Mick Fleetwood On Fleetwood Mac Plans, Christine McVie Tribute
Mick Fleetwood has spoken about the chances of a Fleetwood Mac reunion and his new tribute to his late bandmate, Christine McVie, in a new interview with Billboard.
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Fleetwood’s new album, Blues Experience, is a collaboration with Hawaiian ukulele virtuoso Jake Shimabukuro. Fleetwood said his new partner is, “an explorer. He’s fascinated with music. He comes from a very traditional musical background, but he’s done an extraordinary amount of projects with anyone from Neil Young to Bette Midler, all this strange, bizarre, super-eclectic stuff that’s obviously intrigued him on his journey. That’s what led to, ‘What can a funny old drummer — me — do with someone like this?’”
The songs on Blues Experience include covers of songs by Neil Young (Rockin’ In The Free World), Procol Harum (A Whiter Shade Of Pale) and Stevie Wonder (‘Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers). Most poignant though, is their version of Fleetwood Mac’s Songbird, written by McVie.
“Songbird came out of the blue, and we couldn’t not include it,” Fleetwood says. “It was around the time when Christine had passed, and we found ourselves doing that song, which was not predetermined. To me that was very poignant. I was very pregnant with the loss of Christine, and the fact that we were singing it but not singing it reminded me of Peter Green; he had a great natural voice, but he also sang through his instrument. It was very emotional and also in those moments was a prayer, for sure. Christine was a huge loss for me and for millions and millions of people.”
“She was a blues player,” he adds. “She came up through the ranks, playing with Freddie King. And she was an extraordinarily passionate songwriter; just when you thought she was on a journey into the pop world she’ll go out and lay something on you like Songbird that really is a lament…which is of course connective to the blues.”
He went on to discuss the possibility of a Fleetwood Mac reunion
“Before we lost Christine there were some intentions that Fleetwood Mac would’ve found a way to say goodbye… but we didn’t. It was unthinkable for (the band) to do any more. Stevie [Nicks] has been able to do that in many ways on the big excursion that she’s doing; she’s been able to do what Fleetwood Mac was not. All of that was like a sort of tsunami of feeling as we did that song. But it was also very healing, and a kind of closure.”