With three sturdy singers and songwriters throughout their peak business years, Fleetwood Mac may by no means be their sole vessel of expression. Outside tasks have been widespread earlier than and after the onetime British blues band grew to become pop-rock royalty after they relocated to the U.S. and recruited a pair of Americans to their newest lineup.

While Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, and to an extent the band’s longtime ace within the gap Christine McVie, have been sure to be probably the most seen members with solo tasks, an extended parade of artists launched exterior tasks earlier than, throughout and after their time within the band.

In the beneath listing of the Top 15 Fleetwood Mac Solo Songs, the three beforehand talked about artists dominate, as to be anticipated, however they’re simply a part of the story. Past singer and guitarist Bob Welch can also be right here, as is future member Dave Mason, who had an extended, prestigious profession earlier than briefly becoming a member of the band throughout one among its uncommon business droughts. Together, they made a number of the most enduring music in rock historical past, however on their very own, they have been usually as sensible.

15. Lindsey Buckingham, “Slow Dancing”
From: Go Insane (1984)

Buckingham’s second solo album, 1984’s Go Insane, broke even farther from his Fleetwood Mac expectations. Heavily impressed by new wave and synth-pop, the album’s use of synthesizers and different digital sounds stamps it as a product of the period, however the dance groove of “Slow Dancing” displays the artist’s fearless steps into the long run, which dates to his attentive method to Fleetwood Mac’s 1979 double LP Tusk.

14. Dave Mason, “We Just Disagree”
From: Let It Flow (1977)

Dave Mason had performed with Traffic, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix and scores of others earlier than he joined the Buckingham- and Nicks-free Fleetwood Mac for a tour and album in 1995. Both have been big disappointments; the LP, Time, failed even to make the Top 200. Mason charted his greatest solo single with “We Just Disagree,” which stopped simply exterior the Top 10, in 1977, proper when Rumours was on everyone’s lips.

13. Christine McVie, “Got a Hold on Me”
From: Christine McVie (1984)

Christine McVie launched her first solo album in 1970 when she was nonetheless often known as Christine Perfect. Fourteen years later, and in between the celebrity period of Fleetwood Mac albums, she put out a second. Simply titled Christine McVie and tethered to the nice and cozy, wealthy music she contributed to the band, the album’s spotlight “Got a Hold on Me” – with Buckingham on guitar and Steve Winwood on synths – is a lifeless ringer for Mac.

12. Stevie Nicks with Don Henley, “Leather and Lace”
From: Bella Donna (1981)

Stevie Nicks and Don Henley’s relationship lasted for a number of months throughout Rumours‘ marathon run on the charts, however they have been damaged up for 3 years when their Bella Donna duet “Leather and Lace” got here out. Written for Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter, Nicks reclaimed her music after the nation duo handed (however not earlier than they borrowed its identify for an album title). It was her second consecutive Top 10 solo hit.

11. Bob Welch, “Ebony Eyes”
From: French Kiss (1977)

After leaving Fleetwood Mac in 1974, Bob Welch cofounded the band Paris with former members of Jethro Tull and the Nazz. They did not final lengthy, so in 1977 Welch launched his first solo album with assist from just a few of his outdated Mac bandmates (he later opened for them on a few of their huge late-’70s excursions). The LP’s first single, “Sentimental Lady,” reached the Top 10; the disco-groove follow-up “Ebony Eyes” simply missed at No. 14.

10. Stevie Nicks, “Talk to Me”
From: Rock a Little (1985)

One of two songs on her third solo album she did not have a hand in writing, “Talk to Me” was Nicks’ fourth Top 10 hit and highest constitution since “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” peaked at No. 3 in 1981. Written by Chas Sandford, who coproduced and performed many of the devices, “Talk to Me” arrived throughout a five-year recording hiatus for Fleetwood Mac, throughout which everybody however bassist John McVie launched a solo mission.

9. Lindsey Buckingham, “Holiday Road”
From: National Lampoon’s Vacation Original Motion Picture Sound Track (1983)

With one solo album out and the discharge of Fleetwood Mac’s Mirage a yr earlier, Lindsey Buckingham recorded a one-off single for the 1983 soundtrack to National Lampoon’s Vacation. “Holiday Road” performs over the opening titles and returned for 3 sequels. Even although the music stalled at No. 82, the breezy 131-second monitor has was one among Buckingham’s hottest solo tunes and continued to play reside.

