Mick Fleetwood
Martin and Lisa Adelson @ Fleetwood Mac.net
Michael John Kells Fleetwood was born on June 24, 1947 in Redruth, England to Mike and Brigid Fleetwood. Since his father was a Wing Commander in the Royal Air Force, Mick and his two older sisters, Sally and Susan, moved around quite a bit while growing up. Fleetwood was educated in boarding schools, but seemed to have more of an interest in drumming than in schoolwork. His father bought him his first drum kit when he was thirteen, and Mick taught himself to play to records by the Everly Brothers, Cliff Richard, and The Shadows.
As a young teen attending King's School in Sherbourn-- "the equivalent for underachievers like myself"-- Fleetwood grew more "obsessed" with drumming; other interests included fencing and the theatre group (Fleetwood played Ophelia in the school's production of Hamlet). Academically, though he continued to have serious problems, and by the time he was fifteen, it was decided that he would go and live with his sister, Sally, in London, to pursue his dream of being a drummer.
While living in Notting Hill Gate with his sister, brother-in-law, and nephew, Mick worked briefly at Liberty's department store before being fired. One day while playing his drums in the garage, he caught the attention of a young neighborhood musician named Peter Bardens; he later got Fleetwood his first gig with a band called the Senders before inviting him to join his own band, The Cheynes, in 1963. While playing the club circuit with the Cheynes, Mick met and became friends with eighteen year old, John McVie, the bass player in John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. At age sixteen, he also met the girl he would later marry, Jenny Boyd. After the collapse of the Cheynes in 1965, Fleetwood drummed for a short while with a band called the Bo Street Runners. Next, Mick was recruited once again by Peter Bardens to play in his new band, Peter B's Looners (later known as just the Peter B's) where Mick got to know a talented young guitarist named Peter Green. By May, 1966, the band added two singers, Rod Stewart and Beryl Marsden, and changed their name to Shotgun Express. Green left the band in 1966 to join John Mayall, and Shotgun Express disbanded in early 1967.
Mick was out of work when Aynsley Dunbar, the Bluesbreakers' drummer, quit in the spring of 1967, and Fleetwood was surprised when Mayall asked him to join: "It was never a serious long-term venture in my mind, which was just as well, because I was asked to leave after a month (for drunkenness)." Although his stay in the band was brief, it was long enough for Fleetwood, Peter Green, and John McVie to realize they had a good working and social relationship. When Green decided to form his own band several months later, he immediately knew who should make up his rhythm section.
A founding member of Fleetwood Mac, Mick has seen the group through its many incarnations, through struggles Danny, Mick, Jeremy, John, and Chris, 1970 or 1971, picture donated by John Wyber and successes. His devotion to the band put stresses through his own personal relationships-- he often seemed to be "married to the band." He did eventually marry Jenny Boyd in 1970 and had two daughters; Amy Rose was born in January, 1971 and Lucy was born in April, 1973. [Here is an anti-drug clip by Mick and Amy Fleetwood (Age 3) from Get Off II ] In October 1973, Mick found out that Jenny was having an affair with bandmate Bob Weston-- the tour was cut short and Weston had to be fired. After the legal battle that ensued with manager Clifford Davis (over the rights of who owned the name 'Fleetwood Mac'), Mick took over the role of band manager and continued to do so until 1979. When Bob Welch decided to leave the group in 1974, Mick was the one who happened to notice the talents of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks while out looking for a Mick and Jenny
studio; Keith Olsen played him 'Frozen Love' off the Buckingham Nicks album to demonstrate the acoustics of the room. The drummer admits that his initial inquiry was "Who's that guitarist?" but he very quickly learned that Buckingham would not join without his partner: " I was aware of them coming as a package pretty early on, but there was a point where I was truly after Lindsey Buckingham, and the fact that Stevie was an afterthought is why she never forgave me. " In the end, the two ended up hitting it off so well with the others in the group that they were hired without an audition.
