Posts Tagged ‘Fleetwood Mac’

FLEETWOOD MAC – ” Tusk ” Re-issue Classic Album

Posted: December 31, 2015 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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When the five members of Fleetwood Mac reconvened in the studio in 1978 to record the follow-up to their massively successful/decade-defining/inescapable disc Rumours, it would have been painfully easy to simply spit out Rumours II.

Instead, they took 13 months and spent a then-unprecedented $1 million-plus to birth Tusk, a double album of 20 songs spanning 72 minutes. The effort defied expectations, confounded some fans, sold “only” 4 million units, and produced only two singles resembling hits: the tribal-sounding title track (recorded with the 112-piece University of Southern California Trojan Marching Band), and Stevie Nicks’ ethereal “Sara.”

However, a funny thing happened with Tusk in the ensuing 35 years. Its standing among both Fleetwood Mac fans and musicians has skyrocketed, as has respect for the wildly diverse songs and experimentation. Now, Rhino/Warner Brothers has released Tusk: The Deluxe Edition. The 5-CD/2-LP/1-DVD set includes the original album remastered, a bevy of outtakes and alternate takes, and plenty of live material from the ensuing tour.

In the booklet of liner notes and rare photos, Jim Irvin celebrates the potpourri grab bag of music, spearheaded by Lindsey Buckingham’s newfound infatuation with the sounds of punk and New Wave music, and a desire to not repeat the same old formula. He would even adopt an entirely new look for the photos shoots and tour of closely cropped hair, suits, and…uh…heavy makeup. “Listening to Tusk is like walking around a ridiculously eclectic art gallery curated by someone who’s keeping their aesthetic a secret,” Irvin offers. “And old master next to an abstract, a kinetic sculpture next to a watercolour. It makes no sense at first.”

Though, contrary to the established Rock History Narrative of him fighting for the change alone, both Nicks and Mick Fleetwood and not just Buckingham were also eager to shake things up, according to their own comments today.

And what of the effect as a whole? Buckingham certainly brings an un-Mac-like tension, nervous energy, and biting sarcasm to efforts like the deranged square-dance sound of “The Ledge,” the punkish “What Makes You Think You’re the One,” the biting “Not That Funny,” and the “rockabilly on acid” of “That’s Enough For Me.”

Stevie Nicks, always given something of a short shrift in terms of songwriting since she doesn’t play an instrument (not counting the tambourine), offers some of her finest work in the longing “Storms,” an upbeat “Angel,” elegiac “Beautiful Child,” and mysterious “Sisters of the Moon,” which surprisingly resurfaced on the set list for the Mac’s recent reunion tours.

Only Christine McVie’s contributions seem slight and listless — both lyrically and musically — save for some soft-and-gentle work on her usual romantic balladry in “Over and Over” and “Brown Eyes.”

Tusk’s recording period saw Christine’s involvement with both Grant Curry (the band’s lighting director) and Beach Boy Dennis Wilson, while Lindsay Buckingham fell into an intense involvement with record-company exec/former model Carol Ann Harris (who later wrote a not-that-flattering book about the relationship, Storms).

Fleetwood Mac at the Crossroads...with one goofy hat: John McVie, Stevie Nicks, Mick Fleetwood, Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie.

The shocker, fans later found out, was the news of Nicks and Fleetwood’s brief-but-intense involvement. It led to Fleetwood’s divorce from Jenny Boyd…who had previously had an affair with previous lineup guitarist Bob Weston…and was the sister of Rock’s Greatest Muse, Pattie Boyd, who sent both George Harrison and Eric Clapton into romantic bliss and yearning, poured out on vinyl.

And when Nicks and Fleetwood’s involvement ended, Nicks’ best friend, Sara Recor (partial inspiration for the song), took up with Fleetwood without either bothering to tell Nicks about it, which crushed her .(are you following all of this?). this was usual for the Fleetwood Mac circus

Thus, Nicks admits today that a number of her songs are about Fleetwood, and it’s not hard to interpret many of hers and Buckingham’s lyrics as continued musical snipes and judgments on their relationship.

Of the demos and alternate versions, there’s some very interesting development chronicled in the songs “I Know I’m Not Wrong” and “Tusk” as Buckingham — like he did with much of the material — tinkered with them in his own studio extensively before bringing them to the band. It was a way of songwriting that gave him more control, but which the band agreed to abandon after Tusk.

And on the live discs, listeners will find a band surprisingly willing to take risks with tempos and delivery onstage with material recorded in studio. And that includes tunes from their previous two records, Fleetwood Mac and Rumours.

