From Spinner, Sheryl Crow announced during a recent AOL Sessions taping that will premiere on April 11th that there are plans for her to collaborate with Fleetwood Mac in the future with the results to come out “some time next year.” She’s just heading out on tour in support of her new album Detours. Apparently this move will help secure future Fleetwood Mac output as Stevie Nicks had indicated that she wasn’t interested in carrying FM on without Christine McVie who left in 1998, and whose only contributtion to Fleetwood Mac’s 2003 release Say You Will were three songs that had been recorded as part of an aborted solo album for Lindsey Buckingham. Sheryl Crow filled McVie’s shoes on the newer songs that needed harmony vocals and keyboards. There were rumors (no pun intended) at the time that Sheryl was interested in touring with Fleetwood Mac and her friend Stevie Nicks.

Within hours of this announcement, the Internet boards are abuzz with comments regarding this development as one would expect. As much as I miss Christine McVie in Fleetwood Mac– she was really the best counterpoint to the other vocalists in Fleetwood Mac and certainly a stellar songwriter– I think that Fleetwood Mac wouldn’t be too bad off with Crow in the mix. As long as they don’t use her as a replacement for McVie and have her perform “Songbird” or any of her other signature songs I’m okay with that. In fact, I think that Crow’s style is pretty complimentary to the sound of Fleetwood Mac, and I would be interested in hearing how Lindsey Buckingham might collaborate with her. I think that most people forget that the core of Fleetwood Mac– and the only consistent part of the band for its 41 years of existence is Mick Fleetwood and John “Mac” McVie and the singers and guitarists float in and out of the band. Obviously, the only widely popular periods of Fleetwood Mac had Buckingham and Nicks in them, and that is what people tend to associate as the version of Fleetwood Mac.

I’m just happy to hear that there might be more to come from the band that– next to the Moody Blues and the Beatles– were among my first “favorite” bands as a child in the Seventies.