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Old 06-16-2008, 02:58 PM
michelej1 michelej1 is offline
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Default About Time

Sunday Herald Sun (Australia)

HEADLINE: -BYLINE- BRYAN PATTERSON

BODY:
Fleetwood Mac - Time (Warner Brothers)THERE was some justifiable groaning when Fleetwood Mac, the classic 1970s soft-rock band, reunited to perform at Bill Clinton's inauguration.After all, this was the band that was technically near-perfect, but often safe and without character. Surely the world could do without another Mac attack.There was more groaning when the band started working on an album without Lindsay Buckingham, the hard-working oddball behind the Mac's best moments.Well, some of us must eat our words. Fleetwood Mac has turned out an eminently playable work which has more to do with celebration than studio technique.Mick Fleetwood, John McVie and Christine McVie are the only survivors of the original band. But you do not miss Buckingham, nor Stevie Nicks, because their replacements - vocalist Bekka Bramlet and guitarists Billy Burnette and Dave Mason are so good.Mason, formerly of Traffic, is an asset as a songwriter on three tracks, and his playing and singing are sparkling.The best of Mac - good hooks and clever arrangements - have finally been matched by enthusiasm and ingenuity.END OF STORY
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Old 06-16-2008, 03:02 PM
michelej1 michelej1 is offline
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Australian Daily Telegraph, August 11, 1995 Friday
Final Edition

SECTION: PREVIEW; Pg. 13


HEADLINE: The unbreakable chain;
Through countless changes, the band of John McVie and Mick Fleetwood has survived the nicks and cuts of 28 years.

BYLINE: Mark Phialas

BODY:


Indiana Jones and Fleetwood Mac share road burns, bandages and bravado. Unexpected twists and turns on life's path often take them to the brink of doom, yet each survives. There's a bond between a resilient boxer and Fleetwood Mac as well. This band has been punched, knocked down, even tossed out of the ring. But when the bell rings for the next round, Fleetwood Mac answers in Rock(y) fashion: They're going to go the distance.

And now in 1995, a vision of these icons, Jones, Rocky Balboa and Fleetwood Mac, sitting around a hotel swimming pool writing a survival text flickers in the mind. The chairs reserved for Fleetwood Mac, though, sit empty, paper and pens untouched. The band is still on the road, still accumulating material. ``It is pretty amazing, but we're still up and running,'' said Mick Fleetwood, the band's drummer and leader, erstwhile manager, biographer and one of two original band members still fighting the good fight. The other, John McVie, plays bass. Their relationship spans four decades, more than 40 million records sold, and a show business odyssey that has taken them from obscurity to cult heroes to mainstream superstars.

What the hell is next?

``We've got a new album coming out Sept. 26,'' Fleetwood said in a recent phone interview. ``It's called `Time.' I'm very proud of this record. We've worked on it for a year and half. That's why we're out on the road. We want to see how this particular incarnation of the band performs before the record comes out. We want to know we're ready.''

Tonight at Walnut Creek with REO Speedwagon, Pat Benatar and Orleans, the 12th Fleetwood Mac lineup in its 28-year career takes the stage. The cast, besides the founding members, features Billy Burnette, who joined the band in 1987 for the ``Tango in the Night'' tour; Dave Mason, former guitarist for Traffic and solo artist; and Bekka Bramlett, daughter of singers Bonnie and Delaney Bramlett. She will perform ``Dreaming the Dream'' tonight, the one ``Time'' song included on this tour's playlist.

``With four bands playing, we each have a shorter set than we'd normally play,'' Fleetwood said. ``There just isn't a lot of time. I also think it's unwise to play a lot of new material. It gets confusing [for the audience]. We've tried that in the past, and it didn't work.''

This evening's 65-minute set will include ``World Turning,'' ``Go Your Own Way,'' ``Don't Stop'' (a tune Clinton fans can relate to), ``The Chain,'' ``Say You Love Me'' and Mason's ``We Just Disagree.''

One of the early Fleetwood Mac members, Christine McVie, has written and performed four songs for ``Time,'' while Burnette has written three, and for the first time in his jillion-year career, Fleetwood has written a song, ``These Strange Times,'' which will also be on ``Time.''

``Christine has earned the right to choose not to tour,'' Fleetwood said of the now part-time band member whose Fleetwood Mac career as musician and song writer began in the summer of 1970. Christine McVie's string of FM hits includes ``Spare Me A Little,'' ``Remember Me,'' ``Over My Head,'' ``Say You Love Me,'' ``Don't Stop,'' ``You Make Loving Fun'' and ``Little Lies.''

``Christine's still very much a part of this band and the direction we're going to take. But I think she's eventually going to phase herself out. When we do the next album [following ``Time''], she'll probably do just a couple of songs.''

Rock and roller coaster

Christine McVie once said, ``It's like a living thing, this Fleetwood Mac. It's a source stronger than its various members.''

The band formed in June of 1967 after guitarist Peter Green left John Mayall's band, the Bluesbreakers. Green phoned Mick Fleetwood, a drummer fired in May of that year by Mayall, and asked if Fleetwood wanted to play for him. They sought bass player John McVie, who still had a gig with Mayall and said no. Despite McVie's reluctance (and absence), Green named his band Fleetwood Mac, a name founded in a recording session.

Earlier in 1967, all three had been playing with the Bluesbreakers. And for a birthday present, Mayall gave Green some studio time. McVie, Fleetwood and Green went into Decca Studios and recorded two sides of a single and three instrumentals. One of those instrumentals lacked a name, and Green opted to name it after his rhythm section, Fleetwood Mac.

