Thursday, April 12, 2018

Mike Campbell Statement on Joining Fleetwood Mac

Embed from Getty Images
"Though I was sad to hear Lindsey Buckingham is no longer with Fleetwood Mac, I am honored and excited to join the band. Lindsey is one of my favorite musical artists. A true genius at songwriting and guitar playing. I intend to honor his songs while at the same time bring my musicality to the band. After one rehearsal I can tell it’s going to be an amazing collaboration. I am also very happy to have an opportunity to play with Neil Finn, who I greatly admire. Fleetwood Mac not only has one of the greatest rhythm sections in rock history, it also has two of the finest voices and songwriters in Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie. I am looking forward to the tour with great anticipation."

Tuesday, April 10, 2018

Fleetwood Mac Fires Lindsey Buckingham over a disagreement with upcoming tour

Fleetwood Mac Fires Lindsey Buckingham
Mike Campbell of the Heartbreakers and Neil Finn of Crowded House to replace departing guitarist
By Andy Greene
Rollingstone

Fleetwood Mac has fired Lindsey Buckingham after a disagreement over the band's upcoming tour, Rolling Stone has confirmed. The band announced Monday that Mike Campbell of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers and Neil Finn of Crowded House will replace him.

News of Buckingham's departure initially broke when former Fleetwood Mac guitarist Billy Burnette shared an April 4th tweet that has since been deleted, saying: "Breaking news: Lindsey Buckingham is out but I'm not in." Rolling Stone has confirmed Buckingham's departure, though no specific tour dates have been announced.

Fleetwood Mac issued a collective statement about the news, saying: "We are thrilled to welcome the musical talents of the caliber of Mike Campbell and Neil Finn into the Mac family. With Mike and Neil, we’ll be performing all the hits that the fans love, plus we’ll be surprising our audiences with some tracks from our historic catalogue of songs. Fleetwood Mac has always been a creative evolution. We look forward to honoring that spirit on this upcoming tour."

Mick Fleetwood added, 

"Fleetwood Mac has always been about an amazing collection of songs that are performed with a unique blend of talents ... We jammed with Mike and Neil and the chemistry really worked and let the band realize that this is the right combination to go forward with in Fleetwood Mac style. We know we have something new, yet it’s got the unmistakable Mac sound."

"Two weeks ago, I received a wonderful invitation to be a part of a truly great band," Finn tells Rolling Stone in a statement. "A few days later, I was standing in a room playing music with Fleetwood Mac. It felt fresh and exciting, so many great songs, a spectacular rhythm section and two of the greatest voices ever. Best of all, we sounded good together. It was a natural fit. I can’t wait to play."

Was Lindsey Buckingham Fired From Fleetwood Mac or Not?

Was Lindsey Buckingham Fired From Fleetwood Mac or Not? A Source Weighs In
by Jem Aswad
Variety

Lindsey Buckingham’s latest departure from Fleetwood Mac certainly upheld the group’s longstanding penchant for drama.

No sooner had Variety confirmed that he’d left the band than word came, literally minutes later, that they’d already replaced him — with longtime Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell and Crowded House frontman Neil Finn. The confirmation sealed several days of speculation after Billy Burnette — one of two guitarists hired to replace Buckingham last time he left the band 31 years ago — wrote in a hastily deleted tweet on April 4: “Breaking news: Lindsey Buckingham is out but I’m not in. A little pissed off but I’ll get over it.”

While sources told both Variety and Rolling Stone that Buckingham was fired, a source close to the situation says it’s a matter of semantics that requires some backstory.

Full article at Variety


5 Lingering Questions From Fleetwood Mac's Split With Lindsey Buckingham
by Melinda Newman


When Fleetwood Mac announced Monday (April 9) that the legendary band had replaced guitarist Lindsey Buckingham with Crowded House’s Neil Finn and Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers’ Mike Campbell for its upcoming tour, its statement brought up more questions than it answered.

Here are a few of those lingering questions:

What went south? 
Why Mike Campbell and Neil Finn? 
When did this all go down?
What does this mean for the setlist?
What’s next?

