But Nicks’ star turns on “Rhiannon” and “Landslide” revealed a darker mystique at the core of their easy-breezy sound and, as sudden success caused the long-term relationships within the band to disintegrate, their next release effectively invented a new genre: rock album as couples therapy.
After a relocation to L.A., they welcomed singer/songwriter Lindsey Buckingham and his musical/romantic partner Stevie Nicks into the fold, heralding Fleetwood Mac’s transition into soft-rock hitmakers on their 1975 self-titled effort. Since the band’s formation in London in 1967, drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie have served as both the rhythmic and spiritual anchors for a group that has hosted a revolving-door procession of outsized personalities, starting with Peter Green, the budding guitar god responsible for early hits like “Black Magic Woman” (famously covered by Santana) and the tranquil instrumental “Albatross” (which The Beatles admittedly aped on their Abbey Road track “Sun King”).Īfter Green quit in 1970, the band cycled through different frontmen-Danny Kirwan and Bob Welch among them-while their keyboardist, McVie’s wife Christine, emerged as a female vocal foil. Tension can be a great motivator for a band, and no group has put that maxim to the test quite like Fleetwood Mac, a ’60s British blues-rock outfit that-through a series of lineup changes, stylistic shifts, and rocky internal romances-became the paragons of ‘70s Californian pop.
