Lindsey Buckingham - Solo Projects

Solo Projects

During the time he worked on Tusk, Buckingham also produced albums for Walter Egan and John Stewart in the late 1970s as well as beginning work on his own solo album.

In 1981, Buckingham released his first solo album Law and Order, playing nearly every instrument and featuring guest appearances by bandmates Mick Fleetwood and Christine McVie. The album pursued the quirky, eclectic, often lo-fi and new-wave-influences of Tusk, and spawned the hit single "Trouble" which reached #9 on the US Charts and #1 in Australia (for three weeks). Two years later, he wrote and performed the songs "Holiday Road" and "Dancin' Across the U. S. A. " for the film National Lampoon's Vacation. "Holiday Road" was released as a single, and reached #82 on the Billboard's Hot 100. He did other soundtrack work, including the song "Time Bomb Town" from Back to the Future (1985). Buckingham played all of the instruments on the track except drums, which was played by noted drummer Michael Huey.

In 1984, after ending his 7-year relationship with Carol Ann Harris, he released his second solo album, Go Insane. The title track was a modest hit, reaching #23 on the Hot 100. The last track of the album, D. W. Suite, was a tribute to the late Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson. The next year, Buckingham performed on USA for Africa's fundraising single, "We Are the World".

Following his split with Fleetwood Mac in 1987, Buckingham spent much of the next five years in the studio, working on his third solo album, Out of the Cradle, which was released in 1992. Many of the songs seem to deal with the death of his father and the sudden death of his brother Greg in 1990. "Wrong" was a gentle rebuke of former bandmate Mick Fleetwood's tell-all biography. Out of the Cradle received some favorable reviews but did not achieve the sales levels associated with Fleetwood Mac. However, Buckingham toured throughout 1992–93 for the first time as a solo artist; his band included an army of seven other guitarists (Buckingham himself calls them "the crazy band" on his Soundstage DVD), each of whom he individually taught the entire two-and-a-half hours of music from the concert (Lindsey Buckingham: Behind the Music documentary for VH-1, 2001).

A subsequent solo album, entitled Gift of Screws, was recorded between 1995–2001 and presented to Warner Bros./Reprise for release. Executives at the label managed to persuade Buckingham to hold the album back and instead take several tracks from Gift of Screws and re-record them with Fleetwood Mac. Thus, seven songs from Gift of Screws appear on the Fleetwood Mac album Say You Will, in substantially the same form as Buckingham had recorded them for his solo release. Excellent bootleg copies of Gift of Screws—taken from an original CD-R presented to Warner Bros/Reprise—are known to exist, and have been widely distributed among fans through the use of torrent sites and other peer-to-peer networks.

On his 57th birthday, (October 3, 2006) Buckingham's fourth solo album, an acoustic album entitled Under the Skin was released. Under The Skin features Buckingham on almost all instruments, with the exception of two tracks that feature Fleetwood Mac's rhythm section of John McVie and Mick Fleetwood. The album includes a cover of The Rolling Stones classic "I Am Waiting". Three days after the album's release, Buckingham embarked on a tour in support the album that lasted until the end of June 2007. A live album and DVD, Live at the Bass Performance Hall, was released documenting the Fort Worth, Texas show from this tour.

In 2008, the Gift of Screws album was finally released, containing three tracks from the originally planned album, as well as seven new recordings. Buckingham then commenced a short tour to promote Gift of Screws in September and October, opening in Saratoga, California and closing in New York, New York.

On November 3, 2010, Buckingham's website announced that he was working on an untitled album with release planned in early 2011. Buckingham had finished recording the album, titled Seeds We Sow in April, and on April 22, 2011, he filmed a concert for DVD release to support the album. Seeds We Sow was released on September 6, 2011. On September 10, Buckingham kicked off the Seeds We Sow Tour in Reno, Nevada; the tour ended in Tulsa, Oklahoma on November 14. Buckingham had planned to conduct his first solo tour of the United Kingdom and Ireland in December. However, in early December Buckingham postponeed all UK dates due to his guitarist suffering a back injury. The UK dates were subsequently cancelled.

Buckingham began a "solo" (no backing band) tour of the United States on May 3, 2012 in Solana Beach, California.