Christine McVie Deep Dive: ‘Fleetwood Mac’

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At last: success for Fleetwood Mac!
Finally my sputtering deep dive into the enduring work of the late Christine McVie has reached its crucial turning point, the classic that ushered in new hires Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham for the 10th lineup of this revolving-door talent collective, not even a decade old by the summer of ‘75, when their own self-titled ‘White Album’ debuted. With it came the longest lasting, most influential, scene-shapingly famous form of what remains an endlessly amorphous entity.

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Christine McVie Deep Dive: ‘Buckingham Nicks’

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Before my slow-drip deep-dive into the career of the late Christine McVie sinks into her most famous and overly analyzed phase, starting with Fleetwood Mac’s transformative breakthrough of ‘75, I think it’s worth taking a two-years-prior detour into this barely buried treasure. Frankly, Buckingham Nicks, a highly accomplished debut that bafflingly bombed and got the duo booted from Polydor, looms almost as large in the Mac legacy as touchstones that came before or after it.

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Christine McVie Deep Dive: ‘Live from the Record Plant’

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I did say at the close of my last post in this chronicle of the career of Christine McVie that the most beloved version of Fleetwood Mac was just about to emerge.

But not quite yet. First there needed to be a tour behind Heroes Are Hard to Find, their best-charting LP thus far in the States yet still a marginal success they view with some disappointment. All four members — Mick, the McVies and Bob Welch — sense an imminent shakeup.

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Soundtrack Sunday: Amadeus

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My parents and their peers had the CBS series ‘Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra’ with legend Leonard Bernstein teaching them about dead European masters. My band-geek friends and I had ‘Amadeus.’

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Christine McVie Deep Dive: ‘Heroes Are Hard to Find’

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I can understand why even ardent Fleetwood Mac fans find it difficult to say they genuinely like this ninth album, the fourth and last to feature Bob Welch — and the first recorded as a quartet, since Bob Weston got the boot after boinking Jenny Boyd. She was Mick’s wife at the time, after all.

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Christine McVie Deep Dive: ‘Mystery to Me’

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Just when I thought I was back on track with my deep dive into Christine McVie’s lengthy discography we got smacked twice with miserable attention-diverting news: first Jeff Beck departed, then David Crosby.

So, again … where were we?
Ah, yes: late ‘73, in full fracturing transition.

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Christine McVie Deep Dive: ‘Penguin’

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Figured it out, right? After days of needless deliberation over this week’s #superfriendssunday theme — select an album turning 50 in 2023 — it occurred to me the simplest solution would be to spotlight Penguin, the first of two Fleetwood Mac LPs from ‘73, seen here with an equally flightless metronome and a Funko Pop of Chilly Willy.

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Christine McVie Deep Dive: ‘Future Games’

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It’s February ‘71, Fleetwood Mac are touring the southwest US, and co-founding guitarist Jeremy Spencer has gone out for a magazine. He will not return — to the band at all, but initially not even to anywhere he could be located. Eventually it’s discovered that he’s joined the SoCal Christian cult the Children of God, now known as the Family.

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