Biography of Fleetwood Mac

To most people watching VH1 reruns these days, Fleetwood Mac is that group of bell-bottomed, sunny Californians fronted by the chirpy vocal talents of Stevie Nicks, whose pop hits dominated the airwaves and sales charts for over a decade, making them the '70s version of Hootie & the Blowfish. That story is writ large in the annals of rock history books. But in the beginning -- though you'd never know it by listening to any of their greatest hits -- the original Fleetwood Mac was one hell of a blues band. Fueled by a driving rhythm section (Mick Fleetwood on drums and John McVie on bass), sporting two lead guitar players (single string wizard Peter Green and slideman Jeremy Spencer) -- and eventually three (Danny Kirwan) -- and a show that spiraled from dazzling originals, full-throttle Chicago blues to outrageous sendups of '50s rock & roll, the original Fleetwood Mac was one hell of a band, period.Their British blues credentials couldn't come any higher up on the food chain; the nucleus of the group met while playing as members of John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, with Peter Green having the unenviable task of replacing Eric Clapton. The young guitarist, whom everyone affectionately called "Greenie," quickly established himself on the next release (A Hard Road) and Mayall showed his appreciation by donating some free studio time to the guitarist as a birthday present in 1967. Greenie grabbed Fleetwood and McVie for the rhythm section and went in and cut three songs that day; "It Hurts Me Too" by Elmore James, "Double Trouble" by Otis Rush and an untitled instrumental he had composed. When pressed by the engineer for a title, Green leaned over the recording console and scrawled "Fleetwood Mac" across the tape box. Of such events, legends are born and bands are named.Greenie and Fleetwood left Mayall at about the same time, but McVie didn't want to give up the steady paycheck that working in the Bluesbreakers provided him with and Bob Brunning "replaced" him until McVie could be coaxed into the new band, odd behavior considering that it was partially named after him to begin with. Green, who loathed all kinds of guitar hero worship, felt that the trio format was too limited and also wanted someone in the band to take part of the singing and performing load off his shoulders. Enter the diminutive Jeremy Spencer and Greenie had found exactly what he wanted and needed for the new combo to take flight. Spencer played a hollow-body guitar almost as big as he was and had the slashing slide wailings of his hero, Elmore James, down cold. Blues history revisionists like to downplay Spencer's credentials, but what he was accomplishing was something more on the level of recreated art than merely copying his record collection and strangling his Midlands voice to sound like James. With Spencer aboard to provide the boogie, Green felt that the band was ready and on August of 1967, they played their debut gig in front of 30,000 people at the prestigious Windsor Jazz and Blues Festival, blasting out a red-hot 30-minute set in front of John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. Fleetwood Mac made a strong enough impression that Sunday to quickly become the talk of English blues circles, especially when John McVie left Mayall three weeks later to join them permanently.They cut their first album, basically a re-creation of their live show, in only three days. With Green's moody, introspective takes on the B.B. King style juxtaposed against Spencer's Elmore James slide boogie, the mixture proved irresistible to 1968 British audiences and the debut stayed on the pop charts for 17 weeks. Their instant success caused them to not really change their music so much (at first), but to definitely start monkeying around with its presentation in a live format. Tired of the pious-faced, staid British blues band facade that seemed to have begun with Blues Incorporated and handed down to each new band that wanted to be considered authentic, Fleetwood Mac -- this time led by the mischievous Jeremy Spencer -- began to rebel. Suddenly the band was like some high-voltage, drunken vaudeville English music-hall show gone terribly awry that played stone solid blues while condoms filled with milk dangled off the tuning pegs of their guitars. Reportedly in love with '50s rock & roll music while being simultaneously disgusted with its then-current-day revivalists, the band would leave the stage, grease their hair up into pompadours and with Spencer as a drunk Elvis front man goading them on, Britain's most respected new blues band mutated into a '50s lunatic factory called Earl Vince and the Valiants. It was exactly these kind of drunken hijinks that got them banned from the prestigious Marquee Club in London, but make no mistake about it, it was a regular fixture in the original band's stage presentation, both in the U.K. and on original tours in the U.S. as well.They began to get further away from the blues format with each successive release; the first single attempt, Green's "Black Magic Woman," flopped in the U.K. but became a belated hit for Santana, a band that had opened for then in the U.S. Green grew more restless; he wanted a bigger sound and was displeased at Spencer's limitations, both as a performer and as a non-contributing songwriter. Enter guitarist Danny Kirwan, who grew up enthralled with Peter Green the way Greenie was with Eric Clapton. Late in 1968, the band caught its first taste of global chart success with the release of Green's instrumental, "The Albatross." But they hadn't forgot their blues roots and in January of 1969 stood assembled in the Chess studios with some of the city's blues greats, including Big Walter Horton, Otis Spann, J.T. Brown, and Willie Dixon for a marathon blues recording session. The band was getting bigger and bigger everyday; in Europe they were outselling the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and were on the verge of their American breakthrough on the ballroom and festival circuit. But all of this success didn't make Peter Green very happy at all. As a combination of psychedelic drugs and cult religion made him want to play all future gigs for nothing, effectively giving all the band's money away, his departure to eventually become a grave digger signaled the beginning of the end for the original group. With Kirwan and Spencer attempting to front the band in Greenie's absence, the strain proved to be too much for little Jeremy Spencer. In February of 1971, on the eve of a West Coast tour, Spencer left his Hollywood hotel room to go for a walk, never to return. A few days later, he was found -- his head shaved bald -- in a locked and guarded warehouse run by the religious cult, the Children of God. With a six-week tour ahead of them and half their act gone, the band coaxed Peter Green back into the fold to finish out the remaining dates. When it was over, he left again, never to return, effectively ending the days of Fleetwood Mac, kings of British blues-rock. The rest, as they say, is rock & roll. ~ Cub Koda