Check out Billboard Magazine


Broken Chain: A History of Fleetwood Mac Firings and Departures
Lindsey Buckingham's firing is just the latest in a decades-long game of musical chairs for the Hall of Fame band
By Andy Greene
Rollingstone

Over its 50-year history, Fleetwood Mac has seen just about as many people come and go as the Harlem Globetrotters. Drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie have been there from the start – the group's moniker is a combination of their last names – but they've had a hell of a time holding onto guitarists and singers. The latest stunning development is the firing of Lindsey Buckingham and the addition of Mike Campbell and Neil Finn as touring members. Here's a guide to the rotating crew of musicians have been come and gone from Fleetwood Mac over the decades (though we're skipping some fringe members so this doesn't become longer than Tusk).

Full article at Rollingstone


Neil Finn and Mike Campbell Replace Lindsey Buckingham

Fleetwood Mac to Tour With Neil Finn, Mike Campbell as Lindsey Buckingham’s Replacements
by Jem Aswad
Variety

Shortly after Variety confirmed that Lindsey Buckingham has been fired by Fleetwood Mac, the group announced plans to tour this Fall with two new members: Mike Campbell longtime lead guitarist for Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, and Crowded House frontman Neil Finn will be joining the Mac for their upcoming tour, with final dates being confirmed shortly.

“Fleetwood Mac has always been about an amazing collection of songs that are performed with a unique blend of talents,” Mick Fleetwood said. “We jammed with Mike and Neil and the chemistry really worked and let the band realize that this is the right combination to go forward with in Fleetwood Mac style. We know we have something new, yet it’s got the unmistakable Mac sound.”

“We are thrilled to welcome the musical talents of the caliber of Mike Campbell and Neil Finn into the Mac family. With Mike and Neil, we’ll be performing all the hits that the fans love, plus we’ll be surprising our audiences with some tracks from our historic catalogue of songs,” said the group collectively. “Fleetwood Mac has always been a creative evolution. We look forward to honoring that spirit on this upcoming tour.”

In a statement, Neil Finn said: “Two weeks ago I received  a wonderful invitation to be a part of a truly great band. A few days later I was standing in a room playing
music with Fleetwood Mac. It felt  fresh and exciting, so many great songs, a spectacular rhythm section and two of the greatest voices ever. Best of all, we sounded good together. It was a natural fit. I can’t wait  to play.”

A source close to the situation tells Variety that Buckingham did not exit voluntarily — rather, says the insider, “He was fired” — although a source notes that the term may not quite fit the situation.

Lindsey Buckingham Fired by Fleetwood Mac

Lindsey Buckingham Fired by Fleetwood Mac
by Shirley Halperin
Variety

Lindsey Buckingham, guitarist and songwriter extraordinaire, has left the group Fleetwood Mac, Variety has confirmed. Buckingham has been a key member of Fleetwood Mac, playing with the band from from 1975 to 1987, then, after a decade-long break, returning to the fold in 1997. Fleetwood Mac was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame a year later.


News of the exit was first shared by guitarist Billy Burnette, who tweeted on April 4, “Breaking news: Lindsey Buckingham is out but I’m not in.” The message was deleted a few hours after posting. Presumably, Burnette, who replaced Buckingham in the group from 1987 until it went on hiatus in 1995, was angling for a position in the band.


According to a source, Buckingham did not exit voluntarily, rather, says the insider, “He was fired.”

Buckingham was not a founding member of Fleetwood Mac, which formed in 1967, but was asked to join the group after the exit of Bob Welch in 1974. That incarnation of the band, which also included Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks, went on to release one of the most successful albums of its time, 1977’s “Rumours,” which has sold more than 40 million copies and yielded such classics as “Don’t Stop” and “Go Your Own Way,” the latter written by Buckingham alone, as well as “The Chain” and “You Make Loving Fun.”

As a solo artist, Buckingham has released six studio albums. Last year, he and Christine McVie teamed for a well-received collection of original songs under the banner Lindsey Buckingham Christine McVie.

