The roots of Fleetwood Mac lie in John Mayall's legendary British blues outfit, the Bluesbreakers. John McVie (bass) was one of the charter members of the Bluesbreakers, joining the group in 1963. In 1966 Peter Green replaced Eric Clapton and a year later, Mick Fleetwood (drums) joined. Inspired by the success of Cream, the Yardbirds and Jimi Hendrix, the trio decided to break away from Mayall in 1967. At their debut at the British Jazz and Blues Festival in August, Bob Brunning was playing bass in the group, since McVie was still under contract to Mayall. He joined the band a few weeks after their debut; by that time, slide guitarist Jeremy Spencer had joined the band. Fleetwood Mac soon signed with Blue Horizon, releasing their eponymous debut the following year. Fleetwood Mac was an enormous hit in the UK, spending over a year in the Top 10. Despite its British success, the album was virtually ignored in America. During 1968, the band added guitarist Danny Kirwan. The following year, they recorded "Fleetwood Mac" in Chicago with a variety of bluesmen, including Willie Dixon and Otis Spann. The set was released later that year, after the band had left Blue Horizon for a one-album deal with Immediate Records; in the US, they signed with Reprise/Warner Bros. and by 1970, Warner began releasing the band's British records as well.

Fleetwood Mac released "English Rose" and "Then Play On" during 1969, which both indicated that the band members were expanding their music, moving away from their blues-purists roots. That year, Green's "Man of the World" and "Oh Well" were number two hits. Though his music was providing the backbone of the group, Peter Green was growing increasingly disturbed, due to his large ingestion of hallucinogenic drugs. After announcing that he was planning to give all of his earnings away, Green suddenly left the band in the spring of 1970. He released two solo albums over the course of the '70s, but he rarely performed after leaving Fleetwood Mac. The band replaced him with Christine Perfect, a vocalist/pianist who had earned a small but loyal following in the UK by singing with Spencer Davis and the Chicken Shack. She had already performed unaccredited on "Then Play On". Contractual difficulties prevented her from becoming a full-fledged member of Fleetwood Mac until 1971; by that time she had married John McVie.

Christine McVie didn't appear on 1970's "Kiln House", the first album the band recorded without Peter Green. For that album, Jeremy Spencer dominated the band's musical direction, but he had also been undergoing mental problems due to heavy drug use. During the band's American tour in early 1971, Spencer disappeared; it was later discovered that he left the band to join the religious cult, the Children of God. Fleetwood Mac had already been trying to determine the direction of their music, but Spencer's departure sent the band into disarray. Christine McVie and Danny Kirwan began to move the band towards mainstream rock on 1971's "Future Games", but new guitarist Bob Welch exerted a heavy influence on 1972's "Bare Trees". Kirwan was fired after Bare Trees and was replaced by guitarists Bob Weston and Dave Walker, who appeared on 1973's "Penguin". Walker left after that album, and Weston departed after making its follow-up, "Mystery to Me" (1973).

In 1974, the group's manager Clifford Davis formed a bogus Fleetwood Mac, and had the band tour the US. The real Fleetwood Mac filed and won a lawsuit against the impostors, who, after losing, began performing under the name Stretch -- but the lawsuit kept the real band off the road for most of the year. In the interim, they released "Heroes Are Hard To Find". Late in 1974, Fleetwood Mac moved to California, with hopes of re-starting their career. Welch left the band shortly after the move to form a group called Paris.

Early in 1975, Fleetwood and McVie were auditioning engineers for the band's new album when they heard "Buckingham-Nicks", an album recorded by the soft-rock duo Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. The duo was asked to join the group and their addition revived the band's musical and commercial fortunes. Not only did the pair write songs, but they brought the distinctive talents the band had been lacking. Buckingham was skilled pop craftsman, capable of arranging a commercial song while keeping it musically adventurous. Nicks had a husky voice and a sexy, hippie gypsy stage persona which gave the band a charismatic frontwoman. The new line-up of Fleetwood Mac released their eponymous debut in 1975 and it slowly became a huge hit, reaching number one in 1976 on the strength of the singles "Over My Head," "Rhiannon," and "Say You Love Me." The album would eventually sell over five million copies in the US alone.

While Fleetwood Mac had finally attained their long-desired commercial success, the band was fraying apart behind the scenes. The McVies divorced in 1976, and Buckingham and Nicks' romance ended shortly afterward. The internal tensions formed the basis for the songs on their next album, "Rumours".

Released in the spring of 1977, "Rumours" became a blockbuster success, topping the American and British charts and generating the Top 10 singles "Go Your Own Way," "Dreams," "Don't Stop," and "You Make Loving Fun." It would eventually sell over 17 million copies in the US alone, making it the second biggest-selling album of all-time. Fleetwood Mac supported the album with an exhaustive, lucrative tour and then retired to the studio to record their follow-up to Rumours. A wildly experimental double-album conceived largely by Buckingham, "Tusk" (1979) didn't duplicate the enormous success of Rumours, yet it did go multi-platinum and featured the Top 10 singles "Sara" and "Tusk."

In 1980, they released the double-album, "Live". Following the Tusk tour, Fleetwood, Buckingham, and Nicks all recorded solo albums. Of the solo projects, Stevie Nicks' "Bella Donna" (1981) was the most successful, peaking at number one and featuring the hit singles "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around," "Leather and Lace"( with the Eagles' Don Henley) and "Edge of Seventeen."

