The Vinyl Word: Fleetwood Mac's line up shifts

Fleetwood Mac perform at Mt Smart Stadium, Auckland in 2015. Photo / Herald on Sunday, Steven McNicholl

This week I am continuing my look at Fleetwood Mac and the ever-changing line-up of one of the world's most popular and enduring rock bands.

In last week's Vinyl Word we had reached the year 1971 and the search for a replacement for guitarist Jeremy Spencer who ran off to join a religious sect while they were on tour in the US.

Bob Welch became their newest member and stayed with them till 1975, before embarking on a successful solo career.

The next band member to be given his marching orders was Danny Kirwan, who had been there since the late 60s.

Various guitarists came and went including Bob Weston and Dave Walker. In 1975 while Mick Fleetwood was at Sound City Studios in Los Angeles, he came across a recording of Lindsey Buckingham. He liked the sound and approached Buckingham about joining the band. Buckingham agreed on the condition that his girlfriend Stevie Nicks came too. Mick agreed.

As we know it wasn't always smooth sailing with many relationship problems along with a fair amount of substance abuse, but they managed to produce some incredible music, including the album Rumours.

All was pretty settled in Fleetwood Mac land until 1987 when Lindsay Buckingham left the band.

He was replaced by two new guitarists, Billy Burnette, the son of Dorsey Burnette and nephew of the great Johnny Burnette. The other guitarist was Rick Vito who had played with many top bands including Bonnie Raitt and John Mayall.

Next to leave the group was Stevie Nicks who, along with Rick Vito, departed in 1991.

In 1993 Buckingham, Nicks, McVie and Fleetwood performed as special guests of the newly elected US President Bill Clinton at his Inaugural Ball. They had no intention of reuniting but they did record a new album featuring Billy Burnette on guitar.

Shortly after the album was recorded, Burnette left the band to pursue an acting career.

He was replaced by Becca Bramlett, the daughter of Delaney and Bonnie. Former member of the band Traffic, Dave Mason, also came on as a guitarist.

The comings and goings continued and in 1997 Lindsay Buckingham came back to the family and the band went on the road again.

A year later Christine McVie left the band and didn't return fulltime to the band until 2014.

For the last four years the group has been stable until recently when Lindsay Buckingham announced he would not tour and was leaving the band and so the newest members of the Fleetwood Mac Club, Neil Finn and Mike Campbell, are now rehearsing ready to tour. From its Blues origins in London in the mid 60s Fleetwood Mac has taken us on an amazing musical journey.

●On a sad note I mentioned in part one of my Fleetwood Mac story last week that Danny Kirwin was a member of the band from 1968 to 1972. Sadly he passed away last week at the age of 68. Kirwin played on the albums Then Play On, Blues Jam at Chess, Kiln House, Future Games and Bare Trees. He was among eight members of the band that were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1998.