Fleetwood Mac
Fleetwood Mac were a British and American rock band formed in London in 1967 by singer and guitarist Peter Green. He named the band by combining the surnames of drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie. Fleetwood Mac have sold more than 120 million records worldwide, making them one of the world's best-selling musical acts.
Primarily a British blues band in their early years, the line-up of Green, Fleetwood, McVie, singer and guitarist Jeremy Spencer, and singer and guitarist Danny Kirwan achieved a UK No. 1 single in 1968 with the instrumental "Albatross", and had other UK Top 10 hits with "Man of the World", "Oh Well" (both 1969), and "The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown)" (1970). Green, Spencer, and Kirwan left the band in succession during 1970–1972, with McVie's wife, singer and keyboardist Christine McVie, and American singer and guitarist Bob Welch joining during this period. 1974 saw the band's relocation to the United States and Welch's departure. Fleetwood and the McVies recruited singer and guitarist Lindsey Buckingham and singer Stevie Nicks at the end of that year, and the first album with this line-up, Fleetwood Mac (1975), topped the Billboard 200 chart in the US. Their next album, Rumours (1977), is one of the best-selling albums of all time and won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1978.
The line-up remained stable through three more studio albums - Tusk (1979), Mirage (1982), and Tango in the Night (1987) - before Buckingham left in 1987, and was replaced by Billy Burnette and Rick Vito. The sole studio album from this line-up, Behind the Mask (1990), reached No. 1 in the UK, but was less successful in the US. The classic 1974–1987 line-up reunited for a one-off performance for the first inauguration of President Bill Clinton in 1993, before a full-scale reunion took place four years later, resulting in the band's fourth US No. 1 album, The Dance (1997), a live album marking the 20th anniversary of Rumours and the band's 30th anniversary. Christine McVie left in 1998 but rejoined in 2014. During her departure, Fleetwood, John McVie, Buckingham, and Nicks released the final Fleetwood Mac studio album, Say You Will, in 2003. In 2018, Buckingham was fired and replaced by Mike Campbell (formerly of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) and Neil Finn (of Split Enz and Crowded House). In 2024, two years after the death of Christine McVie, Nicks said she believed that the band would not continue.
In 1979, Fleetwood Mac were honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 1998, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and received the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music. In 2018, Fleetwood Mac received the MusiCares Person of the Year award from the Recording Academy in recognition of their artistic achievement in the music industry and dedication to philanthropy.
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