The studio albums are uneven but loaded with highlights. But the box also offers some non-LP singles, a few interesting obscurities, and one previously unavailable studio recording, Welch’s “Good Things (Come to Those Who Wait).” Plus, the package devotes an entire disc to a previously unreleased December 1974 concert from the Record Plant in Sausalito, California, that was originally simulcast on the radio in San Francisco.
Most of those add-ons-such as previously released single versions of LP tracks-are nothing to write home about. The bargain-priced set (about five bucks per disc) includes remasters of all seven of the studio albums that the group issued during this period: Then Play On (1969), their last album with Green Kiln House (1970), on which they begin to sound more affected by American rock and roll Future Games (1971), their first LP with Christine McVie and Welch as official members and their last with Kirwan Bare Trees (1972), which predominantly features Kirwan material despite his departure but also includes compositions from Welch and Christine and Penguin (1973), Mystery to Me (1973), and Heroes Are Hard to Find (1974), pop rock entries that prominently feature Welch and Christine.īonus material augments all of these albums except Penguin. It’s the transitional second period that’s the focus of the recently issued 1969 to 1974, an eight-CD, clamshell-boxed collection. Then, at the end of 1974, Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined up, which triggered Fleetwood Mac’s third act and helped turn them into the international superstars responsible for “Go Your Own Way,” “Rhiannon,” and a long list of other megahits. (For the best of this period, don’t miss the superlative six-disc The Complete Blue Horizon Sessions 1967–1969.) By the early 1970s, with Green and Spencer gone and players like Christine McVie, Danny Kirwan, and Bob Welch on the team, they were evolving from blues rockers into more of a West Coast U.S.–influenced pop/rock group. In their first incarnation, with guitarists Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer, they were a British blues-rock outfit. Like the Bee Gees and a handful of other bands, Fleetwood Mac were lucky enough to have enjoyed more than one life.