Fleetwood Mac is managed by CSM and Suretone Management and booked by CAA.

Why We Love It When Fleetwood Mac Keep Breaking Up

The band's firing of Lindsey Buckingham might be the most quintessential chapter yet in the band's epic saga of dysfunction
by Rob Sheffield
Rollingstone


Now this is Peak Mac. Could this happen to any other band? Fleetwood Mac, the crew that loves
breakup drama more than any other six or seven bands combined, topped their own standards on Monday, with the announcement that they'd fired Lindsey Buckingham. This split is more than one of the year's strangest headlines – it's a new dysfunctional chapter for the fivesome who wrote the book on packing up and shacking up. This is the most quintessential Fleetwood Mac move they've ever made. Any band can explode a time or three, but only these guys could break up continuously for 40 years, putting each other through untold agonies and then always coming back together for more punishment. The Mac is dead; long live the Mac.

If these were any other rock stars, you'd suspect them of staging a split so they can squeeze in one more tearful reunion tour before they hit their eighties – Coachella 2023, here they come. But if there's anything we know for sure about Fleetwood Mac, it's that they have no ability to control the torture they inflict on each other (or on us). They are the band destiny has doomed to suffer for our sins, acting out every couple's messiest secrets in public, reliving every stage of the pain cycle in a ritual repetition, like five Siddharthas of heartbreak. "Lightning strikes, maybe once, maybe twice"? They should be so lucky. Only these five gypsies could keep getting hit with the same lightning bolt over and over, electroshocking each other into eternity.

Full article at Rollingstone

Did he jump or was he pushed?

Why leaving Fleetwood Mac may be a smart move for Lindsey Buckingham

By MIKAEL WOOD - POP MUSIC CRITIC
LA Times

Did he jump or was he pushed?

In the matter of Lindsey Buckingham's departure from Fleetwood Mac, the answer isn't yet clear.

On Monday, the veteran rock band issued a statement announcing that Buckingham — the singer and guitarist with whom Fleetwood Mac made such genre-defining albums as "Rumours" and "Tango in the Night" — would not be performing with the group on its upcoming tour.

Rolling Stone said that Buckingham had been fired over a disagreement pertaining to the tour; Variety cited a source who said Buckingham's leaving was harder to classify. (A representative for the band said she wasn't authorized to speak on Buckingham's behalf.)

Either way, the speed with which the guy was replaced — on tour, Fleetwood Mac will be joined by Mike Campbell of Tom Petty's Heartbreakers and Neil Finn of Crowded House — suggests that Buckingham's former bandmates weren't exactly tripping over themselves to keep him off the ledge.

So: Poor Lindsey, you might thinking.

Dude puts his own career on hold to team up with an unremarkable English blues-rock band, then quickly transforms that band into one of the world's most popular acts — and this is the thanks he gets?

But maybe stepping away from Fleetwood Mac, voluntarily or not, was actually a smart move for Buckingham, at least in a creative sense.

Anyone paying attention over the last few years could tell he didn't seem to be having much fun with the group he'd been with (on and off) since the mid-1970s, when he and his then-girlfriend, Stevie Nicks, teamed up with Mick Fleetwood, John McVie and Christine McVie to make the chart-topping "Fleetwood Mac" album that spun off hits like "Rhiannon" and "Landslide."

Thursday, March 29, 2018

Fleetwood Mac: The Ultimate Music Guide - 124-page Uncut Magazine Special Edition

Deluxe, expanded: the latest updated edition from the Uncut family. This special edition of Fleetwood Mac: The Ultimate Music Guide from UnCut Magazine [April Edition] is available now in the UK and soon everywhere else.

124-page deluxe edition features a wealth of archival interviews from Melody Maker and NME, a recent catch up with Buckingham and McVie alongside in-depth reviews of every album.

More details at Uncut Magazine

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Rumours,’ Named to Library of Congress’ Registry

The Library of Congress announced on Wednesday that it will preserve the recordings of 25 additional artists and personalities in the National Recording Registry, including Fleetwood Mac's 1977 album "Rumours".



