8CD box set that includes remastered versions of all seven studio albums the band recorded between 1969 and 1974. After Mick Fleetwood, Peter Green, John McVie, and Jeremy Spencer started Fleetwood Mac in 1967, they quickly found an audience eager for their British-style blues. Over the next seven years, the band would sign with Reprise Records, release seven studio albums, and release many classic tracks that are still beloved today. Fleetwood Mac’s early rise to fame takes centre stage on two upcoming Rhino releases that spotlight the group’s deep-blues roots.
Early Fleetwood Mac from 1970, plus 4 tracks from 1969 by the pre-Mac Christine Perfect Band. Mixture of studio and live tracks concentrating on the post-Peter Green Fleetwood Mac with Jeremy Spencer and Danny Kirwan…
As far as odds and ends packages go, Original Fleetwood Mac (1971) is an undeniably strong collection culled primarily from the band's first incarnation, featuring John McVie (bass/guitar), Mick Fleetwood (drums), Peter Green (guitar/vocals), and Jeremy Spencer (guitar/piano/vocals). As evidenced by the material, this quartet are an unmistakably blues-based combo. Early on they distinguished themselves as not only interpreters of traditional fare, but skilled composers, especially Green, who penned the vast majority of these selections…
This Peter Green-led edition of the Mac isn't just an important transition between their initial blues-based incarnation and the mega-pop band they became, it's also their most vital, exciting version…
While most bands undergo a number of changes over the course of their careers, few groups experienced such radical stylistic changes as Fleetwood Mac. Initially conceived as a hard-edged British blues combo in the late '60s, the band gradually evolved into a polished pop/rock act over the course of a decade…
This double-CD set may well mislead listeners on two counts. On the one hand, there will be some neophyte listeners expecting to hear the silky pop/rock strains of the Lindsey Buckingham/Stevie Nicks-era Fleetwood Mac. This is, indeed, the original version of the band organized in 1967 by virtuoso blues guitarist/singer Peter Green, in which the latter shared the spotlight with fellow guitarist Jeremy Spencer, and they got no closer to pop/rock than renditions of Howlin' Wolf and B.B. King material.
Reissue in the high-fidelity Blu-spec CD format (fully compatible with standard CD players.) For reasons that no one seems to recall in detail – but for which we can be grateful – when it was time to release a second Fleetwood Mac LP in America, producer Mike Vernon and the band didn't just send the existing Mr. Wonderful album across the Atlantic – a little fine-tuning and retooling was in order. The band had just expanded by one member, to a quintet – with the addition of guitarist Danny Kirwan – by the end of 1968, whereas Mr. Wonderful represented them as a four-piece outfit. Additionally, the group had just toured the U.S. for the first time, as a quintet, playing to very enthusiastic audiences, and so there was some point to sending U.S. licensee Epic Records something extra, representing who they were at the start of 1969.