Shake ups, break ups, and make ups. Rumours abound. Packin’ up, shackin’ up, and conjuring the classic California 70’s rock sound.

Everybody knows Fleetwood Mac. (And if you don’t, that’s why you’re here.) Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, Christine McVie, and of course, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, the two guys for whom the band was named and the only two members present and accounted for from Day One to Day Now.

Everybody sometimes forgets that the band trod the world stage for 10 years before Stevie and Lindsey joined. And they were a blues band. And they were English. There wasn’t as much romantic drama in those years, but the era certainly possessed its Shakespearean aspects.

Unsurprisingly for a band built on drama, that’s what the whole endeavour started with, back in London in 1967, when three quarters of John Mayall and His Bluesbreakers (so, all the Bluesbreakers) left to start their own blues rock band, with guitarist Peter Green leading the way and bringing the Fleetwood and the Mac along with him. In the years following, they picked up two more guitarists, a #1 UK hit, a sound that expanded outside of the blues, and a growing audience at home and abroad. And then, everything went mad, as the magic briefly turned tragic.

In 1970, after a bad acid trip while on tour in Germany, Peter Green quit the band and (akin to Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd) was never quite the same again. In 1971, while on tour in Los Angeles, guitarist Jeremy Spencer said he was going out to get a magazine and then never returned. They tracked him down days later only to discover he’d joined a religious cult called The Children Of God. (How do we lose the next one, Shakespeare? Exit, pursued by a bear?) Over the next few years, the band hired a handful of new members, sold a solid but unspectacular amount of records, had to replace some of those new members (one of whom had an affair with Mick Fleetwood’s wife — exit, pursued by a drummer), and temporarily broke up in Nebraska in 1973.

1974 continued the downward trend until Fleetwood, hanging out at a Los Angeles recording studio, heard a track from a young couple’s commercial failure of a debut album. Blown away by what he heard, he phoned the hotshot guitarist and asked him to join the band. Lindsey Buckingham agreed, but only on the condition that his girlfriend join, too. Enter Stevie Nicks, and the classic lineup locked into place.

Millions of albums, oodles of hits, and scads of divorces later, Fleetwood Mac stands in the rock & roll pantheon. Not many bands have their own sound — “Oh, that new song totally has a Fleetwood Mac vibe” — and you know exactly what that means. And it all started with a little blues band and a break up.

So open your eyes and look at the day — you’ll see things in a different way. Here’s the least you need to know:

Greatest Hits (1971) If you can find it, this serves as the perfect compilation of early Fleetwood Mac. Their best songs were primarily non-album singles, and they’re all here, including the last track Peter Green recorded with the band after his acid meltdown: “The Green Manalishi (With The Two Prong Crown).” Also, it’s useful to know that Green wrote “Black Magic Woman,” not Carlos Santana.

Greatest Hits (1988) Other than The Eagles, these are the most inescapable hits — and rightly so — of the last 50 years.

Fleetwood Mac (1975) New singers, new sound, new home. Now we’re an American band, straight outta Los Angeles. The blueprint for world domination.

Rumours (1977) The band, the myth, the legend. 20x Platinum. Tension leads to invention as some dreams shatter while others become reality. But you can never break the chain. . . . right?