Under the terms of the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000, the Librarian, with advice from the Library’s National Recording Preservation Board (NRPB), is tasked with annually selecting 25 titles that are “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” and are at least 10 years old. 

Full list at Variety.com

“Rumours,” (album), Fleetwood Mac (1977)
Stevie Nicks said: “Devastation leads to writing good things.” It’s little wonder, then, that Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours” is so highly regarded, having been forged by the crumbling relationships of every member of the group. In 1974, the then-remaining members of Fleetwood Mac—drummer Mick Fleetwood, bassist John McVie and his wife, vocalist and keyboard player Christine McVie—found themselves without a male vocalist or guitarist. A chance meeting at a recording studio led to guitarist and vocalist Lindsey Buckingham and vocalist Stevie Nicks, who were romantically involved, joining the group. The newly formed Anglo-American lineup soon struck gold with their eponymous 1975 album. They should have been on top of the world, but as they began working on their follow-up album, “Rumours,” relationships became so strained that, except as musically necessary, they would barely speak to each other while playing songs about each other. However, because the group had a sense that the songs were so strong, they not only endured, they prevailed. As engineer and co-producer Richard Dashut put it, they wanted to “ … make sure that every song on [“Rumours”] was worth its weight in gold.”

Tuesday, March 06, 2018

Alternate Fleetwood Mac "Tango In The Night" Released for Record Store Day

Fleetwood Mac The Alternate Tango In The Night

Similar to last year's Record Store Day where Fleetwood Mac released the alternate "Mirage" album by taking the previously issued CD from the duluxe edition reissue and making it a stand alone album, Fleetwood Mac will once again bust out the alternative album cd from 2017's deluxe reissue of "Tango In The Night". For the very first time, these alternate tracks will make their way to vinyl for this years Record Store Day on April 21st. Warner Bros. will press 4,000 copies of the vinyl for the US and 8,500 in total worldwide.

Support your local record store!


An album of alternate takes from the Tango In the Night Deluxe Edition, originally released in 2017.  Includes early versions and demos of “Tango In The Night” and “Seven Wonders”. On vinyl for the very first time. Worldwide run of 8,500. 

Tuesday, February 06, 2018

REVIEWS It all began with Fleetwood Mac

It all began with Fleetwood Mac

Spectrum Culture
by Kevin Korber

Casual music fans would be forgiven for thinking that Fleetwood Mac is the band’s first album. It isn’t even the first self-titled album in the band’s discography–that honor goes to a 1968 release put out when the band was a blues-rock trio led by Peter Green–but it might as well serve as a starting point for what Fleetwood Mac would eventually become. While it is often overshadowed by the iconic Rumours, much of what made that album great is laid out here, from the band’s smooth, folk-rock sound and the identity that Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks brought to the band. If this re-issue demonstrates anything, it shows that this album is very much deserving of the instant-classic status that its successor also enjoys.

Fleetwood Mac is an album of three distinct personalities and styles that mesh surprisingly well together in a beautiful way. Buckingham provides most of the album’s rocking moments, but his slick, polished West Coast rock is far removed from anything the band did with either Peter Green or Bob Welch at the helm. Everything seems to have arrived fully-formed: the shimmering harmonies and scorned-lover lyrical perspectives are all there on “Monday Morning” and “Blue Letter,” the latter of which is one of the real hidden gems on this album. Nicks arrived in the band with a mix of heart-on-sleeve sincerity and sultry mysticism that created two of the album’s most enduring hits (“Landslide” and “Rhiannon,” respectively), and the new mastering on this edition makes her irreplaceable voice all the more powerful.

However, it’s arguably Christine McVie who stands out as the MVP on the album, straddling a line between Nicks’ ethereal folk and Buckingham’s driving rock to create songs that are really crucial to how the band would later develop. McVie had previously acted as the pop counterbalance to the band’s more blues-y tendencies after she joined in 1971, but the drastic shift to a more pop-leaning sound allowed her to truly shine with compositions like the dreamy “Warm Ways” and the undeniably catchy “Say You Love Me.”