READ MORE: Ranking Every Classic Era Fleetwood Mac Song

8. Lindsey Buckingham, “Go Insane”
From: Go Insane (1984)

Seven years after the actual fact, Lindsey Buckingham was nonetheless struggling over his breakup with Stevie Nicks, searching for closure. The title monitor to his second solo album Go Insane explores a few of these lingering points, as Buckingham – going the one-man-band route with assist from bassist Bryant Simpson – piles on background songs so as to add to the thematic dysfunction. A key monitor to an LP that eyes the long run whereas anchored to the previous.

7. Bob Welch, “Sentimental Lady”
From: French Kiss (1977)

Welch had recorded “Sentimental Lady” earlier than his solo model hit the Top 10 in 1977 – on Fleetwood Mac’s 1972 album Bare Trees. His debut album as a solo artist, French Kiss, included help from Mick Fleetwood, Christine McVie and Lindsey Buckingham, all of whom seem on his dreamier, poppier tackle “Sentimental Lady.” The follow-up album two years later, Three Hearts, added Stevie Nicks.

6. Dave Mason, “Shouldn’t Have Took More Than You Gave”
From: Alone Together (1970)

Following his exit from Traffic, Dave Mason lined up an all-star group to again him on his debut solo album, together with Leon Russell, Jim Capaldi, Jim Gordon and Bonnie Bramlett, whose daughter Bekka would play with Mason throughout their transient run in Fleetwood Mac within the mid-’90s. A spotlight of 1970’s Alone Together, “Shouldn’t Have Took More Than You Gave” is gently rolling folks rock with stinging wah guitar.

5. Stevie Nicks, “Rooms on Fire”
From: The Other Side of the Mirror (1989)

Fleetwood Mac was at a crossroads when Nicks launched her fourth solo album in 1989, The Other Side of the Mirror. Lindsey Buckingham, the band’s inventive middle since 1975, had left the group and its future in query. So she centered on a brand new LP, Top 10 within the States and her greatest solo document within the U.Ok. Highlight “Rooms on Fire” confronts Nicks’ conflicts as a single, childless lady and eventual acceptance.

4. Lindsey Buckingham, “Trouble”
From: Law and Order (1981)

Lindsey Buckingham was given the reins for Fleetwood Mac’s 1979 LP Tusk, indulging his mad-genius impulses to assemble his most private and textural work at that time. In 1981, after a grueling band tour, he made his first solo album, Law and Order, going even deeper into the multilayers of sounds. Buckingham performed most all the pieces himself, besides on the hit single “Trouble,” which options drums by Mick Fleetwood.

3. Stevie Nicks, “Stand Back”
From: The Wild Heart (1983)

Inspired by Prince’s “Little Red Corvette,” and written on the day of Nicks’ transient marriage to the widower of her finest good friend, “Stand Back” acquired an help from the Minneapolis multi-instrumentalist, who was on the verge of going supernova due to Purple Rain the following yr. Prince helped lay down a number of the synths that drive the music, however Nicks’ engaged efficiency, one among her finest, made “Stand Back” a No. 5 hit.

2. Stevie Nicks with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around”
From: Bella Donna (1981)

Stevie Nicks’ debut solo album wasn’t a complete alone affair. Two of its singles – “Leather and Lace” and “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” – have been duets with well-known associates. The latter, which options Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, was her debut single and largest solo music, written by Petty and guitarist Mike Campbell and delivered in prime fiery type by Nicks, the proper sparring accomplice right here to a cautiously cautious Petty.

1. Stevie Nicks, “Edge of Seventeen”
From: Bella Donna (1981)

Written as a response to 2 latest deaths – John Lennon and Nicks’ uncle – “Edge of Seventeen” opened Side Two of Stevie Nicks’ debut solo album, a vindication of her years within the trenches with Fleetwood Mac. Mishearing one thing Tom Petty’s spouse informed her (it was initially “age of 17″), Nicks constructed a five-and-a-half-minute masterpiece round a single Sixteenth-note guitar riff that explodes into an unconventional refrain of symbolic “white-winged doves.” While the music rested exterior the Top 10, stopping at No. 11, it helped carry Bella Donna to No. 1, the one Mac solo album to succeed in that place. The fable and legend of Stevie Nicks may be summed up on this nice music.