Jeremy Spencer, a slide guitar specialist, became Fleetwood Mac's third member, and McVie made it a foursome when he relented and joined the band in December of 1967. The group recorded its first album in 1968, ``Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac'' and followed with ``English Rose'' in 1969. Later in 1969, the band recorded the final Peter Green album, ``Then Play On.''

``We owe so much to Peter,'' Fleetwood said. ``It was his band then, really.''

Green wrote the band's first number one hit in England, the haunting ``Albatross,'' released on ``English Rose.'' It's an eerie, mystical instrumental with guitar licks floating in and around a steady beat. An unforgettable song, and an outline for future Fleetwood Mac creations.

LSD and life in the show business fish bowl sent Green to a mental hospital, and he was the first of many to exit from the Fleetwood Mac freeway. Green's Fleetwood Mac was a blues band, but as personnel shifted, so did the music.

Bob Welch phase

A transitional album, ``Kiln House,'' was recorded with Spencer and guitarist Danny Kirwan, who joined the band on ``English Rose,'' and, of course, Fleetwood and John McVie. In 1971 Spencer left the band to join a religious cult, and the Bob Welch phase began with ``Future Games'' in 1971.

The Bob Welch period produced in succession ``Future Games'' ``Bare Trees'' ``Penguin'' ``Mystery to Me'' and finally ``Heroes are Hard to Find.''

Christine Perfect, a singer with Chicken Shack in the late '60s, quit a promising career to marry John McVie. She worked on ``Kiln House'' and joined the band officially to tour for that record. She and Bob Welch were the group's primary song writers in the early '70s, and they conjured a series of songs influenced by the mood on ``Albatross.'' ``Hypnotized,'' for instance discusses UFOs and says, ``there's talk of North Carolina and a strange, strange pond/You see the sides were like glass/In the thick of a forest without a road/And if any man's hand ever made that land/Then I think it would've showed.

``I've forgotten where Bob said that pond was,'' Fleetwood said. ``Bob was really into that sort of thing.''

When ``Heroes'' failed to push Fleetwood Mac to the next level, Welch, disappointed and road weary, left the band. This was 1975, the ninth year of Fleetwood Mac. Fame, however, loomed.

The fast lane

So, it came to pass that Fleetwood Mac, pruned down to Mick, John and Christine, needed a guitarist. Fleetwood heard one he liked, Lindsey Buckingham. He was told that it would have to be a package deal, that Buckingham's partner and lover, Stevie Nicks, would have to join, too.

Fleetwood said yes, making that easily the most lucrative decision of his career. Buckingham, Nicks and Christine McVie contributed songs for an album titled ``Fleetwood Mac.'' It was released in 1975 and produced a string of hit singles, pushing the band into the mainstream. Then in 1977, IT HAPPENED. Fleetwood Mac uncorked ``Rumours,'' one of the top selling records in music history. And with this record Fleetwood Mac climbed to the top rung on the show business ladder, a dubious perch indeed.

One remarkable aspect of ``Rumours'' is that the album exists at all. Relationships involving all of the band's members dissolved during the recording process. The McVies split apart, so did Buckingham and Nicks; and Fleetwood's marriage ended, too. Not a bunch of happy campers. And there they were exposing these raw wounds in front of each other in a recording studio. Perhaps they forced themselves to, because with ``Fleetwood Mac,'' the writing had moved, at last, to the success wall.

``Rumours'' turned Fleetwood Mac into superstars and predictable trappings: huge arena shows, mountains of cocaine, and battles over musical direction. Excess, of course, fueled this enterprise, as the band spent more than $1 million to record ``Tusk,'' a double album released in 1979.

Critics and fans argued this album's merit, but in the practical sense, it was a complete success. It kept the pot-of-gold version of Fleetwood Mac together.

``If we hadn't done `Tusk,' the band would have split then, '' Fleetwood said. ``We needed to do a double record. We had three writers and not enough space on a single record.''

Buckingham pushed ``Tusk,'' mainly to stay interested. He didn't want to do sequels to ``Rumours.'' He recorded a solo album, ``Law and Order'' in 1981, but returned to record with Fleetwood Mac for ``Mirage'' in 1982 and ``Tango in the Night'' in 1987. Buckingham agreed to a 10-week tour for ``Tango,'' but he backed out, leaving Fleetwood Mac for good.

Nicks and Christine McVie also have pursued solo careers, and Nicks called it quits with Fleetwood Mac after the ``Behind the Mask'' album (released in 1990). The stage version of Fleetwood Mac has lost Christine McVie, but her presence remains on ``Time'' and is likely to remain for future recordings.

Friends for life

With Fleetwood Mac, it's tempting to focus on those who leave, not the two who have stayed.

Mick Fleetwood and John McVie remain in the ring, partly because they love the thrill, partly because playing drums and bass together is what they do.

``What else could we do?'' Fleetwood said. ``Why would we want to destroy something that has given us so much for so long? We're very close. And we're just a couple of gigsters. We need somebody to play guitar, somebody to sing. Rhythm sections don't write a lot of music.''

Fleetwood said his love for performing, in the studio or on the road, remains keen. ``I'm just an old drama queen,'' he said. ``I still get excited when we play. That's the important thing. I really enjoy playing music and playing with John. With him, it's like putting on an old, favorite cashmere sweater.

``I'm not really very good technically,'' Fleetwood said. ``I just go with my emotions. Fleetwood Mac has always been about the emotions.''

THE SHOW

What: Can't Stop Rockin' with Fleetwood Mac, REO Speedwagon, Pat Benatar and Orleans

When: Tonight at 6:30 p.m.

Where: Walnut Creek Amphitheatre, Raleigh

Admission: $29.75, $19.75, reserved seating; $12.75 general admission
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