it would just spark off

One of the most interesting things about the band Fleetwood Mac, to me, is the evolving composition of the group -- various people joined, and dropped out, over the years.  I never even knew until about 2004 that Fleetwood Mac had a whole history and existence before Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined them in 1975.

You go to listen to "F-M" songs and performances on You Tube, and scroll down and read the Comments, and there will be people going, "Yeah this is good, but I miss the Original Mac with Peter Green!"  (I sit there -- "Peter Green?  ok...?...")

Other Commenters weigh in for the band's most exciting music as having been made when Bob Welch was their guitarist.

(Peter Green!  Bob Welch!  Clinton!  Mondale!  Reagan!  Whatever...!)

When you watch the "Classic Albums:  Rumours" tape, you get a real sense of the musical combustion which occurred when Buckingham and Nicks came on board.  Speaking in 1997 interviews, Lindsey Buckingham says he and Christine McVie had similar melodic senses -- he recalls, "We would start to play, and -- it would just spark off!"  The words "spark off" come out sort of pleasantly surprised and amazed -- a little bit in awe, even recalling it twenty years after....

They discuss the harmonies -- one engineer says, "Stevie could wrap her voice around Lindsey's...she would sing around him, and he would sing around her...." 

And with Christine McVie's voice added to the mix it made a unique sound.

As a listener, I can't necessarily tell who's singing when...I'm not enough of a musicologist to separate, or dissect, those harmonies -- and maybe we listeners aren't meant to be able to do that.  After all, with studio technology, each of the singers can even harmonize with themselves, if they want to...! 

One time a politician, hearing Fleetwood Mac's 1997 "The Dance" cassette playing in my car, said to me, "Is that Stevie Nicks?"
"Yes!" I answered,
thinking at the same time, ("Actually it's Christine McVie...")
But then -- really, I didn't know, could've been both and --
I wasn't going to subtract from his enthusiasm. ...

When I was in high school, the songs from the first F.Mac album with Buckingham & Nicks ("Fleetwood Mac") started flowing by us, coming from -- believe it or not -- "top 40" A-M radio, at that time, as well as FM "AOR" (album-oriented rock) stations, once I got located where I could access those --
"Over My Head"
"Say-aay You Love Me"
"Rhiannon"

"Landslide"
"Crystal"
"Monday Morning"...

At the time, I didn't even really know what a "Fleetwood Mac" was:  that music was just a constant, connecting, continuing part of our atmosphere, like clouds, and a blue sky, and a long road.

{"...drove me through the mountains, Through the crystal like and clear water fountain, Drove me like a magnet -- to the sea; to the sea..."}

I'm pretty sure that sometime in 1975 or 6 -- maybe at home, or maybe while baby-sitting -- I saw F-M perform "Rhiannon" on "The Midnight Special"...{would you stay if she promised you heaven...}

Took it "for granted" -- really!  I laugh, now. 
--Yeah that music's good, ok, what else is there?--
I must have been an unanalytical teenager.
--Pink lipstick!  Blue eye-shadow!-- 
(Yes, Priorities firmly in place. ...hmm...)

A few years before, when I was somewhere in 6th-8th grade, I had come across a record album entitled "Buckingham Nicks" in a record store in Ohio -- either Ravenna, or Kent. ...I remember I almost bought the album even though I didn't know what it was -- had no knowledge of this kind of music, really. 

Am not sure when I put it together in my head that Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham in Fleetwood Mac were the Buckingham and Nicks of that long-ago mysterious album that I didn't buy.  (Looks like you can't buy it, now -- but it is on You Tube.)

"Races Are Run"
"Frozen Love"
"Crystal"  (ah-hah!)
"Without a Leg -- to Stand On"...

-30-