Fleetwood Mac

Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 album Rumours became one of the best-selling albums of all time, won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1978, and helped turn a group born in Britain’s blues circuit into a major British-American rock act. Formed in London in 1967, Fleetwood Mac have sold more than 120 million records worldwide. Their history spans sharply different line-ups and sounds, from electric blues to polished pop and rock records built around several distinctive songwriters and vocalists.

The band’s early core included guitarist and singer Peter Green, drummer Mick Fleetwood, bassist John McVie, and guitarists Jeremy Spencer and Danny Kirwan. As a British blues band, they scored a UK number one in 1968 with the instrumental “Albatross,” then reached the UK Top 10 with “Man of the World,” “Oh Well,” and “The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown).” Green, Spencer and Kirwan each departed between 1970 and 1972. During that transition, Christine McVie joined as a singer and keyboardist, alongside American singer and guitarist Bob Welch.

Fleetwood Mac relocated to the United States in 1974. After Welch left, Fleetwood, John McVie and Christine McVie recruited Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks late that year. Their first album together, 1975’s Fleetwood Mac, topped the Billboard 200, and Rumours followed. This five-member line-up remained in place for Tusk (1979), Mirage (1982) and Tango in the Night (1987), combining the writing of Buckingham, Nicks and Christine McVie with the rhythm section of Fleetwood and John McVie.

After Buckingham left in 1987, he was replaced by Billy Burnette and Rick Vito. Their album Behind the Mask reached number one in the UK in 1990, though it was less successful in the US. The 1975-1987 line-up reunited for President Bill Clinton’s first inauguration in 1993, then returned fully in 1997 for The Dance, a live album that became the band’s fourth US number one. Christine McVie left in 1998, while Fleetwood, John McVie, Buckingham and Nicks recorded Say You Will in 2003; she rejoined in 2014. In 2018, Buckingham was fired and replaced by Mike Campbell and Neil Finn. Christine McVie died in 2022, and in 2024 Nicks said she believed the band would not continue.

Fleetwood Mac received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1979, entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998, and received the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music that same year. The Recording Academy named the group MusiCares Person of the Year in 2018, recognizing both its artistic achievement and philanthropy.