YEAR
1998
INDUCTED BY
Sheryl Crow
CATEGORY
Performers
After forming as a British blues band in the late ’60s, Fleetwood Mac evolved into one of the most influential rock groups of the ’70s.
Not only did they write some of the decade’s most indelible songs—and release one of the best-selling albums of all time, 1977’s Rumours—but the troupe created a distinctive “California sound” that endures today as a sonic touchstone for countless bands.
Stevie Nicks
Peter Green
Mick Fleetwood
Lindsey Buckingham
John McVie
Jeremy Spencer
Danny Kirwan
Christine McVie
HALL OF FAME
ESSAY
By Jim Farber
Every musician knows it’s the rhythm section that holds a band together. But who knew we’d find as durable an application of that maxim as the one exemplified by the history of Fleetwood Mac? Over the last thirty years, Fleetwood Mac has comprised fifteen musicians shuffled through six major lineups, resulting in endless tinkerings with tone and genre.
Yet the two members to survive it all rarely write tunes and never front the recordings. They’re the beat-keepers – drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie. The fact that a rhythm section could sustain a band through thirty years seems all the more amazing considering the traumatic histories of the band’s shifting array of stage-front stars. Together, their personal lives have given rock one of its most elaborate and juicy plotlines.
