Seattle Post-Intelligencer (WA), January 13, 1993
Section: Entertainment
THANKS TO CLINTON, FLEETWOOD MAC HAS GOT TOMORROW ON ITS MIND
Marty Racine Hearst News Service
Fleetwood Mac is heeding its own admonition: ''Don't Stop.''
The longest-running soap opera in rock history has gone back into production as The Middle-aged and the Restless, thanks to an innocuous song that became an unofficial presidential campaign anthem.
Separated for two years and considered divorced, the Mac's most potent lineup of its storied 26-year career will perform at President-elect Bill Clinton's Inaugural Ball on Jan. 19. It's the first time that a rock band (English-bred, no less) has re-formed at the behest of an American president.
What's next, an album? A tour? A Cabinet post? Monthly rock 'n' roll concerts in the White House? The Mac camp hasn't said.
The development rekindles the love/hate relationships among Stevie Nicks, Christine McVie, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie and - astonishingly - Lindsey Buckingham. Buckingham stormed out of the group in 1987 following a 12-year period in which the Mac went from midlevel hard rockers to international superstars.
Buckingham's departure was supposedly irrevocable, the emotions too entwined for any reconciliation. He was replaced by guitarists Rick Vito, a veteran session ace, and Billy Burnette, son of '50s rockabilly cat Dorsey Burnette. The two were effectively gone after a 1990 tour.
That Fleetwood Mac would reunite should not be too surprising. The group has withstood numerous personnel changes, musical shifts, temporary breakups, drug binges, fiscal irresponsibility and its immigration to Los Angeles.
''We've had a lot of personal problems,'' Christine McVie told the Houston Chronicle in 1989. ''There's never been a dull moment in this band. At any given moment, there's some new melodrama.
''But I guess that's what keeps us going.''
Or what breaks a band apart.
Fleetwood Mac takes its name from founding members Fleetwood and John McVie. As drummer and bassist, respectively, they formed an impenetrable rhythm section that would go on to support a cast of lead singers and guitarists.
Established in 1967, they, like many English bands of the time, were a no-girls-allowed club that reshaped American blues with a rock 'n' roll attitude.
Where Led Zeppelin had Jimmy Page, Cream had Eric Clapton and the Yardbirds had Jeff Beck (and Page and Clapton) as star lead guitarist, the Mac had Peter Green. He was brilliant. As a true hippie, he rejected materialism, including that attending pop stardom.
He also was a quick burnout who lost his ambition and, some say, his senses. He went incommunicado for years.
Green was replaced by Danny Kirwin in 1969, who was succeeded by Robert Weston in 1972. Second guitarist Jeremy Spencer, a slide specialist, stayed on until 1971, when he suddenly bolted from a tour to join a religious cult. He was replaced by Bob Welch.
When Welch and Weston left at roughly the same period in the band's history, they were essentially replaced by Lindsey Buckingham, a studio whiz who grew up south of San Francisco. He brought along his girlfriend and cohort in the group Buckingham-Nicks, Stevie Nicks. It was not an easy decision to join the more popular Fleetwood Mac.
''I pretty much made the decision for both of us,'' Nicks told the Chronicle during her 1991 solo tour. ''I said to Lindsey, 'You know, we've worked awful hard since we were 18, and I'm kinda tired of (moonlighting as) a cleaning lady and a waitress. So I'm either going to go back to school or we should join Fleetwood Mac and give them everything that we can give them, put them back on the map.'
''I said, 'Right now Fleetwood Mac needs us as much as we need them.' I said a lot of prayers for it to work out.''
Nicks joined keyboardist Christine McVie, who had come aboard as Christine Perfect in 1969 before marrying John McVie, as co-vocalist.
Now based in California, this lineup gracefully eased Fleetwood Mac out of the blues through hard rock and into a sublime, intelligent blend of hard-rocking pop. Their 1975 self-titled album became the band's first No. 1 LP in the U.S. That was followed by ''Rumours'' ('77), one of the biggest-selling rock albums in history, with sales exceeding 20 million.
The band refused to stay put. As their record company looked on in horror, the members secluded themselves for weeks, then months, on end, fighting, loving, going crazy in the studio and emerging with ''Tusk.''
The adventurous, quirky double LP was met skeptically by press and audience, with sales of only about 4 million. The album, though, has stood the test of time.
The group's popularity had seemingly peaked. Two succeeding albums, a live double set and ''Mirage,'' were mere holding patterns.
But following a lengthy hiatus, the band proved again its drawing power with 1987's ''Tango in the Night.'' Buckingham contributed to the album, but left abruptly before the resultant tour.
After 1990's ''Behind The Mask,'' it was over. Time had passed them by, Vito and Burnette moved on to other projects, Nicks did a solo tour, and Fleetwood Mac had completed its marvelous run.
Until, that is, Clinton tapped ''Don't Stop'' as a theme. With the line, ''don't stop thinking about tomorrow,'' it addressed a baby-boomer candidate's central issue: the future.
For all he faces, the president-elect's tomorrow seems clearer than the rock band's.
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