Fleetwood Mac

Additional personnel

So, while the hefty Deluxe Edition of Tusk may be for Fleetwood Mac Addicts only (and those with record players), less expensive options included a 3-CD Expanded Edition and a 1-CD Remastered effort.

In either case, for what attention and sometimes derision it received on release, Tusk is the one effort in the band’s discography whose standing has improved with time. Oh, and the meaning the title? It was Mick Fleetwood’s slang term for a penis. You’re welcome for that.

WHISKYTOWN (RYAN ADAMS) – ” Dreams “

Posted: September 24, 2015 in MUSIC
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On Monday, Ryan Adams released a track-by-track cover of Taylor Swift’s smash hit album “1989” to mostly rave reviews. Ryan Adams has a huge back catalog and has always ripped out quite a few covers, so over the next few posts here are some of the favourites
dating back his earliest days with seminal alt-country outfit Whiskeytown in the early 1990s.

This list also wholly omits Adams’ huge catalogue of Grateful Dead covers (there were simply far too many on my “Ryan’s Dead” compilation from which to pick).

This list also does not include live songs performed in one-off settings, like Madonna’s Like A Virgin, Bryan Adams’ Summer of ’69, Dio’s Holy Diver or the Backstreet Boys’ I Want it That Way.

ROBYN SHERWELL – ” Landslide ” Fleetwood Mac Cover

Posted: April 4, 2015 in MUSIC
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It should be no secret that Robyn Sherwell has an absolutely stunningly beautiful voice – she’s showcased it on the songs ‘Pale Lung’, ‘Islander’, and ‘Tightrope’ thus far. All three of those tracks come from her new EP Islander, which is rounded out with a gorgeous, tranquil cover of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Landslide’. Her voice soars over the whisper-quiet production and will leave you with your jaw on the floor, the EP. “Islander” is out now

Listen to Robyn Sherwell's beautiful 'Landslide' cover

 

FLEETWOOD MAC – ” Dreams ” Live At The Bell Centre 5th February 2015

Posted: February 7, 2015 in MUSIC
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Stevie Nicks Rumours Era in Montreal Bell Centre Canada 5th Fébrury 2015
For a band that was once famously defined by personal drama and rancour, Fleetwood Mac’s members were almost as generous toward one another as they were to the nearly 12,400 fans who spent 2 1/2 hours in their company at the Bell Centre Thursday night.
The narrative of this tour is the return of keyboardist Christine McVie, which completes the group’s most popular lineup for the first time since 1998. She certainly received her due welcome from the audience and from her bandmates, but the quintet shared the glory, both between its members and as an ensemble.
There’s no new album to promote (although one is in the works), and the most recent numbers in Thursday’s show were from the 1987 disc “Tango in the Night”, with more than half of the set list drawn from the 1975 self-titled release and 1977’s world-conquering “Rumours”. But this didn’t feel like a nostalgic evening. The performance was absolutely contemporary.

The crackling energy was there from the walk-on to The Chain, while drummer Mick Fleetwood’s clockwork timekeeping, John McVie’s strapping bass and Lindsey Buckingham’s swampy guitar telegraphed that the band’s locked-in interplay hadn’t diminished.
Stevie Nicks made an early note that this was the 51st show of the tour. “In the beginning, I would have said: a) ‘Welcome, Montreal,’ and second, ‘Welcome, Chris.’ … Today I think we can say, with caution abandoned, ‘She’s ba-ack!’ ”

Charismatic even when she was rooted in place, Stevie Nicks went on to lose herself inside Dreams before Buckingham — the only member to routinely venture to the lip of the stage — led a bracing Second Hand News as if the 38-year-old cut was being shared for the first time. Although Christine McVie’s upper-register vocals were a touch strained in Everywhere (but appealingly earthy everywhere else), that sunny delight was also rejuvenated, and stripped of its ’80s gloss.

The title track’s marching-band strangeness of “Tusk” remained delightfully odd — and not just by this group’s classicist standards — with Christine McVie on accordion, Buckingham playing the madman card to the hilt, and three auxiliary players contributing more than the almost imperceptible shading offered elsewhere. Nicks’s carefully possessed lead in Sisters of the Moon was supplemented by haunted harmonies from an understated trio of backup singers.

