Playing in the Rain: Lindsey Buckingham & Fleetwood Mac

by Tyler Martin Sehnal

Turn on the radio or take the time to flip through the stacks of used CDs at your local Goodwill or thrift store. Google rock 'n' roll music, even. Better yet, visit any public place that plays popular music from the last 50 years or so as the soundtrack to your Saturday afternoon grocery-shopping, clothes-buying or indie record store-scouting experience and you'll find that no matter where you go, there's an ever-enduring presence that since the late 1960s has been a mainstay in the world of pop culture and popular a former blues band turned rock 'n' roll atom bomb called Fleetwood Mac. Though much of the band's popularity stems from their work in the late seventies and eighties, from an era when gas was 50 cents a gallon and singers were their own songwriters, there's a reason why the band has been able to maintain their status as rock 'n' roll royalty even more than 50 years after making their debut as a London-based blues group. His name is Lindsey Buckingham.

Genres: Music

134 pages, Hardcover

Published March 7, 2019

Reviews

[Laur · Rating 4 out of 5]

Growing up with Fleetwood Mac in the 70s, my friends and I were true fans of Fleetwood Mac. So with this book just published in Feb, 2023, I was so eager and not disappointed to take a trip down, memory lane, with Lindsay Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, Christine McVie and the rest of FM to fill in the gaps now (as an adult) that I was either too young or too ignorant to care about back in the day.

What an eye opener this book is in covering the history of their interpersonal relationships- their business relationships - the stage antics and in some cases the aggressive song lyrics. Buckingham even developed a special hybrid type of strum the guitar which really made his sound unique- things that might have been plain to some degree as they performed and recorded, but to the fans, this was the magic of Buckingham & Nicks - of Fleetwood Mac. The Chain was never supposed to break! It was powerful- it was hauntingly special- the Rumours 5!

It’s been said and arguably proved: “ that thunder does only happen when it’s raining” after all…..

Recommended for anyone interested in Buckingham, Nicks, and the history of Fleetwood Mac’s albums and singles. Songs written for and collaborations with others. It’s all covered here from the earliest of days of their formation to current time, and acknowledges with sorrow the loss of bandmate, sister and best friend, Christine McVie.

My thanks to NetGalley, Tyler Martin Sehnal, and the publisher to an ARC in exchange for my honest opinion. All opinions are my own.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This review originally published in Looking For a Good Book. Rated 3.5 of 5

I am one of the many people around the globe who would put Fleetwood Mac's Rumors album among the top albums of all time. It is easily one of my top three favorite albums (the exact placement might depend on the day you ask me). Though I've listen to most of their subsequent releases since then, I would count myself as a huge fan of the group - just the album. Still, seeing this book about the band available, I thought I'd dig just a little deeper.

Nearly everything presented here is freely available online, but author Tyler Martin Sehnal pulls it together in an almost cohesive manner. Almost.

Sehnal organizes the book in sequential order from the band's earliest years to the most recent information with chapters organized by a period of years. But within the chapter Sehnal plays a little lose with time without making it clear beforehand, sometimes restating an incident but from another band member's perspective. One for instance is Buckingham's firing from the band.

The incident is mentioned first, rather casually; "the band has again taken on two new members to replace their recently ousted guitarist and sole male vocalist, Lindsey Buckingham" which is followed immediately with "Buckingham hadn’t been the one to make the call this time around, though. In reality, the band had let Buckingham go following a several-month-long dispute between the two parties...". The chapter goes on to talk about Buckingham and Christine McVie's duet album and on to a 2018 special performance at Radio City Music Hall which ends with:

That night, the band’s performances and speeches went off without a hitch, and Buckingham even noted that what the group was feeling “more than ever in our career [was] love.” Therefore, the news that would break only three months later left fans and those close to the band utterly shocked: in April 2018, it was announced that Lindsey Buckingham had been fired from Fleetwood Mac.
This seems like a 'big reveal' being at the end of a chapter, but we'd already read about it.

It is also important to note that Sehnal definitely has a bias in favor of Lyndsey Buckingham - he admits to it but even if hadn't it definitely shows. The full title of the book should be a very clear indicator.

I should also point out that, at least in my ARC Kindle version of the book, an entire quarter of the book is end notes and/or bibliography.
It's a quick read, and, to repeat what I stated earlier - most of this can be found online or already is known for any true Fleetwood Mac fan. It's probably just about right for someone like me who, while I enjoy(ed) the music, doesn't care a whole lot about the band's shenanigans.

Looking for a good book? Playing In the Rain: Lindsey Buckingham & Fleetwood Mac by Tyler Martin Sehnal is a quick-to-read overview of the band who arguable produced one of the best po/rock albums of all time.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

[Louise Foerster · Rating 5 out of 5]

With PLAYING IN THE RAIN, Tyler Martin Sehnal has accomplished that most difficult of feats -- telling the story of the remarkable band Fleetwood Mac, bringing to life the band, their music, their impact on music and the world around them as they loved, battled, found and lost their ways in the world and with one another. For diehard fan me, it was the backstage pass and deep dive into creativity, creation, and changing the world one song at a time. I received a copy of this book and these opinions are my own, unbiased thoughts.

[KerryO · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finishing PLAYING IN THE RAIN today was a particularly poignant reminder of the loss of Christine McVie last November 30th, especially as her cause of death was revealed. Fleetwood Mac was Rock and Roll royalty and Lindsey Buckingham’s collaboration with bandmates was the catalyst which propelled them there. If you love Rock and Roll, you will love this book.

[Neil · Rating 2 out of 5]

Intrigued to see a book about Lindsey Buckingham and Fleetwood Mac as there have not been many books written about him, but I was disappointed with the content and accuracy of this book. The book is 170 pages of text only with no pictures included at all. The content did not tell me anything that I did not already know and skipped vast sections of Lindsey's solo career, it provided a cursory amount of information on Out Of The Cradle (Lindsey's most creative album). The book really focuses on the albums from Fleetwood Mac with lots of time given to contributions of other members, this has already been covered in many other books over the years.

Overall this was a missed opportunity to focus a book on Lindsey's career and his contributions to Fleetwood Mac, but more importantly his solo output. Also, a really annoying aspect of the book is that the author for some reason decides to start each chapter with a section of material that focuses on the timeline or album that is covered in the subsequent chapter, felt this really negatively impacted the cohesiveness of the material. The book was an easy read and was completed in a few days.

To sum up, I think we really need a Lindsey Buckingham memoir written by the man himself to have his story properly told.