Background and career
Lindsey Adams Buckingham (born October 3, 1949) is an American musician, record producer, and the lead guitarist and co-lead vocalist of the rock band Fleetwood Mac from 1975 to 1987 and 1997 to 2018. In addition to his tenure with Fleetwood Mac, Buckingham has released seven solo studio albums and three live albums. As a member of Fleetwood Mac, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998. Buckingham was ranked 100th in Rolling Stone's 2011 list of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". Buckingham is known for his fingerpicking guitar style. Buckingham joined Fleetwood Mac in 1975, replacing guitarist Bob Welch, and convinced the group to recruit his musical (and, at the time, romantic) partner Stevie Nicks as well. Buckingham and Nicks became prominent members of Fleetwood Mac during its most commercially successful period, highlighted by the multi-platinum studio album Rumours (1977), which sold over 40 million copies worldwide. Though highly successful, the group experienced almost constant creative and personal conflict, and Buckingham left the band in 1987 to focus on his solo career. Hit songs Buckingham wrote and sang with Fleetwood Mac include "Go Your Own Way", "Never Going Back Again", "Tusk", and "Big Love". A one-off reunion at the 1993 inauguration ball for President Bill Clinton initiated some rapprochement between the former band members, with Buckingham performing some vocals on one track of their 1995 studio album Time, and rejoining the band full-time in 1997 for the live tour and album The Dance. In 2018, Buckingham was dismissed from Fleetwood Mac and replaced by Mike Campbell and Neil Finn.
Lindsey Adams Buckingham was born on October 3, 1949, in Palo Alto, California, to Morris H. Buckingham and Rutheda, née Elliott. Morris H. Buckingham, who was a football star at San Jose State College, by 1963 served as President of Alexander-Ballert Company of San Francisco, a producer of roasted coffee beans, and ran a coffee plant in Daly City, California near Palo Alto. California's popular Alta Organic Coffee remains one of their brands. Buckingham had two older brothers, Jeffrey and Gregory. Growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area community of Atherton, he attended Menlo-Atherton High School where Buckingham and his brothers were encouraged to swim competitively. Though Buckingham dropped out of athletics to pursue music, his brother Gregory went on to win a silver medal at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. Though he did not graduate, Lindsey attended San José State University, like his brother Greg and father Morris. Buckingham's first forays into guitar playing took place on a toy Mickey Mouse guitar, playing along to his brother Jeff's extensive collection of 45s. Noticing his talent, Buckingham's parents bought their son a $35 Harmony guitar. Buckingham later purchased a 4-track Ampex recorder using some of the $12,000 inheritance he received from one of his aunts. Buckingham never took guitar lessons and does not read music. By age 13, he became interested in folk music and practiced playing the guitar and banjo parts to music by John Herald, Ian & Sylvia, and The Kingston Trio.
From 1966 to 1971, Buckingham performed psychedelic and folk rock with the high school rock band originally named the Fritz Rabyne Memorial Band as a bassist and vocalist. The band regrouped in 1967 due to band member changes and shortened their name to Fritz. Buckingham invited friend Stevie Nicks to join Fritz as a backing vocalist. Their romantic relationship began after both left Fritz five years later.
Buckingham and his then-girlfriend Nicks recorded seven demos in 1972 on a half-inch 4-track Ampex recorder kept at his father's coffee-roasting plant in Daly City, then drove to Los Angeles to pursue a recording contract. In 1973, Polydor Records signed the pair. Their studio album, produced by Keith Olsen and second engineer Richard Dashut, Buckingham Nicks, was released in September 1973; however, soon after its release Polydor dropped the duo because of poor sales. To help make ends meet, Buckingham toured with Don Everly's backing band, singing Phil Everly's parts.
While investigating Sound City recording studio in California, Mick Fleetwood heard the song "Frozen Love" from the Buckingham Nicks studio album. Impressed, he asked who the guitarist was. By chance, Buckingham and Nicks were also in Sound City recording demos, and Buckingham and Fleetwood were introduced. When Bob Welch left Fleetwood Mac in December 1974, Fleetwood immediately contacted Buckingham and offered him the vacant guitar slot in his band. Buckingham told Fleetwood that he and Nicks were a team and that he didn't want to work without her. Fleetwood agreed to hire both of them, without an audition. Buckingham and Nicks then began a short tour to promote the Buckingham Nicks album. The touring band included drummers Bob Aguirre and Gary Hodges (playing simultaneously) and bassist Tom Moncrieff, who later played bass on Nicks' debut solo studio album Bella Donna (1981). When they played in Alabama, the one area where they saw appreciable sales, they told their fans they had joined Fleetwood Mac. Fleetwood Mac released their eponymously titled studio album in 1975, which reached number one on the American charts. Buckingham contributed two songs to the album, "Monday Morning" and "I'm So Afraid", while also singing lead on "Blue Letter" and Nicks' song "Crystal". "I'm So Afraid" and "Monday Morning" were intended for the planned follow-up Buckingham Nicks studio album, but they were instead used with Fleetwood Mac. Buckingham's second studio album with Fleetwood Mac, Rumours (1977), became one of the best-selling studio albums of all time and featured Buckingham's "Go Your Own Way" as the lead single, which reached number ten on the Billboard Hot 100; also on the album were Buckingham's "Second Hand News" and "Never Going Back Again". Buckingham also sang co-lead vocal on two of the band's biggest live staples: "The Chain", written by the entire band, and "Don't Stop", a Christine McVie number. After the commercial success of Rumours (during the making of which Buckingham and Nicks broke up), Buckingham was determined to avoid falling into repeating the same musical pattern. Buckingham convinced Fleetwood to let his work on their next studio album be more experimental and to be allowed to work on tracks at home before bringing them to the rest of the band in the studio. The result was Tusk (1979), a double studio album that Buckingham primarily directed. Once again, Buckingham wrote the lead single, the title track, which peaked at No. 8 in the US and No. 6 on the UK singles chart. It also featured the 112-member USC Trojan Marching Band, who recorded their parts at Dodger Stadium.
During the time he worked on Tusk, Buckingham also produced studio albums for Walter Egan and John Stewart in the late 1970s as well as beginning work on his own solo studio album. In 1981, Buckingham released his debut solo studio album, Law and Order, playing nearly every instrument and featuring guest appearances by bandmates Mick Fleetwood and Christine McVie. The album pursued the quirky, eclectic, often lo-fi and new wave influences of Tusk and spawned the single "Trouble" (inspired by Fleetwood Mac producer Richard Dashut), which reached No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 in Australia (for three weeks).
