Lindsey Buckingham Goes Solo--for Now

Lindsey Buckingham knows there’s an easy way to guarantee pretty good sales for the solo album he’s just putting the finishing touches on now.

“I could slap the name Fleetwood Mac on it and it would get a lot of attention,” says the singer-guitarist-songwriter.

The name value is clear. “The Dance,” the 1997 Fleetwood Mac reunion album, sold an impressive 3.6 million copies in the U.S. In contrast, Buckingham’s last solo album, 1992’s “Out of the Cradle,” came in at a mere 53,000.

In some ways, it wouldn’t be a huge stretch to turn Buckingham’s album, which will probably come out in the spring, into a Fleetwood Mac project. Mick Fleetwood was a big presence in the sessions, playing all the drums, while John McVie played much of the bass parts and Christine McVie added some piano. In fact, much of the material was recorded before the band’s reunion tour, and more or less stimulated the members’ talk about getting back together.

The songs themselves, full of dramatic dynamics, contain emotional twists and turns through personal puzzles, but that’s what Fleetwood fans expect from Buckingham. All it would take is a few songwriting and vocal contributions from Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks, et voila: platinum prospects.

“I’m probably the happiest with this work solo-wise as anything I’ve done, and you would think that would make it the most precious to be heard in a certain context,” he says.

“But if the idea of it being a Fleetwood Mac album was to take a life of its own . . . I wouldn’t discount it. But it would have to be certain parameters, a cohesive project in the spirit of ‘Tusk.’ ”

So if the brass at his and the band’s label, Reprise Records, were to urge that the album be converted to a group effort, he’d consider it, though the prospect hasn’t officially been discussed with the other Fleetwooders.

Buckingham’s manager, Tony Dimitriades, reports that upon hearing the new material recently, Reprise President Howie Klein said that he loves it and wants it to be a solo album.

In any case, the album represents two new phases of his life. Calling “Cradle” a “sigh of relief” after he left the Fleetwood fold in 1991, he says that the energy of the new material reflects a flowering of confidence that came from operating outside the group context, and elation at the reunion’s relative lack of psychodrama.

And the newest material is the product of a new life, with Buckingham, who just turned 50, having become a father for the first time 16 months ago.

“The theme that seems to come up [in the songs] is really the challenge to try to care about something and take responsibility,” he says. “I’m never really happy with my lyrics, always something workmanlike about them, but I think I got some great lyrics in this.”

NO DEPRESSION: Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder is really getting a thing for oldies. With the band recently hitting No. 1 for the first time with a quickie take on the ‘60s teen melodrama “The Last Kiss,” Vedder turned his musical calendar back another few decades to sing “Croon Spoon,” a song written by composer Marc Blitzstein for the Depression-era musical “The Cradle Will Rock.”

This is not a new Pearl Jam session, but part of the soundtrack to actor-director Tim Robbins’ upcoming film “Cradle Will Rock,” revolving around Orson Welles’ notorious staging of the controversial, pro-union production. The track will be heard over the end credits, as will another guest contribution--a version of Blitzstein’s mournful “Nickel Under the Foot” by Polly Jean Harvey.

This is the second time Vedder has worked with actor-director Robbins and his brother, composer David Robbins, and the second time they’ve paired him in an intriguing duet. On the “Dead Man Walking” soundtrack, Vedder collaborated with Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn. This one was a bit different though. His partner: actress Susan Sarandon, who is in the movie and is Tim Robbins’ longtime companion.

“We sent Eddie a copy of our rough mix with the actors and he went off with it,” says David Robbins, who wrote the film’s score of period-style music. “He kind of adopted this low, husky voice, sort of a Leonard-Cohen-meets-Fred-Astaire croon. Pretty funny. And Susan was surprisingly good. It’s been a long time since we’ve heard her sing, and she did this very innocent, Betty Boop-ish thing.”

A PIRATE’S LIFE FOR ME: Another prominent pop artist has gone behind record executives’ backs and taken the matter of free digital downloads into his own hands.

English singer Robbie Williams has made an alternate, acoustic version of his ballad “Angels” available for free download on his official Web site, https://robbiewilliamsdirect.com. But more telling is the short companion video clip fans can view before grabbing the song. In it, Williams states his case very clearly, noting the industry’s fear that such activity encourages music piracy.

“In that case,” Williams says in the clip, “I say, ahoy matey. Welcome aboard.”

The song and clip were posted recently without the cooperation or even the knowledge of Capitol Records, which releases Williams’ recordings in the U.S. and has remained largely on the sidelines of the issue of free downloads. (Capitol was unavailable for comment by press time.)

A spokeswoman for Williams says that the gesture is a good way to give something extra to the fans who have made him one of the world’s most popular pop artists, and draw a little extra attention to him in the U.S., where he is still trying to get a foothold.