joint album, Lightsleeper, which was released last year.

“That was really where the magic of putting together this funny puzzle of us becoming very, very close friends happened,” Fleetwood says.

“So, when this all came up with Fleetwood Mac it felt eventual. I asked him whether he would be up for doing what he’s doing and it’s been a huge success.”

“So,” he says, capping off his story, “that’s how it happened”.

The other question fans want to know is why it happened? Buckingham’s sudden departure, both shocking but, perhaps, not unexpected.

In the 52 years Fleetwood Mac has existed (the band formed in 1967), roughly a dozen musicians have cycled through the band — a tally that does not count its six current members, which include Christine McVie on vocals and keys and iconic singer Stevie Nicks.

The only constant in all this time has been Fleetwood and his old mate John McVie on bass.

Which is only fitting, seeing as the band is named after them, although Fleetwood clarifies that it was long-departed founding member Peter Green who came up with the name, “somewhat ironically”.

So, when asked what’s kept them going through all the band’s tumultuous periods — in-band romances, marriages, adultery, divorces, backstabbing, bickering and monumental cocaine use — Fleetwood simply says, “It’s probably stubbornness or the English grit in me where, no matter what, you keep going with a stiff upper lip.

“Me and John McVie just aren’t giver-upperers. We always had the nucleus of a band. We don’t sing. We are the rhythm section.

“When Peter Green left it was a huge blow to us but it was a lesson learned — that you can survive and come out when you think you can’t,” he says. “Having done that once in such a major way it became sort of a habit . . . We just keep going. And we haven’t done that badly if you look at what we’ve been able to pull off.” He laughs and says, “I’m being a little facetious,” which is true, when you consider what they’ve “been able to pull off”, is selling more than 120 million records, releasing a string of hits that are woven into people’s lives and being part of a band whose current live show, even with four members in their 70s, remains vital and unmissable. “The truth is it’s sticking at it and going, ‘Why wouldn’t we try that?’ The trying became the next step. It could have been we tried and we failed,” he says, before giving an example.

“Look at what we’ve done with Neil and Mike. We could have looked at what was a huge change at a very late date in this band’s history, the parting of company with Lindsey Buckingham, that could have been, ‘We’re done’. But we all looked at it and said, ‘We don’t want to be done’. The question was how do we do this with integrity?

“And it’s not been anything but a huge and lovely success. But we might have failed in the trying. We might not have been able to find those right people to put in the band, and you wouldn’t be talking to a present member of Fleetwood Mac.”

So, there you have it, the secret to Fleetwood Mac’s half-century of success; don’t stop thinking about tomorrow and go your own way. There’s probably a song or two in that . . .

INTERVIEW Fleetwood Mac Sunday Night Australia TV Special

Fleetwood Mac Sunday Night Australia TV Special

INTERVIEW Mick Fleetwood and Christine McVie speak with the UK's Independent

Fleetwood Mac: ‘We’ll burn in hell if we don’t play Glastonbury one day’
Cocaine, fights, love affairs and break-ups. Mick Fleetwood and Christine McVie speak to Chris Harvey about the success, the hardship and the torment of the band as they prepare to play Wembley in June

The Independent

This strange, funny band is complicated,” says Mick Fleetwood. “It’s all about people, it’s not horrific.” I’m talking to the man who has been the only member of Fleetwood Mac to appear in every line-up of the band since they were formed. When they step out on stage at Wembley Stadium in June, that will be coming up to 52 years ago.

We’ve been chatting about the period when Fleetwood Mac moved from stars to superstars with the release of Rumours in 1977. It was during the era of Seventies rock excess, when band mythologies are wreathed in tales of groupies, sexual exploitation, drug addiction and death.

Fleetwood Mac were no strangers to drugs: LSD had cost the group its original leader, Peter Green, at the end of the Sixties, and cocaine was an integral part of the band’s Seventies. Fleetwood wrote in his autobiography that Rumours was written with “white powder peeling off the wall in every room of the studio”.

“I think we were damned lucky that our music never went down the drain because we went down the drain,” the 71-year-old drummer says now, “and I think in truth there are moments where you could have said we got pretty close, you know.

“Cocaine was everywhere, people who worked in banks [used it]. Personally, I had a run on that lifestyle, but fortunately, I didn’t get into any other type of drug that would have been more damaging – I don’t even know why, but I’m very thankful. Brandy and cocaine and beer,” he says, naming his poisons, as he describes the 20 years of “high-powered lunacy” that he put his body through. “That lifestyle became something that had to come to an end… hopefully, you come out of it with your trousers still on, and not taken out in a plastic bag.”

Mick Sighting. Fleetwood Mac's Mick Fleetwood shopping at Toronto's Hazelton Men

Mick Fleetwood shopping in Toronto at Hazelton Men, Saturday April 6th.

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