Buckingham's "Law and Order" (1981) was a moderate success, spawning the Top 10 "Trouble." Fleetwood, for his part, made a world music album called "The Visitor". Fleetwood Mac reconvened in 1982 for "Mirage". More conventional and accessible than Tusk, Mirage reached number one and featured the hit singles "Hold Me" and "Gypsy."

After Mirage, Buckingham, Nicks and Christine McVie all worked on solo albums. The hiatus was due to a variety of reasons. Each member had their own manager, Nicks was becoming the group's breakaway star, Buckingham was obsessive in the studio and each member was suffering from various substance addictions. Nicks was able to maintain her popularity, with "The Wild Heart" (1983) and "Rock A Little" (1985) both reaching the Top 15. Christine McVie also had a Top 10 hit with "Got A Hold On Me" in 1984. Buckingham received the strongest reviews of all, but his 1984 album "Go Insane" failed to generate a hit single. Fleetwood Mac reunited to record a new album in 1985. Buckingham, who had grown increasingly frustrated with the musical limitations of the band, decided to make it his last project with the band. When the resulting album, "Tango In The Night", was finally released in 1987, it was greeted with mixed reviews but strong sales, reaching the Top 10 and generating the Top 20 hits "Little Lies," "Seven Wonders" and "Everywhere."

Buckingham decided to leave Fleetwood Mac after completing Tango in the Night, and the group replaced him with guitarists Billy Burnette and Rick Vito. The new line-up of the band recorded their first album, "Behind the Mask", in 1990. It became the band's first album since 1975 to not go gold. Following its supporting tour, Nicks and Christine McVie announced they would continue to record with the group, but not tour. Vito left the band in 1991, and the group released the box set "25 Years -- The Chain" the following year.

The classic Fleetwood Mac line-up of Fleetwood, the McVies, Buckingham and Nicks reunited to play President Bill Clinton's inauguration in early 1993, but the concert did not lead to a full-fledged reunion. Later that year, Nicks left the band and was replaced by Bekka Bramlett and Dave Mason; Christine McVie left the group shortly afterward. The new line-up of Fleetwood Mac began touring in 1994, releasing "Time" the following year to little attention.

While the new version of Fleetwood Mac wasn't commercially successful, neither were the solo careers of Buckingham, Nicks and McVie, prompting speculation of a full-fledged reunion in 1997. The live album "Shrine 69" was released in 1999.

The Fleetwood Mac saga continued with the Reprise Records release of "The Dance", a new Fleetwood Mac album that gives fresh meaning to the term "long-awaited." Recorded live for an MTV special, "The Dance" highlights new renditions of 13 Mac classics, from "Dreams" to "Rhiannon," "Don't Stop" to "Tusk" as well as the such key tracks as "The Chain" and "Silver Springs."

Proving the Mac magic is as potent as ever, The Dance, produced by Lindsey Buckingham and Elliot Schiener, also featured four new songs, including the Christine McVie composition "Temporary One," "Sweet Girl" by Stevie Nicks and two new Buckingham tracks, "Bleed To Love Her" and "My Little Demon." Catapulting straight from the studio to the stage, Fleetwood Mac embarked on an extensive U.S. tour fall, bringing the Mac magic to audiences coast to coast.

"My only condition for coming back together was that we could have some fun," said Christine. "The rehearsals proved that we could, and that we were tighter and better than we'd ever been. It was tremendously gratifying."

"I think a lot of the creativity we were feeling had come from the healing we'd all experienced," says Stevie Nicks. "We were friends who had been away for a long time and this reunion was not just musical, it was personal."

Questions of repertoire were resolved almost before they came up. "Naturally we did the material we were familiar with," explains John. "It was like our fingers were just flying to the notes. We worked up some new arrangements, but we also wanted to try out some fresh stuff. Luckily, we had no shortage of new material to try."

Christine: "Each one of us brought in a new song and hearing them played by this particular combination of musicians is like no other experience I know. We understand each other, where to go and how to get there, even before it's spoken."

What was also left almost unspoken was the fact that, from various paths both personal and professional, Fleetwood Mac had at last found themselves together again. "Of course there's a business aspect to all this," says Mick, "but anyone who's been around this process can tell you that it really is the music that's brought us back."

"I care about these people," is how Lindsey puts it. "And I enjoy being around them, now more than ever. Fleetwood Mac is a complicated scheme, a careful balancing act and when we get it right, there's nothing quite like it."

"Even after we decided to formalize what we'd been doing as 'a reunion,'" adds John, "there was still an attitude of taking things one day at a time. Today is wonderful. Tomorrow will take care of itself."

What tomorrow may bring for Fleetwood Mac is anyone's guess. But, with the release of The Dance, the accompanying MTV special and a tour, the prospects were positively brilliant.

The band, (minus Christine McVie) played at a farewell party for President Clinton on the south lawn of the White House, on January 6, 2001. The group played "Don't Stop" (Thinking About Tomorrow), the theme of Clinton's campaigns. Said Lindsey Buckingham, "We were there to usher in his administration, and it was an emotional experience to help see it off". Buckingham said that McVie has moved back to her native England and therefore did not attend. "This is all very exciting, but at the same time very familiar," mused Stevie Nicks. "When we get together something amazing happens. It takes on a life of its own."

In September, 2004 Christine McVie released her first solo album in nearly 20 years. "In The Meantime" was recorded at a studio at her home in Kent England, along with her nephew Dan Perfect, former Fleetwood Mac guitarist Billy Burnette and drummer Steve Ferrone of the Average White Band.

The remaining four members of Fleetwoon Mac continued to tour without her.

CLASSIC TRIVIA:
Lindsey Buckingham's brother Greg won a gold metal in the 1968 Olympics