Widely acknowledged as the
creative force behind Fleetwood Mac, Lindsey Buckingham was born near Palo Alto,
California on October 3rd 1949. Lindsey was the youngest of the three sons born to Morris and
Rutheda Buckingham.
Lindsey
was first introduced to music through his brother Jeff’s record collection,
and by the age of 13 he was taking a keen interest in folk music.
At Menlo-Atherton High School where Stevie Nicks was a year ahead,
Lindsey played in a folk trio. Later,
in his final year, Lindsey along with Stevie and three other friends founded the
Fritz Rabyne Memorial Band, where Buckingham played bass.
The band was popular, playing at their Graduation ceremony in 1967.
A year later Fritz were one of the major local acts in the San Francisco
Bay Area, opening for such legends as Santana, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin.
Fritz folded in 1971, and
Lindsey and his now girlfriend Stevie, both dropped out of San Jose State
College where Buckingham was studying Art.
They travelled to Los Angeles to further their careers, but not before
Lindsey had suffered a year-long bout of Glandular Fever – which enabled him
to spend time honing his finger-picking guitar style.
Arriving in Los Angeles, the
pair signed to Polydor records and released the album ‘Buckingham Nicks’ in
1973. The album did not attract
attention and Polydor subsequently dropped the duo. Buckingham made ends meet selling advertising over the phone
and also as a session musician for Don Everley.
Meanwhile, over at the Sound
City recording studio, Mick Fleetwood was looking for a possible venue to record
a new Fleetwood Mac album. To demonstrate the technical facilities for the
studio, the engineer played Fleetwood ‘Frozen Love’ from the ‘Buckingham
Nicks’ album. Quite by chance,
Lindsey and Stevie were in an adjacent studio, recording demo’s for a possible
second album.
Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie
Nicks joined Fleetwood Mac on New Years Eve 1974 to fill the vacancy left by the
departure of Bob Welch. Fleetwood
had been looking at new directions to take his band in after their recent
re-location to the US to escape from lack lustre album sales in the UK.
The rejuvenated Mac released ‘Fleetwood Mac’ in 1975, breaking all
sales records for Warner Brothers at that time, and signalling the bands rise to
supergroup status. The band toured
extensively through 1975 –76 and unsurprisingly when they returned to the
studio in 1977 to record the follow up, relationships were a little strained.
The emotional turmoil that
became ‘Rumours’ is well documented. Buckingham
and Nicks’ relationship foundered, John and Chris McVie’s marriage crumbled
and even Fleetwood himself was divorced from his then wife Jenny Boyd.
Despite this turmoil, ‘Rumours’ went on to become one of the top ten
selling albums of all time.
After the mammoth success of
‘Rumours’ the record company were keen
for an equally commercial follow-up, but Lindsey had other ideas.
Given greater musical freedom and a greater say in the production,
Lindsey set about making 1979’s ‘Tusk’ about as far removed from
‘Rumours’ as possible. The
album was not a commercial success, but it is several band members favourite
album. It was during the recording
of Tusk that Lindsey met model Carol Ann Harris.
In 1981 Lindsey released his
first solo album ‘Law and Order,’ and enjoyed much success both sides of the
Atlantic with his first single release ‘Trouble’. Re-uniting with Fleetwood Mac in 1982 they produced the
‘Mirage’ album and undertook a short tour – perhaps beginning to reflect
Lindsey’s lack of enthusiasm for touring.
In 1984 Buckingham split with Carol Ann and dedicated that year’s solo
release ‘Go Insane’ to her. While
‘Go Insane’ is his least commercial work it won him the critics approval.
Lindsey was working on his third
solo album when Fleetwood Mac reunited in the studio in 1987 to record ‘Tango
in the Night’. Lindsey
reluctantly handed over much of the work destined for the solo album to the
band, and the result was their biggest selling album since ‘Rumours’.
This time the tour request was met with a ‘no’ from Lindsey and an
ugly scene one day at Stevie’s house lead to Lindsey leaving the band. Billy
Burnett and Rick Vito replaced him.
Lindsey took a year off to
reflect on the last twelve years and then went back into the studio for four
years to produce his third solo album ‘Out of the Cradle’ (1992).
Back
in the studio once again creating his fourth solo album, Lindsey came across
Mick Fleetwood who was on good form having turned his life around from years of
drink and drug abuse. Lindsey
invited him along to play drums. With
a bass player not working out, Lindsey called John McVie and then he called
Christine McVie for vocal assistance. It
was surprising to all that the chemistry was still there.
In 1997 Lindsey was reunited with Fleetwood Mac for ‘The Dance’ album, an MTV special and a 40 date US tour. Now married to Kristen and a father of two children, Lindsey Buckingham is now in the studio working with Fleetwood Mac on a new album, scheduled for release late summer 2002.
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