The quick-change pacing of the show’s first hour or so turned far more casual in the back half, starting with an intimate acoustic section that could have taken place in a club setting. Buckingham made conversation before his solo performance of Big Love, once “a contemplation on alienation and now a meditation on the power and importance of change.” True to his words, the solemn but flashy fingerpicking was a revelation, and far removed from the slick original. Nicks joined Buckingham for Landslide, stunning in its stillness, before the duo added a note of darkness to Never Going Back Again.

Over My Head saw the return of the full band, the introduction of Fleetwood’s front-of-stage “cocktail kit” and a reminiscence from Christine McVie about the time spent “sort of floundering, looking for a new guitarist” before Buckingham joined for the eponymous 1975 album. Setting up Gypsy, Nicks offered a history lesson of her own, a touching recollection of window shopping at San Francisco’s Velvet Underground rock-star clothing boutique before she was a star herself. The songs-and-stories format may have helped slow the show’s momentum, but they also helped make one of the top-selling bands in the world seem approachable.

The home stretch included a number of extended showcases: Gold Dust Woman climaxed with Stevie Nicks swaying across the stage in a glittering shawl; Buckingham enjoyed a caustic centrepiece in I’m So Afraid; Mick Fleetwood had the stage to himself for a crazy-eyed shamanic routine in the middle of World Turning.

But of course, Go Your Own Way and Don’t Stop were the real climactic crowd-pleasers. The quintet’s camaraderie was at its strongest in the former, with the tireless Buckingham speeding around Nicks, who had donned a bejewelled top hat, and careering into John McVie.

Christine McVie returned for a second encore of Songbird, delivering her most tender vocal of the night accompanied only by Buckingham. It was a poignant final word.

FLEETWOOD MAC – ” Live at Madison Square Gardens ” 22nd January 2015

Posted: February 2, 2015 in MUSIC
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Fleetwood Mac

Fleetwood Mac’s classic lineup brought their tour to Madison Square Garden,  their first of four NYC-area shows on this tour. From the opening harmonies of show starter “The Chain,” it was clear that having Christine McVie  is back in the fold making a huge difference. With the three voices together as such a vital part of Fleetwood Mac. Having Christine back  meant that the few classic songs the band could’nt play before live were now included in the set like “You Make Loving Fun,” “Everywhere,” “Say You Love,” “Over My Head,” “Little Lies,” and her show-closing, solo grand piano performance of “Songbird.”

They played almost all of the legendary “Rumours” and otherwise stuck to the other four ’70s and ’80s albums this lineup made together. As a band still playing arenas 40 years after their first album together can do, they peppered their set (and ended it) with a few stories from the band members.  Stevie introduced “Gypsy” with a story of being in San Francisco clothing store The Velvet Underground not to be confused with the band, who were named after the  book where all the rock and roll women bought their clothes” in the late ’60s. It was in that store, over the painted floor where Janis Joplin stood before her that she had a premonition of something big which she realized years later was, of course, Fleetwood Mac. This many years later, Stevie Nicks is still the kind of rock and roll woman her premonition told her she’d be: decked out in signature flowy layers, waving scarves with her tambourine, and doing hippie dances in a gold shawl during “Gold Dust Woman.” Without a doubt, she’s the most entrancing member of the band, and the one the crowd really freaks out over.

Lindsey Buckingham is the band’s rock star and lifeforce, running around the stage like he’s half his actual age and shredding away at his truly awesome guitar solos. As Mick noted towards the end of the show, he basically never left the stage. The extended solo at the end of “I’m So Afraid” was particularly epic — so much so that it seemed like the finale of the pre-encore set, but of course that would be “Go Your Own Way.” That one had the whole crowd on their feet, ready for the band to come back for more, and not one but two encores followed. Christine ended the night perfectly, at her piano with Lindsey by her side, but what may have been the night’s most powerful moment came during the first encore. It’s no secret that she does this at (probably all of) their shows, but at the end of “Silver Springs” when Stevie turns to make eye contact with Lindsey — who the song is obviously about — howling “I’ll follow you down ’til the sound of my voice will haunt you / you’ll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you,” it never fails to fill the room with that kind of tension that fueled the song 38 years ago. Maybe it’s just performance at this point, but damn if it doesn’t feel real.

Christine, who the band acknowledged being back multiple times throughout the night, was the last to sing, but not the last to talk. Despite the older age of the sometimes-yawning crowd, MSG was still packed with people on their feet as Fleetwood Mac ended their final song after 11pm “The Mac is back!” They definitely did not give the impression that this would be their “last act”.

