New eBook unearths interviews, explores Fleetwood Mac's history

When I was three years old my first favorite song that I can remember was "Dreams" by Fleetwood Mac (of course my parents remember our radio DJ friend Larry Dale dedicating "Lay Down Sally" to me during breakfast in my high chair, but I don't remember). But I do remember being stuck on "Dreams" and wearing out the creases of my father's LP and staring at what I thought were glamorous black and white photos of the band (I'd later learn about the drugs and musical beds from Mick Fleetwood's biography when I was 12). 

As I became interested in my first favorite rock band (other than Kiss, who frightened and fascinated me to the point I had my father remove their poster from my wall after the first night), author Sam Graham was publishing his first book on the band "The Authorized Biography of Fleetwood Mac." Three and half decades later Graham published the sequel, a multimedia eBook called "Before the Beginning - A Personal & Opinionated History of Fleetwood Mac." 

Both books draw on the time he spent on the road with the band as it was gaining mainstream superstardom in 1976 and 1977. 

Fleetwood Mac returns to Time Warner Cable Arena Saturday with Christine McVie in tow for the first time since she left the group in 1998. But back in 1976 and 1977, the legendary lineup of McVie, ex-husband and co-founder John McVie, Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, and co-founder Mick Fleetwood was still intact. Can you imagine being a fly on a wall, or in Graham's case a journalist on a bus back then? When I mentioned the book to my husband he marveled that such a private group would allow a journalist such access, but this was the `70s. There was no TMZ. 

There were also no eBooks, a format which allowed Graham to include 31 audio clips from his exclusive interviews with Fleetwood, Nicks, Buckingham, Christine McVie, and former pre-Nicks/Buckingham era members Bob Welch and Jeremy Spencer. 

The 40-page book sells for $4.99 on iTunes and iBooks stores, but you can check out a preview here. There's also a Facebook page and website. Maybe you'll want to take a look before Saturday night and think about all that history up there on stage.