Watch Buckingham/Nicks-era Fleetwood Mac play Peter Green song ‘The Green Manalishi’
Lindsey Buckingham wasn’t hired to be a leading force in Fleetwood Mac: he was hired to be a replacement. When Mick Fleetwood first heard the Buckingham Nicks album while visiting Sound Studios in the mid-1970s, he was impressed by Buckingham’s triple threat of singing, songwriting, and guitar playing. But whether he was going to lead Fleetwood Mac into brand new territory was incidental since the band had some more immediate concerns.
Guitarist Bob Welch left the band in 1974, once again kickstarting the revolving door of guitar players that started when founding member Peter Green first departed in 1971. Over their first decade, Fleetwood Mac had no less than six singer-guitarists take the lead at some point. Each one brought a different style, but Welch had been the last known survivor, dragging the Mac into less bluesy and more commercial stylistic avenues.
But Welch was gone, and now Fleetwood Mac had to restart the machine all over again. As the band’s de facto manager during his period, it was largely up to Fleetwood in order to find their next guitarist. Buckingham seemed like a good fit – he could write, sing, and shred all at the same time – but he came with some baggage. Buckingham refused to join the band unless they also took his then-girlfriend, singer-songwriter, Stevie Nicks, as well.
Both Buckingham and Nicks soon came on board a little more than a month after Welch’s initial departure. Recording for their next album, 1975’s Fleetwood Mac, started almost immediately. But there were still some loose ends to tie up before the album was released in the summer of that year. Technically, Fleetwood Mac had to finish out the tour supporting their previous album, Heroes Are Hard to Find, which they did with Buckingham and Nicks.
The setlists for this time in Mac history are some of the strangest they have ever played. The shadow of Peter Green still loomed large, but now the shadow of Bob Welch also had to be contended with. While Welch wasn’t quite as beloved and groundbreaking as Green, he had some of the biggest hits that Fleetwood Mac ever had up to that point. That’s why you can hear Buckingham take on Welch’s ‘Hypnotized’ to close out most concerts: people who paid to see Fleetwood Mac probably paid to hear ‘Hypnotized’, so that’s what they got.
Buckingham and Nicks were also integrating their own songs, including ‘World Turning’ and ‘Landslide’, at this time. The results are an eclectic jumble of the first decade of Fleetwood Mac, all in one setlist. When it came time to do Green’s material, Buckingham dutifully busted out the killer riff from ‘Oh Well’ and even took on Green’s final contribution to the Mac canon: ‘The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown)’.
Check out Buckingham’s lead on ‘The Green Manalishi’ down below.