The extra material available here only serves to underline just how remarkable the album is. Demos on box sets like these usually show a slow progress as each song develops from its barest beginnings to the finished product. That’s not quite the case with the demos for Fleetwood Mac, nearly all of which are mostly finished songs that lack the final production touches of the album versions. The early versions of Buckingham’s songs here mostly just lack the vocal harmonies that gave the final versions that extra kick, while McVie’s early recording of “Over My Head” is essentially finished. Given the amount of overhaul in the band at this time, the unified front presented in these studio outtakes is surprising indeed.

The real conflict in Fleetwood Mac circa 1975 comes out in the live material listed here. Yes, Buckingham and Nicks were brought in with the purpose of shaking up the band’s sound, but Fleetwood Mac had spent a decade as a wonky blues band before then, and those habits are difficult to break. Live, the band seem to be in a constant tug of war between their hard-rocking past and their poppy present. It should be a mess, but it instead gives the band a fire and energy that one doesn’t get on the recordings. The band’s newer material has a sharper edge, best exemplified by Buckingham’s blistering guitar work on the live version of “Rhiannon.” Similarly, the renditions of early blues material gets a new life by being interpreted by musicians less attached to the traditions of the material, turning them into fiery rock songs with just the right amount of aggression. It’s a wonderfully jarring experience for anyone who thinks of this era of Fleetwood Mac as a baggy-clothed folk-pop band without any harsh edges.

Whether they rocked or not, this iteration of Fleetwood Mac endured because of their songs. For all that can be said about Peter Green or Bob Welch during their respective time with the band, it’s clear now that the band’s focus was more on performance than on songwriting when they were figureheads. Buckingham and Nicks changed that entirely, and along with Christine McVie, they put pop songwriting at the forefront of what the band was about. The end result was a run of some of the greatest, most enduring pop music of all time and it all began with Fleetwood Mac.


Music Review: Fleetwood Mac, By Fleetwood Mac
By: Tony Nielsen
NZHearld

The original Fleetwood Mac was a British blues band, which operated between 1967 and 1974 when Mick Fleetwood, John McVie and his new wife, keyboardist Christine, found themselves without a lead vocalist and lead guitarist, and scouting LA for replacements.

Cue Lindsay Buckingham, who insisted his singer and partner Stevie Nicks were conditions of his joining Fleetwood Mac. Musically this also drew a line in the sand to their role as blues campaigners.

So, 40 years on we're celebrating what was the new-look Fleetwood Mac's self-titled album, second only to the mega selling Rumours, reaching over 40 million in sales, and securing a top 10 position in overall album sales.

This special edition version of Fleetwood Mac contains favourites like Oh Daddy, Say you love me, Rhiannon, Landslide and Over my Head. Better still the CD/LP that accompanies the original album catches early versions of some of the songs, as well as live versions. In other words, it's a treasure trove of a band that's on its way to super-stardom.

While, with sales of just 40 million, it's overshadowed by Rumours, Fleetwood Mac is one of those releases that sounds as fresh today as it did in 1975, and with then bonus album it's pretty much essential for any record collection.

Fleetwood Mac - Fleetwood Mac album review
by Mark Beaumont
Teamrock.com

In which Fleetwood Mac Mk 2 rises from two separate dumpers
Some tacos are destined to change the world. Take the ones over which the remnants of Fleetwood Mac ‘auditioned’ Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks in a Mexican restaurant in LA in 1974. Mac were smarting from five years of slumping record sales and the departure of guitarist and songwriter Bob Welch; Buckingham and Nicks, who had a flop album themselves with 1973’s Buckingham Nicks, were on the verge of quitting their part-time LA jobs, ending their floundering relationship and going their separate ways. The Mac needed only a new guitarist, but Buckingham refused to join unless they took Nicks as well. Mick Fleetwood gave his remaining core songwriter, Christine McVie, a veto over Nicks, but the pair got on famously. By the time the margaritas were drained, softrock history was shaken on.