In 1977, he managed Bob Welch's solo career, and tried unsuccessfully to do the same for Peter Green, hoping to get him to sign a record deal: "The day he was supposed to sign it, he freaked out. I looked a bit stupid. After all, who would believe that he didn't want to sign a contract because he thought it was with the Devil?" During the Rumours period, Fleetwood's life was as wrought with problems as the other four members of the band. After divorcing, remarrying, and again divorcing his wife Jenny (who went on to become a psychologist, and has written a book entitled Musicians in Tune) by 1977, Fleetwood had an affair with Stevie Nicks. Stevie recalls: "...we did in fact keep it completely to ourselves...we didn't even let the band know." In 1979, Fleetwood took up with Sara Recor, who "was there to hold my hand and look after me" during a rough period in which his father passed away and Fleetwood was diagnosed with a mild case of diabetes: "I thought it was a brain tumor. I was afraid I was going to die. It was eighteen months of hell." He and Sara were wed at his home in Malibu in 1988; the two have now split. Fleetwood married Lynn Frankel on July 26, 1995 in New York, while Fleetwood Mac was still on tour. Fleetwood credits Lynn with helping him to sober up-- only two years ago, he says, "I was overweight and miserable, and wasn't playing...I was also abusing myself with cocaine, although not to the extent that I used to. Am I and was I an addict? Yes." Although recently becoming a grandfather, Mick and Lynn are still planning a family of their own.
Over the years, Mick Fleetwood has made several solo albums-The Visitor (which included guitarists Todd Sharp and George Hawkins), I'm Not Me, and Shakin' the Cage (which included keyboardist Brett Tuggle). In fact, both current Mac guitarist Billy Burnette and vocalist Bekka Bramlett were in Fleetwood's band, the Zoo, before being asked to join Fleetwood Mac. In 1990, Mick wrote his autobiography, and also helped to put together My Twenty-Five Years in Fleetwood Mac in 1992. In 1994, he opened a restaurant in Alexandria, Virginia called 'Fleetwood's' (the first 'Fleetwood's', a restaurant and blues club, opened in West Hollywood in 1991, but folded soon after). The second 'Fleetwood's' also went bankrupt in the summer of 1996.
Mick completed a U.S. tour with the reunited Fleetwood Mac in 1997, and has said he hopes that there will be more music from the group in the future. He has also expressed a desire to work with former bandmate Peter Green (who is currently involved in music and doing shows in Europe) once again. Mick was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on January 12, 1998 at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. =>>>>>>>>>>>
@ Wiki
Mick Fleetwood (born 24 June 1947) is a British musician best known for his role as the drummer with the rock and roll band Fleetwood Mac. His name, combined with that of John McVie was the inspiration for the name of the originally Peter Green-led Fleetwood Mac.
Early life
He was born to Mike Fleetwood and Bridgit 'Biddy' Brereton two years after the end of World War Two. The early childhood years saw young Mick Fleetwood and his family follow his father, a Royal Air Force fighter pilot, initially to Egypt where the family stayed for about six years. Later his father was posted to Norway, permitting Mick Fleetwood to acquire fluency in the Norwegian language while attending school there. However according to his autobiography Fleetwood - My Life and Adventures with Fleetwood Mac academically Mick Fleetwood had an extremely difficult and trying time throughout his school years, many of which he spent at English boarding schools. He performed very poorly in exams which he himself attributed to his persistent inability to commit facts to memory. He dropped out of school aged only 15 and in 1963 moved to London to pursue his interest in starting up a career as a drummer.
Musical career
Keyboard player Peter Bardens gave Fleetwood his first gig in Bardens' band The Cheynes, thus seeding the young drummer's musical career. It would take him from The Cheynes to stints in the Bo Street Runners, Peter Bs, Shotgun Express (with Rod Stewart), and John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers. After being dismissed from the Bluesbreakers for repeated inebriety during gigs Mick Fleetwood was asked a few months later by singer and guitar player Peter Green to join him along with bass player John McVie in his new band Fleetwood Mac.
Since then more than fifty albums have been released under the name Fleetwood Mac - by far the most popular being the two mega-platinum sets the group put out in the late seventies - Fleetwood Mac and Rumours.
Apart from his work with Fleetwood Mac Mick has led a number of side projects. 1981's The Visitor featured heavy African stylistics and a rerecording of "Rattlesnake Shake" with Peter Green. In 1983 he formed Mick Fleetwood's Zoo which recorded the album I'm Not Me featuring a minor hit with the Mac-ish "I Want You Back" and a cover version of the Beach Boys' 'Angel Come Home'. A later version of the group featured Bekka Bramlett on vocals and recorded 1991's Shaking the Cage. Fleetwood's most recent solo work to date is "Something Big", released in 2004.
Fleetwood also has a secondary career as a TV and film actor, usually in minor parts such as Star Trek: The Next Generation and as a resistance leader in The Running Man. Fleetwood also acted as co-host of the 1989 BRIT Awards with Samantha Fox, which contained numerous gaffes and flubbed lines.
He is the author of Fleetwood - My Life and Adventures with Fleetwood Mac, his memoirs of his life, especially with Fleetwood Mac, published in 1990. Included in the book are his experiences with other musicians including Eric Clapton, members of The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and a romance with Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac. Fleetwood also discusses his addiction to powdered cocaine and his personal bankruptcy after earning millions of dollars or pounds from his drumming career.
