Fleetwood Mac

Fleetwood Mac started out in London in 1967 as a British blues band, named after its rhythm section: Mick Fleetwood on drums and John McVie on bass. Out front were Peter Green, on guitar, harmonica and vocals, and Jeremy Spencer, with Danny Kirwan adding a third guitar in 1968. They were a blues band with a dreamy streak, and the proof came in 1968, when the gliding instrumental "Albatross" went to number one in Britain, followed by the hits "Man of the World", "Oh Well" and "The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown)".

Then the band began to shed its founders. Green, Spencer and Kirwan left one after another between 1970 and 1972, and in came John's wife, Christine McVie, on keyboards and vocals, and the American guitarist and singer Bob Welch. Mystery to Me arrived in 1973, and in 1974 the band moved to the United States and Welch moved on. At the end of that year Fleetwood and the McVies recruited Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, and everything changed.

The first album with the new lineup, Fleetwood Mac, went to the top of the Billboard 200 in 1975, the year of the spellbinding "Rhiannon" and "Landslide". Then came Rumours in 1977, one of the best-selling albums ever made and winner of the Grammy for Album of the Year: glossy, aching pop-rock that goes down like a sunny afternoon. That year gave us "Go Your Own Way" with its churning guitars, the hushed shimmer of "Dreams", the brooding "The Chain" and the bounce of "Don't Stop". Tusk followed in 1979, gleefully weird, then Mirage in 1982 and Tango in the Night in 1987.

Buckingham quit in 1987, and Billy Burnette and Rick Vito came in; their lone album with the band, Behind the Mask, went to number one in the UK in 1990. The 1975 lineup came back together for Bill Clinton's inauguration in 1993 and for The Dance in 1997. Christine McVie left in 1998 and rejoined in 2014, Say You Will arrived in 2003, and in 2018 Buckingham was fired and replaced by Mike Campbell and Neil Finn. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted them in 1998, and after Christine McVie's death, Nicks said in 2024 that she believed the band was done.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.