Fleetwood Mac [Expanded] (CD - 1975)

Fleetwood Mac: Lindsey Buckingham (vocals, guitar); Christine McVie (vocals, keyboards, synthesizer); Stevie Nicks (vocals); John McVie (bass); Mick Fleetwood (drums, percussion).

Additional personnel: Waddy Watchel (guitar).

Recorded at Sound City, Los Angeles, California. Originally released on Reprise (2225). Includes liner notes by Parke Puterbaugh.

Personnel: Lindsey Buckingham (vocals, guitar); Christine McVie (vocals, keyboards, synthesizer); Stevie Nicks (vocals); Mick Fleetwood (drums, percussion).

Audio Remasterers: Dan Hersch; Bill Inglot.

Recording information: Sound City Studios, Van Nuys, CA.

Photographer: Herbert Worthington III.

With this album, years of personnel changes ended for Fleetwood Mac with the departure of guitarist Bob Welch. The remaining core of the group (Mick Fleetwood, John McVie and Christine McVie) invited guitarist/vocalist Lindsey Buckingham and singer Stevie Nicks to join, and thus began the most commercially successful period for Fleetwood Mac. With 3 strong songwriters in Nicks, Buckingham and Christine McVie, FLEETWOOD MAC was their first number-1 album.

PETER GREEN'S FLEETWOOD MAC, the band's full-length debut, is miles removed from commercially tailored soft rock of Fleetwood Mac's 1970s incarnation. The '60s version of the band, led by guitarist/singer Peter Green, was edgy, psychedelic, and rooted deeply in the blues. Green's love of revved-up 12-bar jams, raw boogie grooves, and shredding electric leads come together beautifully on this album, with the help of slide guitarist/singer/pianist Jeremy Spencer, drummer Mick Fleetwood, and bassist John McVie.

With the exception of Spencer, the members had played together in John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, and took the slashing, mercurial sound and lock-step interplay from that outfit and--arguably--improved on it. Though the album is steeped in traditional blues and includes covers of tunes by Robert Johnson ("Hellhound on My Trail"), Howlin' Wolf ("No Place to Go"), and Elmore James ("Got to Move"), the compositions penned by Green and Spencer stand up, especially the subtler singing and playing by Green (as on "Looking for Somebody"). Released at time when the market was glutted with amped-up British blues, PETER GREEN'S FLEETWOOD MAC stands above the competition with its superior musicianship and gutsy punch. It remains a template for hard-driving blues-rock.

It's unfair to say that Fleetwood Mac had no pop pretensions prior to the addition of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks to the lineup in 1975. When they were lead by Bob Welch they often flirted with pop, even recording the first version of the unabashedly smooth and sappy "Sentimental Lady," which would later be one of the defining soft rock hits of the late '70s. Still, there's no denying that 1975's Fleetwood Mac represents not just the rebirth of the band, but in effect a second debut for the group -- the introduction of a band that would dominate the sound of American and British mainstream pop for the next seven years. In fact, in retrospect, it's rather stunning how thoroughly Buckingham and Nicks, who had previously recorded as a duo and were romantically entangled in the past, overtook the British blues band. As soon as the Californian duo came onboard, Fleetwood Mac turned into a West Coast pop/rock band, transforming the very identity of the band and pushing the band's other songwriter, keyboardist Christine McVie, to a kindred soft rock sound. It could have all been too mellow if it weren't for the nervy, restless spirit of Buckingham, whose insistent opener, "Monday Morning," sets the tone for the rest of the album, as well the next few years of the group's career. Surging with a pushily melodic chorus and a breezy Californian feel, the song has little to do with anything the Mac had done before this, and it is a positively brilliant slice of pop songwriting, simultaneously urgent and timeless. After that barnstorming opener, Buckingham lies back a bit, contributing only two other songs -- a cover of Richard Curtis' "Blue Letter," the second best up-tempo song here, and the closer, "I'm So Afraid" -- while the rest of the album is given over to the wily spirits of Nicks and McVie, whose singles "Rhiannon," "Say You Love Me," and "Over My Head" deservedly made this into a blockbuster. But a bandmember's contribution can never be reduced to his own tracks, and Buckingham not only gives the production depth, he motivates the rest of the band, particularly Nicks and McVie, to do great work, not just on the hit singles but the album tracks that give this record depth. It was diverse without being forced, percolating with innovative ideas, all filtered through an accessible yet sophisticated sensibility. While Rumours had more hits and Tusk was an inspired work of mad genius, Fleetwood Mac wrote the blueprint for Californian soft rock of the late '70s and was the standard the rest were judged by.

[In the spring of 2004, Warner Strategic Marketing reissued as remastered expanded editions Fleetwood Mac's first three albums with Buckingham and Nicks. Of these, Fleetwood Mac has the least interesting bonus material. While Rumours and Tusk each have a lengthy bonus disc of rarities, this is given a mere five extra tracks, four of which are single versions of songs from the album (true, the single mix of "Blue Letter" was previously unreleased, but an alternate mix is not nearly as interesting as an alternate take). That leaves the one previously unreleased track, "Jam #2," which is about as interesting as the title. Even if the bonus material is not up to the high standards of the other two simultaneously released Mac reissues, the overall package is very nicely produced, with good liner notes and excellent sound.] ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine minimize