His sister was the late actress Susan Fleetwood.
He is the only drummer in the semi-fictional (originally intended to be a spoof) band Spinal Tap to survive in the fictional story.
Mick Fleetwood became a US citizen on 22 November 2006 in Los Angeles, CA =>>>>>>>>>>>
Steve Huey @ All Music
Mick Fleetwood is best known for his tremendous success as the drummer of Fleetwood Mac, the wildly successful band he co-founded in 1967 with fellow John Mayall alumni Peter Green (guitar) and John McVie (bass). The turmoil of the band's meteoric rise to superstardom is well-known and documented in its own entry; Fleetwood himself eventually lost his marriage after it was discovered in 1973 that his wife was having an affair with Mac guitarist Bob Weston.
After the supporting tour for 1979's Tusk, Fleetwood recorded his debut solo album, The Visitor, which was released in 1981 and displayed the drummer's interest in worldbeat. After the 1982 Mac album Mirage, Fleetwood cut a second solo record, 1983's I'm Not Me, which featured cameos from several Mac members.
Fleetwood Mac went on hiatus until 1987, when Fleetwood's declaration of bankruptcy prompted the reunion LP Tango in the Night; even Lindsey Buckingham was persuaded to join in, albeit only in the studio. Even as the band's classic '70s lineup splintered, Fleetwood kept versions of the band going throughout the '90s, without enjoying much commercial success until the full-fledged reunion on 1997's The Dance. Something Big (attributed to the Mick Fleetwood Band), a joint project with songwriter Todd Smallwood, was released in 2004 on Fleetwood's own label, TallMan Records. =>>>>>>>>>>>
@ Musician's Friend
The legendary drummer talks about his signature portable stereo system—the Cambridge SoundWorks Mick Fleetwood Signature Model 12—life on the road with Fleetwood Mac, and his upcoming solo album.
In 1967 hot young drummer Mick Fleetwood joined John Mayall's legendary Bluesbreakers where he played with bassist John McVie and guitarist Peter Green. Later that year, Fleetwood, McVie, and Green decided to leave the Bluesbreakers and form Fleetwood Mac. Through 37 years of varying lineups, dozens of albums, and worldwide superstardom, the peerless rhythm section of Fleetwood and McVie have remained the backbone of their namesake band.
Fleetwood has produced several solo albums and has recently worked with Sonic Foundry to make available an unprecedented series of original drum loops—Mick Fleetwood's Total Drumming ACID Loop CD. Musician's Friend spoke with Fleetwood from his home in Maui where he's enjoying a brief hiatus in Fleetwood Mac's current Say You Will tour.
Musician's Friend (MF): So how does it feel to be back on the road with Fleetwood Mac?
Fleetwood: Well, we've been out for quite a while. We're just off to Australia in about 8 or 9 days. After that we're back to America for another full-country tour. It's great. It's certainly grown into something more than we ever expected in terms of the demand and enthusiasm. The tour will be the better part of 18 months long by the time we come back at the end of August. It'll probably go on through Christmas, I don't know. It's going that well. We are happy to do it. I think as a band we've enjoyed the fact that the response has been really great. We've certainly paid attention to trying to grow the band musically rather than just sitting on our laurels.
MF: How's that working out musically? Are you all drawing enthusiasm and creativity from one another?
Fleetwood: Yeah. We went out with a new album and we definitely push that envelope-maybe a little bit more than we should sometimes—in terms of creating new music and taking it out in front of an audience. Understandably, an audience goes to see a band such as ourselves and there's a lot of sentimental attraction to our older songs. And we give them that, we're very happy to do that. But we're also very happy that they're hanging in there and listening to songs that they don't know very well. They're just listening to us playing as musicians. It's gone extremely well.
MF: Is there another new Fleetwood Mac album on the horizon?
Fleetwood: Well, when we get done with the touring which has to be by Christmas, out of necessity we will all need a break. Not that it hasn't been a great experience, but at some point we do need to go home, a lot of us have families. And after that, yes, there are definitely very real discussions about doing another album. We'll probably have five or six months off and then think about doing that album. Creatively, from my observation and my feeling, there's a lot of creative juice in the tank. Our last experience making the album was a very alive-and-well experience. Making new music is certainly part of the life blood of the band. For a band of our age and duration, it's nice to see. It's not strictly necessary because we're blessed with being able to go out and play from a large portfolio of music without even creating any new music. But that doesn't naturally appeal to us. Certainly the leader of the pack would be Lindsey. He's been a great cheerleader in terms of pushing our creative envelope. The nice thing is there's something left in the envelope. Because some situations tend to run out of that ability, which isn't necessarily bad. Hey, if Paul McCartney never wrote another note of music, he's done enough, right? [laughs]
MF: Do you all have time to write while you're on the road. Are you working on new songs as you go?
