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Crying In The Night
Stephanie
Without A Leg To Stand On
Crystal
Long Distance Winner
Don't Let Me Down Again
Django
Races Are Run
Lola (My Love)
Frozen Love
In retrospect, it seems preposterous that this album flopped in 1973, but then fate had other plans for Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. Recorded while Nicks was still working day jobs to support them both, it looked like disappearing altogether, until Mick Fleetwood, shopping around for recording studios, heard glorious album closer Frozen Love – and his future opening up before him – at Sound City in Van Nuys. He swiftly brought the couple into Fleetwood Mac, and all worries were soon over.
Long deleted and widely bootlegged, Buckingham Nicks has finally been restored to its rightful place in the Mac story, and it’s plain to see why this was a no-brainer for Fleetwood. The sound that would soon seduce millions was already here.
There’s Buckingham’s unique Flamenco-tinged guitar sound, evident throughout, for a start, as well as Nicks’ already assured songwriting. The Mac would re-record her Crystal (and should have had a go at sure-fire hit Crying In The Night) but the version here is the stronger one, with those now familiar voices melding to perfection.
Pretty much everything here could have slotted onto the more famous records that followed – Buckingham’s guitar solo emerging out of Nicks’ Long Distance Winner, his country/blues picking on Lola (My Love) – but it’s Frozen Love that’s the real prize. A distant precursor to Mac’s The Chain, it has the voices dancing around each other, and Buckingham’s acoustic break gives way to an orchestral swell and stinging electrics. A superb album rescued from the dustbin of history at last.
Every week, Album of the Week Club listens to and discusses the album in question, votes on how good it is, and publishes our findings, with the aim of giving people reliable reviews and the wider rock community the chance to contribute.
Other albums released in September 1973
- Over-Nite Sensation - Frank Zappa
- Eric Clapton's Rainbow Concert - Eric Clapton
- The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle - Bruce Springsteen
- Crazy Eyes - Poco
- Faust IV - Faust
- In a Glass House - Gentle Giant
- Vagabonds of the Western World - Thin Lizzy
- High on the Hog - Black Oak Arkansas
- Hello! - Status Quo
- It's Only a Movie - Family
- Nice 'n' Greasy - Atomic Rooster
- Sweet Freedom - Uriah Heep
- Ten Years Are Gone - John Mayall
- Bang - James Gang
What they said...
"The pair already sound joined at the hip; their harmonies feel pre-ordained and their tunes slot together like two sides of a broken heart. The poppier songs jump out first – Nicks' lovely bit of Laurel Canyon soul, Crying in the Night, shows off a light vocal touch, and Buckingham's Don't Let Me Down Again is a rippling rocker with some fine, lightning-fast guitar work - but the soft rock ballads prove just as hooky in a more restrained way." (AllMusic)
"Buckingham’s finest songs point to his later triumphs. His voice strains in its higher register on the chorus of Without A Leg To Stand On, while the tune itself feels effortless, as if built by machine. This tension between methodical craft and drunk-on-music abandon would become his signature. To that end, Don’t Let Me Down Again sounds like a dry run of Rumours’ opener Second Hand News. (Pitchfork)
"Buckingham Nicks is only 35 minutes long, and about a third of its tracks feel like filler. The second song, Stephanie, is a pretty-but-slight acoustic guitar exercise, as is the one-minute Django on side two. Lola (My Love) is a dreary, unconvincing stab at swampy blues-rock; and while the uptempo guitar-pop ditty Without A Leg To Stand On is one of the LP’s best tracks, it’s over and done in just two minutes." (The AV Club)
What you said...
Mike Canoe: Likely like many, I listened to Buckingham Nicks for the first time the weekend after it was finally rereleased after 50 years. After the first playthrough, I found myself wondering both why it took so long and what all the fuss was about. Subsequent listens did not change that opinion.
The album has a very Laurel Canyon vibe. Pretty music with lyrics throwing shade and spilling tea. If you like Jackson Browne, Carole King, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, and/or the Eagles, you will probably like this album. It's like Fleetwood Mac without the musical heft the other members provided.
For this kid, there's too much folk, not enough rock. Don't Let Me Down Again is arguably the only song that rocks. I also like the gentle guitar instrumental, Stephanie. None of the rest really sticks. Even at only 35 minutes, I was ready for the album to be over before the interminable closer Frozen Love even started.
