super groovy delicious bite: fleetwood mac

Fleetwood Mac were taken by the wind on a circus wheel to landslide success with this eponymous restoration. After nine albums (Fleetwood Mac and Mr. Wonderful in 1968, Then Play On in 1969, Kiln House in 1970, Future Games in 1971, Bare Trees in 1972, Penguin and Mystery to Me in 1973, and Heroes Are Hard to Find in 1974) with nine different lineups that included five different guitarists; founding rhythm section of Mick Fleetwood and John McVie once again found themselves at a crossroads. The remaining trio of Fleetwood, McVie, and McVie's wife Christine had already relocated to California to record their last album with . Fleetwood met with producer Keith Olsen at Sound City Studios where Olsen played him 'Buckingham Nicks', an album he had helmed the year before. Fleetwood was immediately taken by the guitar work and made the decision to work with Olsen and Lindsey Buckingham for the band's next project. Buckingham agreed as long as his musical partner and girlfriend Stevie Nicks could join the band too:   “He was standing there grooving to this searing guitar solo and he needed a guitar player. That was as far as his thinking went. I had to explain we came as a duo. Stupid me, eh?”

The prospective new lineup met for the first time at a restaurant. Nicks remembers: "We went for Mexican food with them and we laughed and laughed, because you English people have a very strange sense of humour. Even Lindsey had fun – he didn't want to, but he couldn't help it."

Christine McVie reveals:   "It was critical that I got on with her. because I'd never played with another girl. But I liked her instantly. She was funny and nice but also there was no competition. We were completely different on the stage to each other and we wrote differently too."

Buckingham considers:   "John and Mick, have always been open to having a lot of different people in the band – which is odd. I would never be able to do that. I would think it was real important to keep an identity. I remember being a kid – if a new member joined a group, I just didn't like that at all. But that openness is what's kept them going for so long."

Nicks wonders:   “If we hadn’t joined Fleetwood Mac would Lindsey and I have carried on and made it?” she asks today. “I was really tired of having no money and being a waitress. It’s very possible that I would have gone back to school and Lindsey would have gone back to San Francisco...Lindsey and I were in total chaos a year before we met Fleetwood Mac. I had already moved out of our apartment a couple of times and then had to move back in because I couldn’t afford it. Our relationship was already in dire straits. But if we’d broken up within the first six months of Fleetwood Mac there would have been no record and we would have been in big trouble, so when we joined the band we took the decision to hang in there.”

'Fleetwood Mac' was recorded over three months at Sound City Studios in Van Nuys, California with Lindsey Buckingham on guitar, banjo, and vocals; Stevie Nicks on vocals; Christine McVie on keyboards, synthesizer, and vocals; John McVie on bass guitar; and Mick Fleetwood on drums and percussion; with Waddy Wachtel adding rhythm guitar on "Sugar Daddy". The album eventually sold over four million copies, going to number twenty-three in the UK, four in New Zealand, three in Australia, two in Canada, and number one in the US where it has been certified platinum five times over.

Nicks says: “There were no limousines and Christine slept on top of the amps in the back of the truck. We just played everywhere and we sold that record. We kicked that album in the ass.”