Fleetwood: Oh, yeah, we do. Stevie's songs-I think it's pretty common knowledge-are poetry put to music. She writes all the time. A lot of songs will grow out of a train of thought that was in a journal. She writes, I would say, every night. If you want to know what it was we were all doing in the seventies Stevie has it all. One day, I dread to think all this stuff's going to come out and the real nitty-gritty story of Fleetwood Mac is going to be in all these journals. Because not only are they all about life's trials and tribulations and happiness, and so on, but she writes poetry. And that's where her songs more often than not come from.
Lindsey completely does it the opposite way around. The words are usually the last thing he ever thinks about. It's all about music first: parts, sensibilities of symmetry, what he's trying to put together, and the intrigue of doing something new and presenting something in a new way. So there's a good blend of stuff. He has a portable studio. He's never without a guitar. He plays incessantly. There's no doubt that on this summer tour, if we have a true commitment to go forward with another album, there will be stuff going on after hours. I've been with Lindsey in tours gone by and we sit and he'll play and write and I'll bang a pair of bongos or whatever to help out. We just grab moments, we do get days off here and there.
MF: Do you have any solo projects on the horizon?
Fleetwood: Yeah I do. I had a production relationship with a dear friend of mine I've known for years and years, Todd Wood. He's a singer/songwriter. He does a lot of movie work, writes for other people, writes with people. And we actually put an album together that is sort of in the can waiting to come out. Right now I'm so damn busy while I'm touring with Fleetwood Mac, but it will come out.
MF: What name will it be released under?
Fleetwood: It's called Mick Fleetwood's Mojo, the album's called Something Big. And it's very eclectic. I had an incredible amount of fun making it. We made it out at Todd's ranch in California. He's got a great studio there. I actually did a lot of the work-believe it or not—in down time that I had, which was spotty but there were the weekends and stuff like that. And I would drive out to his farm up near Santa Barbara. And something that was fairly loosely thought about ended up taking on a life of its own. And we ended up with what I like to feel is a really good album. I'm very happy with it. And that will come out. No one's heard about this yet. So you'll be breaking the news.
MF: Fantastic!
Fleetwood: Yes, I do have an album in the can and it's just a matter of timing when it's appropriate. When we get the proper down time from Fleetwood Mac I will put the album out and go out and do some club gigs.
MF: Right on, I hope you come to Oregon.
Fleetwood: Well we've been there before, I know. There's not many places I haven't been.
MF: So let's talk about this signature sound system of yours. How did you become aware of the Cambridge Soundworks Model 12?
Fleetwood: It was 9 or 10 years ago, I was at New York LaGuardia airport and there was a band I didn't know that was arriving at the airport at the same time. I saw this weird little black box coming off the luggage conveyor. And the bass player in the band came over and introduced himself and he happened to be the owner of this box. I said, "What's that?" and he said "Mick, this is the greatest thing since sliced bread. I've had this thing on the road and it's unbelievable."
So he told me all about it. The conversation was about having a decent sound system, which is a musician's nightmare on the road. You can never hear the music worth a damn. You've got your headphones, but that's no way to listen to music for me; it has to be coming out of speakers. And this thing's an all-in-one miracle package. So I phoned up the company and I've had several Model 12s ever since. And I've been turning fellow musicians on to it ever since, just as a fellow musician introduced it to me.
MF: How did the system become branded with your name?
Fleetwood: Well, it was really me going after something I felt genuinely enthusiastic about. I was very excited about it and wanted to tell the world. So I went to my manager and business partner Jonathan Todd and said, "I would really like to get in touch with Cambridge and find out if there's something we can do together." Because this has been somewhat of a musician's boutique item. And as the years went by and technology developed I became aware of the full potential of the Cambridge 12. It's not just a casual listening device, it can interface with the whole computer thing for monitoring portable recording and for MP3s. I started to use it in a really creative way. And I also realized that something this convenient should be more widely known. Certainly it's most suited for musicians, but anyone who travels and enjoys music can really benefit.
So Jonathan arranged for me to go to Cambridge and I met the people and their technicians. I was really impressed with their operation, and we hit it off very well. Jonathan developed a way to bring this thing to market and let people know about it, which is really my pleasure. I don't endorse that many products, but this is a very unique piece of equipment that's unbelievably tuned in in terms of the number of ways you can use it. I am very confident in this system. I've used it for years and years. I have a lot of high-end stereo equipment at home, but the Cambridge 12 is the reference I count on.