I realise that for many this is a Holy Grail record, and that's fine. I accept it as the accidental demo that brought them to the attention of Mick Fleetwood and allowed a reinvigorated Fleetwood Mac to sell millions of records and make billions of dollars.
Philip Qvist: Well, if you weren't sure how Fleetwood Mac evolved from the Peter Green era to the Bob Welch era before becoming the juggernaut that was the Rumours era, then look no further than the Buckingham Nicks album. Add in a couple of Christine McVie songs, and you would have had a Fleetwood Mac album in all but name only.
That said, you also realise that to further their own musical ambitions, Stevie and Lindsey needed Christine, Mick and John as much as that trio needed those two to take the Mac to another level. In other words, this is not a perfect record, although I thought it was a more than decent and solid record that deserved a couple of spins from me today.
My favourite songs were Crying in the Night, Long Distance Winner, Don't Let Me Down Again and Frozen Love. On Buckingham Nicks you can also hear the embryos of songs such as Second Hand News, The Chain, Dreams and Never Going Back Again - all numbers that made Rumours so difficult to ignore.
I can also understand why the album bombed like it did; simply because 1973 was such a great year for rock music - a period in time where even very good albums would have been easily overshadowed by the countless classics that were released that year. In short, it was probably timing and a lack of publicity at the time that sank the record, rather than the contents.
Still, all good records deserve a second chance, including this one. It isn't perfect, but it is still a very good album that deserves to be heard. An 8 from me this week.
John Davidson: Unsurprisingly, this is like listening to an embryonic version of Fleetwood Mac. All the elements are there. The Californian semi-country semi-folk guitarwork, the harmonies and Stevie Nicks' now instantly recognisable voice make this an enjoyable listen.
The songwriting isn't as strong as it would be in the future, however, but there are a couple of gems in Crying In The Night and Frozen Love. The guitar run from Stephanie in particular seems to have been recycled into Never Going Back Again.
Listening to this alongside Heroes Are Hard To Find (the last Fleetwood Mac album without Buckingham and Nicks) I can see why Mick Fleetwood might have entertained the notion to invite Buckingham into the band, if only to give a newly US-based band a bit of Californian pep.
Interesting but not essential (at least not for me). Like most teenagers from the 1970s I had a copy of Rumours and was equally astonished at how bad Tusk turned out. After that, it was a mixed bag, while Buckingham/Nicks alongside the McVie's and Mick Fleetwood became a slow-motion soap opera more than a musical troupe. 6/10. Much better lay ahead.
Adam Ranger: An Interesting record that I have never heard.. probably because it's been unavailable for so long.
It's a pleasant record, but it's easy to see why it didn't do so well. It is, for the most part, forgettable. Some nice guitar work and some lovely harmonies, but it never really leaves a lasting impression. Almost a record of fillers.
However, a couple of tracks, like Crying In The Night and Don't Let Me Down Again, make you sit up and think this is a blueprint for what was to come.
Evan Sanders: I'm glad to have listened to this one, as the album was often present in record stores during Fleetwood Mac's heyday, but I was never enticed enough to give it a listen. Now that I have heard it, it does sound like a rough blueprint for what Fleetwood Mac would become.
Stevie Nicks' vocals show a woman who already had appeal and needed to bring the songwriting to the next level. Lindsey Buckingham was showing his command of folk-rock melodies, which needed to be beefed up by Fleetwood and the McVies to work as rock arrangements. It still doesn't come close to any of the Fleetwood Mac releases that included Buckingham and Nicks, but it's worth listening to as a type of origin story.
Matt Batten: I have the original vinyl. It's truly brilliant.
Greg Schwepe: While not a Fleetwood Mac album, the Buckingham Nicks album looms large in the legend and lore and history of Fleetwood Mac. If you’re not quite up to speed on all of this, then here is a teaser from this fictional classic rock podcast; “…on today’s episode, listen to the story of this somewhat unknown California couple who head to the studio, make an album that gets more attention from the drummer of an English former blues band than the record buying public. He then asks them both to join his band, and believe it or not, the second album this lineup makes becomes one of the classic rock albums of all classic rock albums. And no, we’re not making this up.”
