Rumours
Fleetwood Mac
Warner Bros
Rumours, whether intentional or not, is an incredibly apt title for Fleetwood Mac's most successful album to date. Recorded throughout 1976 and released in 1977, it reflected a year of intense heartache, confusion, drugs, alcohol and, of course, lies, rumours and gossip.
Fleetwood Mac's line-up over the years has always been fluid, but at the time of recording Rumours there were just five members, four of whom made up two separate inter-band couples: one marriage and one long-term relationship.
In 1976 both relationships were coming to an end but no member chose to leave the band, making the album excruciatingly painful to write and record. As such, many of the songs were written by individual members. Nevertheless, the group continued to turn up every day at their Sausalito, California, recording studio, looked each other in the eye and created one of the most celebrated albums of all time.
Rumours were certainly orbiting the band throughout the entire recording process. One which survived the longest is that keyboardist Christine McVie flirted openly with one of the album's producers, despite the presence of her alcoholic and soon-to-be-ex-husband John, Fleetwood Mac's bass player. Drummer Mick Fleetwood was also going through a divorce after his wife (Jenny Boyd, not a member of the band) revealed that a couple of years previously she had an affair with the band's then lead guitarist Bob Weston.
On learning of the affair, Fleetwood had also cancelled the band's US tour but the group's manager, Clifford Davis, reacted by creating a new band, also named Fleetwood Mac, to go on tour. He told audiences across the US that real members of the original band would join shows later. In particular, Davis insisted Fleetwood had agreed to go on tour with what has come to be known as the 'fake Mac', although this seems illogical given that it was the drummer who cancelled the original tour. The other rocky romantic pair in the group were guitarist/singer Lindsey Buckingham and vocalist Stevie Nicks whose tempestuous relationship was also in meltdown when Rumours was recorded.