The three Fleetwood Mac songs originally intended for another project
From the British blues devotees of the 1960s to the global pop rock powerhouse of the following decade, the timeline of Fleetwood Mac is among the most bizarre, tumultuous, and ultimately captivating of any band in music history.
Never before, and perhaps never since, has any band managed to switch up their sound so drastically and yet amass such an unfathomable amount of success and acclaim. A core element of that changing sound was, of course, the departure of Peter Green back in 1970, but the loss of the band’s blues-obsessed leader was not the only personnel change that forever impacted the future of the band.
Namely, the addition of Lindsey Buckingham and his then-partner, Stevie Nicks, in 1975 formed a defining moment for Fleetwood Mac, ushering in their most successful, conflict-ridden period and introducing the music world to albums as utterly iconic as Rumours. For many fans, in fact, Fleetwood Mac is Buckingham and Nicks, despite the pair being relatively late additions to the line-up.
Given their colossal impact, it can be easy to forget that Buckingham and Nicks already had a music career – albeit a relatively understated one – prior to joining the ranks of Mick Fleetwood’s ever-changing outfit. In fact, in the days before the couple became irreversibly and constantly at each other’s throats during the Rumours era, they recorded an entire album together in 1973, imaginatively titled Buckingham Nicks.
Up until very recently, when that debut album was reissued at long last, Buckingham Nicks was clouded by its relative obscurity, with Buckingham in particular seemingly disowning its content – although that harsh view of the record was likely influenced somewhat by his harsh view of Stevie Nicks.
Now that the record is fully out in the open, though, it isn’t too difficult to link its musical material to the kind of thing that the pairing would strike upon during their time with the Mac years later.
Those sonic similarities shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, though, given the fact that a select few unused off-cuts from the project ended up forming essential elements of Fleetwood Mac’s discography in later years. ‘Monday Morning’, ‘Landslide’, and the universally-beloved ‘Rhiannon’, all had their roots in that forgotten album, before becoming reappraised and reworked for the duo’s new band.
Arguably, it was those contributions which properly cemented Buckingham and Nicks as essential members of the band, particularly given the fact that, initially, it was only Buckingham who was asked to join Fleetwood Mac. Even more impressively, though, ‘Rhiannon’ became a huge hit for the group, peaking at number 11 in the US charts, dwarfing the commercial flop that was the Buckingham Nicks album that ‘Rhiannon’ was initially rejected from.
Even those two other tracks, while not having the commercial successes of the Stevie Nicks-penned masterpiece, quickly became fan favourite tracks for Fleetwood Mac, and remain some of the most beloved efforts ever recorded by the band. It is fair to say, then, that the recruitment of Buckingham and Nicks certainly paid off.