So, I listened to this album a full four times today before writing this review. And two things struck me during those listens. One is that half of this album is just incredibly average. And two, that the other half is incredibly unbelievable.
And when I say “incredibly average,” I mean, at face value, you have two artists who probably hadn’t had a lot of studio time before this. Some of the songs are good, but just what you might expect from a couple feeling their way and developing. Crying In The Night, Without a Leg To Stand On, and Crystal are several examples of that. In this case, “incredibly average” is still head and shoulders above other artists' debut albums.
But then I get to Don’t Let Me Down Again, Races Are Run, (Lola) My Love, and Frozen Love, and I get the “incredibly unbelievable” category. These feel more fully developed and have that “this is what we’re about” vibe about them. I can only imagine what was running through Mick Fleetwood’s mind when he heard the songs from this album: “I’m gonna get these two to join my band and we’ll conquer the world.” Hey, it could’ve happened. Knowing what we know now, you can hear and imagine how this talent would eventually shape and direct Fleetwood Mac.
The vocal harmonies are amazing, and you can tell that Buckingham has a guitar style all his own. I’m amazed at what Crystal evolved to when it had time to be given the full Fleetwood Mac treatment.
I never had a vinyl copy of this, and, being out of print, had always heard about this, but never heard it until today. Now I know what I had been missing. 8 out of 10 on this one for me.
Brian Carr: It was cool to finally hear the Buckingham Nicks record. Many of the qualities the duo brought to Fleetwood Mac are on display. I’m not sure what I love more, the beautiful vocal harmonies or Buckingham’s excellent guitar playing. Most of that six-string work is on acoustic, including the beautiful (mostly) solo pieces Stephanie and Django. When he stretches out on Long Distance Winner and Frozen Love, it makes me yearn for more electric playing from him. There’s plenty on the record to appease this guitar nerd.
Vocally, there are some great hooks throughout the record. There are also occasional moments where they show their youth. Races Are Run struck me as particularly clunky, lyric-wise, and though Crying In The Night was a pretty fine song, I thought the bridge wasn’t nearly as interesting as the rest of the song. Even the spectacular closing track Frozen Love could have benefited from a little editing - the instrumental interlude is solid (again, reminiscent of things to come), but a tad too lengthy. Ultimately, I’m sure I will listen again. I might even buy it now that it can be had at a reasonable price!
Gary Claydon: An album that has attained almost mythical status due to its relative unavailability. So how does it stack up, 50+ years after its original release? A bit underwhelming, actually, but there's good reason for that. Despite the fact that I'd never heard it before this week, it sounds utterly familiar. Anybody familiar with the AOR juggernaut that Fleetwood Mac would become ( and, let's face it, that's a lot of people) will find nothing surprising here.
All the elements are present, the high harmonies, the carefully structured compositions, Buckingham's guitar work, the hints to future glories are all there. The leaning towards energetic, country-tinged folk-rock side is slightly too prevalent and, while any album with Stevie Nicks on it is going to be an easy listen, her vocals are not given enough prominence for my liking.
It's not a bad album, but its main interest is as an insight into the origins of what would become one of the biggest bands in the world.
Chris Elliott: Like a slightly pointless history lesson. The musical equivalent of going to a Warhol exhibition to discover it's of his Graphic Designer period.
Martin Roberts: Overall, I found the album a good listen. It is a nice album to have on, but I would struggle to remember any of the songs. As we know, they added that catchiness when they joined Fleetwood Mac.
Crying In The Night, a Stevie Nicks song, is one of the best tracks. Stephanie is an instrumental that sounds like a Rumours outtake. Without A Leg To Stand On is a nice song, Crystal another nice song. Long Distance Winner, another Stevie Nicks song, has a good solo in it. Don’t Let Me Down Again, a more upbeat song, which I liked. Django, an instrumental with a Spanish feel that acts as a great intro into the next song, Races Are Run, a lovely song and my favourite of the album. Lola (My Love) has a bluegrass feel to it. Frozen Love is another good song with a big solo with a guitar sound used on the Fleetwood Mac album. Overall, 7 out of 10.
Final score: 6.89 (57 votes cast, total score 393)
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