The Mac album (the band’s tenth) that this fresh new line-up began recording just three weeks later – with Buckingham so pushy in teaching the veteran rhythm section their parts that John McVie chided him: “The band you’re in is Fleetwood Mac. I’m the Mac. I play the bass” – would become their second self-titled release, to mark their final transition from Peter Green’s blues-rock version to a new country-rooted pop-rock sound. The title heralded a new Fleetwood Mac, and their second era would become one of the most successful rebirths in rock.

Inevitably, one returns to 1975’s Fleetwood Mac with radar attuned to the first whispers of Rumours, and there are plenty circulating within these semi-magical 42 minutes. The simmering emotional friction that gave the 40-million-selling 1977 follow-up its invigorated snarl is absent, but the building blocks are stacked high. Buckingham sets out his stall from the off, with the country rock rattle of Monday Morning acting as a practice run at Second Hand News and a minor hint of the unsettled bitterness to come. ‘Got to get some peace in my mind,’ he whines, little knowing he was at least one monster international hit album away from any such thing. Later he plays the invigorated Nashville cowboy rocker with aplomb on Blue Letter and World Turning – an early attempt at electrifying spit’n’sawdust C&W in the vein of The Chain – but at this stage, as he lilts a little blandly over ponderous album closer I’m So Afraid and a reworked version of Crystal from Buckingham Nicks, he feels something of a bit-player in the new Mac order.

It’s Nicks who lands with the impact of a superhero from space. Rhiannon’s sly-eyed dance of the seven veils was the first stone-cold classic of Mac 2.0, instigating the strain of guttural gypsy queen allure that would give this new incarnation its sliver of exoticism, and her other major contribution, future live staple Landslide, set a benchmark for Fleetwood Mac’s folk balladry that they would, somewhat miraculously, go on to top. Here, Nicks is slumped disheartened in an Aspen sitting room, gazing out at the Rocky Mountains, considering giving up everything to go back to school and wondering how her life had become such emotional scree. The autobiographical honesty of the track would seep into the bedrock of Rumours.

Elsewhere, Christine McVie was demonstrably coming into her own. Languid, mildly jazzy tracks such as Warm Ways and Over My Head perhaps throw back too heavily to the Bob Welch era or even Albatross, albeit with Buckingham’s country licks hovering overhead, but with the wonderfully upbeat Say You Love Me and Sugar Daddy she dovetailed perfectly with Nicks and Buckingham’s brand of honeyed hippie honky-tonk.

Of the live tracks, instrumentals and studio out-takes making up the additional 35 tracks of the deluxe package, it’s the unpolished, formative early takes of the original album’s tracks that will most fascinate the dedicated Mac-heads – this was, after all, where Fleetwood Mac’s most celebrated incarnation clicked or clashed. Here, the urgent quiver to Buckingham’s ragged rough takes of Monday Morning and Blue Letter smack of a desperate young songwriter grasping his last chance hard. In contrast, Nicks’ sultry assurance has her adding to the ghostly charms of Rhiannon with an opening speech: “Sometimes you wake up and Rhiannon’s right there.” When the in-band soap opera kicked off in earnest, exaggerating these very traits in Nicks and Buckingham, the world would love to love them both; for now, Fleetwood Mac was the sound of a blessed second chance gradually realising just how blessed it was.

Fleetwood Mac - Fleetwood Mac
Though far from their debut, the band’s 1975 self-titled album felt like a debut: a pop-rock statement and the unexpected intersection of two parallel spheres that offered something genuinely new.

by Stephen Thomas
Pitchfork.com


Reissue Review: Fleetwood Mac’s pivotal 1975 s/t LP remains a timeless classic
By Andrew Sacher
Brooklyn Vegan

UPDATE: The Fleetwood Mac SiriusXM Channel has been delayed

UPDATE: The Fleetwood Mac Channel has been delayed. Please stay tuned for more details. In the meantime, you can hear Fleetwood Mac on Classic Vinyl, Classic Rewind, The Bridge, & The Blend. For a complete list of our rock channels, you can go to

http://www.SiriusXM.com/ChannelLineup .