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Fleetwood Mac's Lindsey Buckingham finds a performing balance Thursday, October 9, 2008 BY DAVID J. SPATZ SPECIAL TO THE RECORD

When a bootleg copy of Lindsey Buckingham’s new solo album, "Gift of Screws," surfaced on the Internet a couple of years ago, the Fleetwood Mac guitarist and songwriter wasn’t concerned the leak would hamper sales.


Besides, the album flying around on file-sharing sites ultimately bore little resemblance to the product that was released last month.

"I don’t see [file sharing] as a big detriment … because I’m not making these albums necessarily to try to burn up the charts," Buckingham says. "I’m making them because I have a love of the process."

Although it followed his "Under the Skin" album by just two years, "Gift of Screws" was actually more than a decade in the making. Buckingham, 59, says he began compiling material for the album in 1997.

Yet each time he was ready to get serious about a solo album, his responsibilities to Fleetwood Mac seemed to get in the way. Sometimes it would be a concert tour; other times, it was to do a studio album.

On two occasions, Buckingham says, solo material he’d been developing ended up being recorded by the band.

"The body of my material got folded over into the [2003 Fleetwood Mac] album ‘Say You Will,’ " he explains during a recent conference call with reporters before the start of his current solo tour, which stops at Trump Taj Mahal on Saturday.

Finally, Buckingham politely told his band mates to leave him alone in 2002.

"I said to the band, ‘Look, I want to take about a three-year period, and I don’t want anyone knocking on my door,’ " he recalls. He told Stevie Nicks, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie he wanted to record two solo albums, tour behind the albums and then discuss the next Fleetwood Mac project.

Working under that self-imposed deadline, Buckingham, who has had five solo studio albums in 30 years, turned out "Under the Skin" in 2006 and followed it with "Gift of Screws."

The songs on the new album contain everything from brand new material to bits that were cobbled together in hotel rooms when the band was on tour years ago. Some of the songs were recorded in his home studio. It’s the musical equivalent of a garage sale, Buckingham says.


Sense of stability

Part of why he set out to complete the albums so quickly were the changes in his personal life. Ten years ago, Buckingham married for the first time, and now he has three children.

"It just provides a whole other sense of stability and sense of self, that maybe I had been lacking before," he says. "I think that’s reflected in not only the work itself, but maybe in the clarity to follow through on getting it done."

Buckingham has also been able to clearly define where he ends and Fleetwood Mac begins, and vice versa.

"There is an area in between," he says. "On the last Fleetwood Mac album, because all of that was intended to be solo work, there were some things that were probably pretty far to the left. The last time stuff was that far to the left and made it on a Fleetwood Mac album was probably [the 1979 album] ‘Tusk.’ "

He admits that it isn’t always easy to funnel solo music to the band. But he is a team player.

"If we are in the process of making something with the group, I’m willing to give up anything that I have to offer," he says. "I think more often than not what defines it as a Fleetwood Mac song is as much dictated by the politics of the band, and what they are receptive to. There are certainly things that seem like they are more suited for what I do on the side, but there’s certainly a lot of crossover."

Lindsey Buckingham performs at the Trump Taj Mahal at 8 p.m. Saturday. Tickets are $38.50 and $48.50, available through Ticketmaster.

Courier Post (South Jersey), October 17, 2008 by Tom Wilk

http://www.courierpostonline.com/art...FE06/810170303

For Buckingham, album was a family affair

For Lindsey Buckingham, good things come in threes, both personally and professionally.

The Fleetwood Mac guitarist has three children with his wife, Kristen. "Gift of Screws" (Reprise), his new studio album, is his third solo project in three years.

Buckingham, who performs at the Keswick Theatre in Glenside, Pa., Saturday, sees a correlation between the two sides of his life.

"The creative side of "Gift of Screws' was greatly enhanced by the personal side of my life. I think I'm going through one of the most creative periods of my life," he said during a recent conference call with reporters.

"Gift of Screws," whose title is derived from an Emily Dickinson poem, is a bit of a family affair for the singer/songwriter. His son, Will, contributed the title of "Great Day" and gets a co-writing credit. Kristen Buckingham contributed lyrics to "Love Runs Deeper" and "Did You Miss Me," which can be heard as commentaries on marriage.

On "Gift of Screws," Buckingham serves up a very satisfying Whitman's sampler of musical styles. They range from the shimmering folk of "Time Precious Time" with its acoustic guitars creating a sonic whirlpool to the garage rock stomp of the title track and the sweet-and-sour pop of "Underground."

Buckingham played all the instruments on half of the album's 10 songs and is joined by Fleetwood Mac bandmates Mick Fleetwood and John McVie on "Wait For You" and "Gift of Screws." Fleetwood also drums on "The Right Place to Fade."

"If there's one song that might be about Fleetwood Mac, it would be that song," said Buckingham, who took a sabbatical from the group in the late 1980s and early 1990s before rejoining the band.

Buckingham, who enjoys the creative freedom of his solo efforts, said there's a difference in making music within Fleetwood Mac and on his own.

"Working with a group is like making a movie," he observed. "Working alone is more like a painting."

Buckingham, 59, is wrapping up a three-year stretch of solo work that saw him release two studio albums ("Under The Skin" and "Gift of Screws") and a concert DVD/CD ("Live at the Bass Performance Hall"). In 2009, he turn his attention again to Fleetwood Mac with a tour and is open to recording a follow-up to "Say You Will," the band's 2003 album. "There are still some chapters to be written in that legacy," Buckingham said.