DREAMS – THE MANY LIVES OF FLEETWOOD MAC by Mark Blake

Had William Shakespeare lived in the 20th Century he’d have written plays about the UK’s great rock groups instead of kings, queens and ill-fated lovers who communicate from balconies. All the elements are there: feuds, deceit, romance, jealously, madness, death, and nothing personifies these plot lines more than the epic saga of Fleetwood Mac, whose 18 participants are helpfully itemised by Mark Blake whose cast of characters resembles dramatis personae in a theatre programme.  

Only two of those 18, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, are on stage throughout the performance, which lasts for 55 years, assuming the death of Christine McVie in 2022 brings down the final curtain. These characters are listed alphabetically, with the first, Bekka Bramlett, ‘fired by fax’, and the last, Bob Weston, ‘fired for adultery’. In between we find unlikely actors like Dave Mason and Neil Finn, respectively better known for their roles in Traffic and Crowded House, but topping the bill alongside Mick, John and Christine are Peter Green, their original guitarist, and Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks whose arrival in 1975 brought about the renaissance that propelled Fleetwood Mac to the stratosphere, guaranteeing them lines around the block (and on mirrors), bulging bank accounts and fantasy lifestyles in line with midsummer night’s dreams.

It’s a complicated plot, a daunting task for any playwright, and Mark Blake presents it in seven acts, each containing many scenes, 108 in total, some quite brief, others far longer, individually dealing with an aspect of FM, a musician, a song, an LP or an event, in roughly chronological sequence, albeit skewed slightly by Blake’s decision, probably wise, to bring almost everyone’s story up to date at the earliest opportunity. By this means he steers a steady passage through the choppy waters of FM’s story, a turbulent stream that has been navigated before, albeit not quite so methodically. Lest methodical suggests dry, fear not however: some scenes, mostly the shorter ones, are as quirky as you’ll find anywhere, which is entirely in keeping with the comedy and drama that has visited Fleetwood Mac over the years, much of it – but by no means all – of their own making. 

        Act I opens with Peter Green, legendary blues guitar hero whose greatest skill, unlike many of his peers, was always knowing what not to play, but who was once cautioned by police for hitting a neighbour with a loaf of bread. “It made me very sad,” says John McVie, which sums up the general attitude towards the founding FM father’s mental decline. The final Act closes with the death of Christine, FM’s secret weapon, a discreet team player, forever unobtrusive yet crucial to their pop success, which I’m sure made everyone who’s ever owned an FM record very sad too.

        Green is followed by Bob Brunning, their earliest bass player, who lasted just two months and left FM to become a schoolteacher. He’s one of several whose roles are somewhere between supporting actors and extras in the story; his stay was the shortest. Next, we leap to Mick, the joint longest in terms of years and by far the longest in terms of feet and inches, and here we’re into the meat of the book where the depth of research is selective but admirable, by which I mean Blake omits the dull stuff but focuses on the eccentricity, not least his pre-occupation with genitalia and wildly fluctuating bank account. 

        There’s lots more weird stuff as we progress through this complex tale. Next up is Jeremy Spencer who, like Green, was deranged by religion, rather more so in fact, quitting without telling anyone in the band to join The Children of God, and, in later years, returning to music with the sect’s approval. Next up is John, Mick’s loyal but boozy partner, who is as dull as dishwater compared to just about everyone else. 

        There’s diversions, among them a meditation on ‘Albatross’ and the identity of the black magic woman, before we arrive at the fate of FM’s third troubled guitarist, Danny Kirwan, writer of ‘Dragonfly’, who, in 1980, was sleeping on a park bench. “I couldn’t handle the lifestyle and the women and the travelling,” he says. Danny died from pneumonia, aged 68, in a care home in south London. Then, in what is becoming an almost predictable tradition, another guitarist, American Bob Welch, comes and goes, his great contribution persuading the others to move to California where, it turns out, a pot of gold awaits at the end of Sunset Boulevard. 

        Before this happens, however, Christine has married John, they’ve all moved into a country house in Hampshire, a singer called Dave Walker and another guitarist, Bob Weston, have been and gone, the latter axed for embarking on an affair with Mick Fleetwood’s wife Jenny, sister of Pattie Boyd-Harrison-Clapton. This leaves the group in disarray, not for the first time, stranded in California with nothing on the horizon, which prompts manager Clifford Davis to recruit five random musicians, call them Fleetwood Mac and send them on an American tour, an episode curiously mirrored in attempts by phoneys to impersonate Jeremy Spencer and Peter Green. Around the same time Christine starts an affair with studio engineer Martin Birch. Could the unrelenting drama get any worse? 

        It does, but not before things get better and better. By now we’ve reached Act III in Blake’s book, the arrival of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks who turn the group’s fortunes around and within two years they’re one of the best-selling bands of all time. Having abandoned their blues roots they embrace AOR and, rightly, the ‘white’ album and Rumours get fulsome coverage, not that everyone’s amorous exploits take a back seat. In fact, it is almost de rigour for everyone in the group’s inner circle to leap in and out of bed with colleagues, employees or friends; Mick with Stevie, Christine with a lighting guy, Stevie with an Eagle, Lindsey with a costume designer called Carol, to whom Rod Stewart took a fancy and who, as a result, is swiftly escorted from her midst. 

        Act IV deals with Rumours and takes us to Tusk, the era when FM’s spending knew no bounds, mostly on drugs. I was relieved to learn that stories about Stevie having cocaine blown up her backside have no basis in fact. Act V features Mirage and Tango In The Night, and includes a detour about Christine’s ill-considered romance with doomed Beach Boy Dennis Wilson who spent lavishly on her, albeit with her own money, and others about Billy Burnette and Rick Vito, dual understudies for Buckingham when he went awol, as he was prone to do. Much the same applies to Dave Mason and Bekka Bramlett who understudied for Christine, though the Rumours quintet regrouped – not entirely amicably – for Bill Clinton’s presidential inauguration ball in 1993. 

        With two acts to go, I was beginning to admire Mark Blake’s stamina. Act VI opens by dissecting The Dance, FM’s live album, and closes with a scene about penguins that reveals how John McVie, who has one tattooed on his right forearm, can tell the difference between an Adélie, a Gentoo, a rockhopper and a Humboldt. Act VII covers the recruitment of two further Buckingham understudies, Neil Finn and Tom Petty guitarist Mike Campbell, whose solos went on too long for Stevie. “She would get exhausted playing tambourine,” says Mike. “And say, ‘Fucking hell, Lindsey only did twelve bars.’”

Fittingly, Blake devotes the closing scene of Act VII to Christine, her life and legacy. After all the craziness that’s gone before, it’s somehow reassuring to learn how she escaped from the madness, sensibly retiring to a country house in Kent, became bored, then overcame her fear of flying to rejoin FM for the final tour with Finn and Campbell. “She’s a lovely, lovely lady, even though she told me to fuck off,” adds her bass playing ex-husband, not a line you’ll find in Shakespeare’s oeuvre. 

        Published by Nine Eight Books, an imprint on Bonnier, in September, Dreams has 408 pages but, according to the author, lacks a photo section and index, which is sub-standard for a book of this scope and ambition. It is priced at £15.45 on Amazon.