What Lies Behind The Rumours?

What Lies Behind The Rumours?

If you had to name one band that takes you right back to where it all began for you, in a rock'n'roll sense, who would it be?

For a green-behind-the-ears Yesteryear, barely 9 years old, it was undoubtedly Fleetwood Mac.

Did I choose them? No, not really - they chose me :-) Or more truthfully, my 7 older sisters (who owned the records), chose them for me. And I'm sure glad they did.

So then, what lies behind the Rumours?
A bass guitarist and his wife from the UK, a third lanky Brit on drums plus two Americans with lots of hair, that seemed to like each other a fair bit, except when they didn't (but a naive Yesteryear would only find that part out much later).

The gang of five rock stars felt like extended family in a way. They came into our lounge room via an old turntable that sat in a heavy wooden cabinet with a matching set of chunky speakers. That beast was clearly never going to get stolen, especially not in my one-horse town. You needed four local shearers just to shift the damn thing 3 inches to the left!

At the time, Yesteryear had no idea that Fleetwood Mac used to be a British blues band, that rose from the remnants of John Mayall's Bluesbreakers in the late 60's, and we certainly didn't know who Fleetwood Mac founder, Peter Green was. That bit of useful info would come decades later.

We were also clueless that the album 'Rumours' was written as an unofficial showpiece for the entangled personal lives of the band members. Apparently they didn't mind airing their dirty laundry in song. News to us way back then - we thought they all got on just fine :-)

What we did know is that the music sounded fantastic and what we would come to appreciate more and more as time went by, is that every member of the band had incredible talent.

The pretty blonde with the husky voice & the gypsy-look could not only write a catchy tune (credit Stevie Nicks with Dreams, I Don't Wanna Know & Gold Dust Woman), she could also hold the stage like few others.

And her boyfriend, the guy with the curly black hair, had the genuine pop smarts to go with the lead guitar flourishes (Second Hand News, Never Going Back Again & Go Your Own Way), all perfect ear-candy courtesy of Lindsey Buckingham's flowing muse.

The other blonde girl seemed more reserved, not wanting for the limelight quite like her female side-kick, but her delicate vocals, lovely keyboard and keen ear for melody made her just as important (Don't Stop, Songbird & You Make Loving Fun, all belonged to the late Christine McVie)

At the time we thought that the really tall drummer with the pony tail and the googly eyes, looked like a mad-hatter from a Lewis Carroll story. Looking back now, maybe that was why he was the only band member not romantically entwined with another ... perhaps just a little too odd-ball? But he could sure play drums, so that fleeting thought was quickly forgotten.

We later learned that the shy guy on bass named John McVie, did what most bass guitarists do, only better, providing the all important backbone to Mick Fleetwood's drums.

And so in a year when John Travolta, in his signature white suit, almost single-handedly launched the disco movement (with a little help from the Bee Gees) and at a time when Luke Skywalker & Princess Leia were busy defending the galaxy from a whole bunch of guys in white suits (who couldn't shoot straight), Yesteryear found it quite easy to overlook the fact that we didn't have an Atari in the house!

It was 1977.

We had Fleetwood Mac instead and that was good enough for us :-)

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