[purchase Fleetwood Mac (White Album]
More than once here I have professed fealty to Fleetwood Mac.
In the early '70s, Fleetwood was on my playlist: Future Games and Bare Trees, But the musical style of Peter Green was not the same as what the band was producing after he left. <Mystery To Me> followed by <Heroes Are Hard to Find> filled my mid-'70s heavy play list. Bob Welch and Bob Weston had replaced Green on guitar: songs like Hypnotized & Bermuda Triangle. It was after this, in the later part of the mid-'70s with the addition of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks that the band hit big time commercial success.
The song above comes from the first album with Nicks and Buckingham, sometimes called the White Album, and it charted at the top of the US Billboard list including a handful of top twenties. It took 10 years to produce their next, Rumours, aptly named amidst a period of difficult relationship issues.
In this version, Lindsey Buckingham's minimalistic guitar playing comes across well: a case of less is more. Buckingham's solos are as sparse as they are effective: harmonics ... repeated notes with effect...
It is not just Buckinghim who is effective in his use of sound: the whole band is tight to the point that this live performance rivals the studio version, where they would have had more control of the final result. As ever, there's the two stalwart members who've been there throughout the years: John McVie and Mick Fleetwood laying down the essential backbone of the music: the drums and the bass.
And, considering that hypnosis is in the head:
