Solo #3 Fleetwood Mac Go Your Own Way
2:37 – 3:23

First things first: the song.

Lindsey Buckingham is one of the most underrated guitarists I’ve ever heard. While he doesn’t go overboard with solos on Fleetwood Mac’s recordings, at his live shows he sometimes performs 5-7 minute long solos and his guitar work is incredible. He does it all without a pick, using his fingers and fingernails to create a distinctive sound.

His guitar is distinctive, too. He plays a custom-made Rick Turner Model 1 that was built specially for him in the 1970s. It’s a beautiful guitar, and its unique tone has served Buckingham well over his long, prolific career.

The solo is not very complex, but it’s played with a lot of style and character that I think will be challenging to capture, with little embellishments between the major phrases that require precision and finger speed. I hope that I can get close.

For some reason, despite the popularity of the song, there is a dearth of resources available for learning the solo. I ended up purchasing a superb video instruction from ivideosongs.com and had to build my own backing track from a multi-track file I found with extensive Googling.

Resources

Instructional video can be purchased for $2.99 from http://www.ivideosongs.com/song/rock/electric-guitar/go-your-own-way/fleetwood-mac/8630.aspx . This is guitar instruction for the whole song, both electric and acoustic parts and it is very, very thorough.

Tabs — http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/tabs/f/fleetwood_mac/go_your_own_way_tab.htm

Backing Track can be downloaded in .mogg (multi-track Ogg Vorbis) format from http://www.mediafire.com/?nzzjzymjmjx . You’ll need a multi-track audio processing program like Audacity to open it. Then delete the two lead guitar tracks to create a backing track. I make no assertions as to the legality of this file.

Inspiration

Fleetwood Mac performing the song live in 2004. I took my 8-year-old daughter to Dallas to see them on this tour, and it was one of the best concerts I’ve experienced.

Dolores O’Riordan of the Cranberries performs the song unplugged at a French radio station. Haunting.