Everything's so mobile these days I have to have something that's consistent and I can take with me anywhere. I have one of these in my house here in Maui and in my flat in London because it's consistent. Stevie rented a house round the corner here and I brought this system 'round to her place to listen because I know it and it's consistent and very transparent. It doesn't color the sound at all.
I think it will really affect what people are doing in terms of their whole creative process. If instead of plugging into a couple of lousy little tin pot speakers when you're sitting there with your laptop creating music files, you use a real high-quality sound system and you can really hear what you're doing, your end result is going to be much better. There's no way around it.
MF: What are the features you really like about the system.
Fleetwood: Number one, in my world, it doesn't sonically hype anything. A lot of times on home systems the designers deliberately hype certain parts of the spectrum—particularly the low bass and high trebles—that they think people want to hear. And it does not give a true representation of what was recorded. The Cambridge 12 does not do that. As I've said, the Model 12 lets you hear the music the way it really went down. It provides accurate sound all across the spectrum. The lower lows are what really blow my mind-that something so compact can produce such impactful and accurate bass tones.
And the case is incredibly tough. I ship my case very often as its own package, so it takes a lot of abuse and there's never been a problem. I never fear for it. It's made to be kicked around. It's even semi-waterproof. It's really built for road use.
MF: How do you like the Model 12 for home recording as opposed to using it as a general stereo?
Fleetwood: It works great for the home and especially the mobile situations that a lot of people creating music find themselves in these days, for example when they're working with something like Sony's Acid Pro for creating music on their laptop. And a lot of people are not really thinking about their playback system and are using something that's not really appropriate for what they're doing. They're using some stock little computer speakers or something so they can't hear correctly what they're creating.
In fact I once submitted some loop samples and the mixers came back saying the bottom end was dropping out of some samples which had cymbals and bass on the same sample. We listened to the samples again on the Cambridge 12 and the bass was just fine. It turned out the mixers were listening to small speakers and just couldn't hear it. These were professional mixers. So it's essential to have a quality flat system like the Cambridge 12 to get a true feeling for what you're creating. In addition to being a great listening source for your computer or commercial CDs, the Cambridge 12 doubles as real affordable reference monitors.
It's absolutely a reference that I can attest to. When I'm in the studio with Lindsey or Stevie, I'm listening all the time, particularly while guitar parts and vocal parts are going down. Because by that point I've basically done my job in terms of laying down tracks. They're usually in the front seat driving, but the team works by turning round to me and asking, does it FEEL good? What do you think? Is it in tune, Mick? I'm very much used as a sounding board. That's what I love doing, that's what I'm good at doing, and that's part of our creative process. And as often as not I'm listening on the Cambridge 12.
MF: You use the Model 12 with portable devices as well, right?
Fleetwood: Absolutely. For instance when we're hubbing on the road, basically in a minute or a minute and a half I'll have this set up with my computer, my CD player, my MP3s—it's all there. All in a little box that fits under your seat on a plane, it's very, very convenient. I'm blessed with being in some rather grand hotels that have stereo systems sitting in the corner, sometimes very fancy systems. But I'll invariably set up my Cambridge 12 instead. I can listen to a live tape from a gig, I can listen to my MP3s, I can instantly hook it up to my computer, and everything sounds how I like to hear it out of this little dynamo. Plus, it has all the connecting jacks to do it so you're not constantly plugging and unplugging units. It has everything the big systems have in terms of connections and multitasking at the flick of a switch.
And it's size is amazing. The amp is the size of a cigarette case. You often don't have a lot of room if you're working on your desk in your office or wherever. With this system you've got your speakers strategically placed, your bass woofer under the desk, and you're off to the races. And the only thing on your desk besides the equipment you're plugging into it—the thing that's driving it all—is the size of your hand.
MF: Is your signature model any different than earlier versions of the Model 12?
Fleetwood: It really didn't need changing but there are a couple of little enhancements. Presentation-wise the new one is the same except for my signature is embossed on the amp and on the outside of the box. They now offer an optional international voltage power supply and the unit ships with a domestic (USA) power supply. It even includes a cigarette lighter plug so you can run the system in your car. That was a custom feature before and now it's standard. So you can take it anywhere in the world. I also had them extend the range a little bit on both the treble and the bass pots so you can tune it in more flat or more full depending on what you're after. The new model is something I'm very proud of and happy to be a part of. =>>>>>>>>>>>
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