Do you consider Fleetwood Mac to be an English band?

Er, wrong.

Both Lindsay and Stevie are from the Bay Area, Northern California.

 

Currently the lineup is one sixth New Zealandish

 

or one sixth Finn-ish..

 

It's a band. It matter's little about nationalism. Is The Jimi Hendrix Experience an English band? Was the Experience ever truly an English band. None of the answers interest me.

 

I love Rumors, especially when played as random tracks on Yacht Rock Radio, but haven’t heard or owned anything else, just not a Fleetwood Mac fan.

Until this thread I had no idea they had any connection to the UK at all. I still think they don’t and you’re just pulling my leg.

 

For one of the biggest trolls on this board that is a really poor attempt even by your extremely low standards.....

 

I kind of felt it was Stevie Nicks and some other people to back her up.

 

The only member that mattered was an American. Kind of like are Crowded House a Kiwi or Australian band- the only member that mattered was a Kiwi

 

Before I knew anything about them, and just hearing a few of their songs on the radio, I used to think groups like Supertramp and Fleetwood Mac were American.
At some point I was vaguely aware Mick Fleetwood was English though.
The more famous incarnation of FM is maybe "dual nationality".

 

Or how many are only fans until that point.

 

Poor Mitch and Noel. Off to the dustbin of anonymous sidemen.

 

Bob Welch: born Hollywood, California
Lindsey Buckingham: born Palo Alto, California

The became an English/American hybrid way back in 1971 when Bob Welch joined the band. V.1 is the only purely English version of Fleetwood Mac.

It doesn't really matter what anyone 'thinks' or 'considers.' They were a songwriting collective with seven primary songwriters over the course of their career. And no era is any more 'real' than any other, no matter what fans of certain members may think. It is all Fleetwood Mac. Breakdown:

Christine McVie (British): wrote 53 songs; 7 US Top 20 Singles
Lindsey Buckingham (American): wrote 47 songs; 3 US Top 20 Singles
Stevie Nicks (American): wrote 36 songs; 5 US Top 20 Singles
Danny Kirwan (British): wrote 23 songs
Peter Green (British): wrote 22 songs; 4 UK Top 10 Singles
Bob Welch (American): wrote 21 songs
Jeremy Spencer (British): wrote 11 songs
Songs by other band members (Burnette, Vito, Bramlett, Mason, Weston, Walker, Fleetwood, J. McVie): 19
Covers: 16

Fleetwood Mac are a transatlantic band. Period.

 

Their repertoire was American blues, even when self penned, from the off. They never strayed far from that for five years. They only started sounding really original when actual Americans joined.

So either American wannabes or actual American.

 

It would be interesting to find out exactly when FM switched bases to California. Sometime in the Welch era I'm sure. You can't tell by listening to their output.

 

Yes, I consider Fleetwood Mac to be an English band, despite the californication of the band in the mid 70's and onward.

 

The halfway point between Los Angeles, California and London, England is Puvirnituq, Canada... so let's just say they're Canadian...

 

If it's the bland FM Mac, it's US.
It it's the Mac with claws and integrity, it's UK.

 

Went through the albums on Wiki today and from memory I think Fleetwood Mac from 1975 or the one previous was the first one recorded post moving to California

 

I honestly never knew, never thought they were British, European, or Canadian.
Now America comes out too. well ... For me a band that made MUSIC. and that's enough, because music has no boundaries ...

 

Fleetwood Mac is a hybrid, but if pressed to choose, I would call them british.
FM was formed in England, the band is named after the two british founding members who are the only ones who played on all FM records, and even during the Nicks-Buckingham years the majority in Fleetwood Mac were british.
Let's also not forget that Peter Green's FM scored more top 40 hits in Europe than the Buckingham/Nicks incarnation, and that more than half of the band's discography stems from the period before Lindsey & Stevie joined Fleetwood Mac.

 

Almost impossible to answer yes or no because they were the very definition of mid-Atlanticism in Rock. Literally, in terms of the influence of the various Americans who have come and gone and come back again, and artistically in terms of the actual sound they make.

It's kind of like the "was TS Eliot an English or American poet?" question. You could waste a lot of time trying to prove either case to the satisfaction of a jury.

 

i only know the band from hit singles of the 1970s, so i consider them American

 

Like The Eagles, Doobie Brothers, Linda Ronstadt, Poco, Steely Dan, and Ambrosia, Fleetwood Mac was a quintessential member of the 70's California Soft Rock Sound.

It doesn't matter where they were born.

"The breakout song from the eponymous album that signalled Fleetwood Mac’s remarkable change of direction and fortune, as they dramatically transformed themselves from British blues also-rans into the epitome of slick, airbrushed California soft rock. Rhiannon is the classic Stevie Nicks Fleetwood Mac song, a live tour de force and showcase for her alluring and siren-like vocals."

Playlist: The California sound of the Seventies

 

there may be a non-American country sound to the music, or their key public spokesfolk have an accent that is British

Ms. Nicks was the focal point to the top 40 market

 

Les Fleetwood Mecs