Fifty years ago, Fleetwood Mac was a band, not a force of nature. Fleetwood Mac (1975) was their first giant leap into Pop/Rock stardom. However, the winding path to this success started long before the addition of future superstars Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks.
The album originally debuted at No. 183 on the Billboard 200 on August 2, 1975. Thanks to their first U.S. Top 40 singles ("Over My Head," "Rhiannon," and "Say You Love Me"), Fleetwood Mac would finally claim No. 1 on the album chart on September 4, 1976. As of this writing, the album has sold over nine million in U.S. sales and is approaching the coveted Diamond award from the RIAA.
As a blues band in the 1960s, Fleetwood Mac was more famous in England and Europe. Almost the name topping the earliest version of the band, Peter Green, departed. Mick Fleetwood and John McVie maintained the central focus as newer members would carefully alter the direction of the group.
The origins of the band leading to the album Fleetwood Mac
The continuing specter of Peter Green proved to be hard to avoid as Fleetwood Mac soldiered on in the 1970s, welcoming new members, including the brief run of Jeremy Spencer and the decades-long tenure of Christine McVie. Fleetwood Mac needed a new identity that would shift their focus away from their Blues roots toward a more Rock-oriented vision.
Kiln House (1970) would introduce the world to "Jewel Eyed Judy," based on the band's secretary Judy Wong. Wong would bring the band her longtime friend Bob Welch.
Welch, living in Paris and finished with his band Head West, was sent plane fare to head Northwest to meet Fleetwood Mac at their country house, Benifold, in Hampshire. Mick Fleetwood in the 1995 BBC Family Trees documentary remembered Welch as "totally different" and "confirmed that Welch was "a member before we'd even played a note."
On the third trip to commune with the band, Welch began working on their live set and eventually the songs that would coalesce into Future Games (1971).
When listening to the track "Future Games," you can hear Welch's elegant chord changes. In addition, Welch shows his ability to jam with fellow guitarist Danny Kirwan, hand it off to him, and pull it back with thick double-stop and double-tracked bends. While Kirwan may have written three songs for the album, it was the laid-back eight minutes of Welch's "Future Games" that introduced Fleetwood Mac to U.S. AOR stations.
Welch landed two songs on Bare Trees (1972), as the sleek, romantic "Sentimental Lady" carved out even more play on AOR stations, opening the door to dayparted play on Pop radio. The slight misstep on Penguin (1973) was corrected on Mystery To Me (1973) as Welch became the dominant writer delivering the FM radio favorite "Hypnotized. "
After an internal band affair and discovering the existence of another faux Fleetwood Mac, Welch moved the longtime English band to Los Angeles. The next element of change remains debated, but either Fleetwood told Welch that he was looking for another guitar player to join the band, or Welch announced that he wanted to go in a "heavier rock direction." Either move or both led to Welch's departure by Christmas 1974.
Another bout with the revolving door and the 1975 model Fleetwood Mac was stripped down to Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, and Christine McVie. Around New Year's Eve, Fleetwood was checking out Sound City studios in Van Nuys as a possibility to track the next album.
Singer/songwriter/guitarist Lindsey Buckingham walked out of one of the studios to hear his song "Frozen Love" being played full blast by owner Keith Olsen in the main room. Buckingham was even more shocked to see that the man with his "eyes closed, just grooving" was Mick Fleetwood.
Through Olsen, Fleetwood floated an offer to Buckingham to join. Since Buckingham and his girlfriend Stevie Nicks had just recorded their debut album for Polydor, Buckingham replied that the two were "a package deal." With Christine McVie able to reject the pair outright, they all met at a Mexican restaurant. In a few minutes, McVie and Nicks were instantly inseparable.
Part of the inclination to move Fleetwood Mac from spacious England to bustling Los Angeles was that the band would be managing itself. With Fleetwood in manager mode, Fleetwood Mac obtained another record deal from Reprise.
In his book My Twenty-Five Years in Fleetwood Mac (co-authored with Stephen Davis), Fleetwood remembers that label telling him that "Fleetwood Mac makes enough to pay the light bill." Wanting to prove these and other notions wrong, John McVie, Fleetwood, and Buckingham hunkered down in a small garage. Back at the apartment, Stevie Nicks was busy writing on her Hohner Pianet. While home to see the family, Christine also enjoyed a creative spurt.
Before their booked studio time at Sound City in February 1975, Chris presented "Sugar Daddy," "Warm Ways," and "Over My Head." From the Buckingham Nicks sessions, Stevie reworked "Crystal" and brought the band "Landslide" and "Rhiannon," while Lindsey ponied up "So Afraid" and "Monday Morning."
On May 15, 1975, in El Paso, Texas, the latest incarnation of Fleetwood Mac took the stage as the proving ground for all their hard work. The crowd at the Civic Center Theatre was first treated to familiar cuts from Christine, including "Hypnotized" and her first divining rod leading the band towards Pop, "Spare a Little Love For Me" from Bare Trees (1972).
Stevie slowly made her way toward the stage until the clarion call chords of "Rhiannon" rang out, and then she confidently announced to the crowd, "This is a song about a Welsh witch."
After playing in Anchorage, Alaska, on July 9th, opening for Canned Heat, the band proved themselves to be roadworthy. Two days later, on July 11th, the second eponymously titled album from Fleetwood Mac would be released with very little fanfare.
Bud Scoppa in Rolling Stone (subscription required) said Christine was the new dominant lead singer, and that Nicks "has yet to integrate herself into the group's style." Nonetheless, Scoppa proclaimed it "an impressively smooth transitional album."