FLEETWOOD MAC – ” The Chain ” Live Madison Square Gardens 22nd January 2015

Posted: January 25, 2015 in MUSIC
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Opening the garden with a bang. Live from Madison Square Garden, New York City. January 22, 2015. Fleetwood Mac.

Rock legends Fleetwood Mac, who performed two sold-out shows at NYC’s Madison Square Garden earlier this week, have confirmed they will be adding at least 28 more dates to their already scheduled 40-city “ON WITH THE SHOW” tour. The announcement was made during the band’s live performance on NBC’s TODAY Show where The Mac performed for thousands of adoring fans. Fleetwood Mac is currently performing with their five star lineup including the returning songbird Christine McVie who rejoined the band following a 16 year absence.
The principal emotion during the nearly 2 1/2-hour performance was the joy of having keyboardist McVie back in this group… She brought high harmonies and several songs, including ‘Little Lies,’ ‘You Make Loving Fun’ and the closing ‘Songbird,’ back into the repertoire.Stevie Nicks hasn’t sounded this good since the early ‘90’s. What a rhythm machine and what an articulate emotional guitarist Lindsay Buckingham is live.
“It’s still magical. Between Buckingham’s epic guitar solos, Mick Fleetwood’s massive drumming, John McVie’s strong bass work, Nicks’ patented spins to punctuate the lovely ‘Gypsy’ and Christine McVie’s lush vocals, Fleetwood Mac looked ready to take on what Buckingham has called ‘the next chapter.
With Christine’s songs back in the set, her calm, angular presence back on the stage, there was an undeniable feeling of rejuvenation. Mick Fleetwood and John McVie on bass reminded concert-goers why the band is named for them… They still put a layer of muscle behind everything the band did… Buckingham was ferocious and tireless as lead guitar. This man is a vital musical presence – the soul of the band. Ditto for the vitality of Nicks, its cauldron-stirring spirit… Her showcase songs, ‘Landslide,’ ‘Gold Dust Woman’ and, especially ‘Silver Springs,’ were the night’s highlights.

STEVIE NICKS – ” Rhiannon ” Live On Tonight Show with Fallon

Posted: November 16, 2014 in MUSIC
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As performed by Stevie Nicks on the Tonight Show with host Jimmy Fallon,Stevie Nicks is a Grammy Award-winning solo artist and frontwoman for Fleetwood Mac. The band’s 1977 album, “Rumours”, is considered one of music’s biggest selling albums and won the Grammy for Album of the Year. Nicks kicked off her solo career in 1981 with the album Bella Donna and has released seven more albums, including her most recent, 24 Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault, Stevie performed two songs on the show “Rhiannon” and “Lady” but the unexpected was the solo performance Stevie at the piano on her own most likely as she did when the song was originally written.

STEVIE NICKS – ” Lady ” Tonight Show with Fallon

Posted: November 6, 2014 in MUSIC
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Stevie Nicks took advantage of a break in Fleetwood Mac‘s current tour to stop by ‘The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon last night and perform a pair of songs, including one from her new solo LP “ Lady “, ‘24 Karat Gold: Songs From the Vault.’

You can watch that song, ‘Lady,’ above, She also performed an exclusive rendition of Nicks’ Fleetwood Mac classic ‘Rhiannon,’ which she performed at the piano. Released October 7th, ’24 Karat Gold’ Nicks contiuned the streak of Top 10 solo records Nicks started with in 2001′s ‘Trouble in Shangri-La.’. ‘Lady,’ along with ‘The Dealer’ and ‘Starshine,’ was released as a single prior to ’24 Karat’ arriving in stores.

As previously reported, Fleetwood Mac are back on the road with Christine McVie for the first time in years, and the band’s run of well-received reunion gigs will continue for quite awhile — they recently added another leg of dates, extending the tour into 2015. The band is also at work on a new album, its first since 2003′s ‘Say You Will‘ — and the first studio LP to employ the group’s classic ‘Rumours’-era lineup since 1987′s ‘Tango in the Night.’ check out Stevie’s tour story as well

STEVIE NICKS – ” Star Shine “

Posted: October 1, 2014 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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STEVIE NICKS singer songwriter and vocalist with Fleetwood Mac currently touring the States, has a new solo album due out titled “24 Karat Gold” featuring old and new songs throughout her career.

STEVIE NICKS – ” Twisted “

Posted: October 1, 2014 in MUSIC
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A further glimpse of the new album to be released from Stevie Nicks “24 Karat Gold”  a collection of songs mostly originally demos recorded by Stevie for her solo albums and for the collective of Fleetwood Mac.

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