Unless you were born yesterday or spent the last half century in a coma, it’s likely that you’re familiar with Fleetwood Mac—or at least with its most successful albums and singles, which have been omnipresent on radio and in our culture since the mid-1970s. However, it’s also a safe bet that there’s plenty you don’t know about this band, which existed in various incarnations for more than 50 years. Its colorful history embraces lots of little-known stories and recordings, 15 lineups, and more than two dozen studio and live albums.

A fat new book, Fleetwood Mac: All the Songs, will bring you up to speed. The volume is part of a series that includes similar tomes by various authors on such acts as the Beatles, Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, David Bowie, and Bruce Springsteen. This latest volume was authored by two well-credentialed French writers, Olivier Roubin and Romuald Ollivier, who also produced 2023’s Elton John: All the Songs.

The centerpiece of the copiously illustrated new book is a chronological discussion of Fleetwood Mac’s catalog. It starts with the group’s eponymous 1968 debut, which features only two players, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, who remained in the lineup long-term. It ends with 2003’s Say You Will, the band’s 17^th and final studio album. In addition to offering an essay on each LP, the volume lists details about individual tracks, such as the composer’s name, the song’s length and personnel, the recording place and date, and the producer. It then goes on to discuss the tune’s genesis, lyrics, and production. Even outtakes are covered.

Sprinkled throughout the five-pound, 608-page book are assorted other essays with titles like “The Roots of Fleetwood Mac” and “The Death of Peter Green,” as well as many boxed bits of sometimes noteworthy, sometimes inconsequential trivia. We learn, for example, that the Flying Burrito Brothers’ Sneaky Pete Kleinow contributed to a song on Heroes Are Hard to Find; that “Warm Ways” was issued as a single only in the UK because the group’s record label believed “Over My Head” was a better fit for the American market; and that live versions of “Sisters of the Moon” stretched to an average of eight minutes on the Mirage tour. Also, the title “Gold Dust Woman” is believed to be derived from Gold Dust Lane, a street in Wickenburg, Arizona, where the group’s Stevie Nicks lived as a child.

The book doesn’t quite live up to its subtitle, “The Story Behind Every Track.” Songs that appeared only on live albums aren’t considered, though the volume does include a discography that lists them. Moreover, discussion of 1969’s terrific Blues Jam in Chicago is limited to the band originals it contains; for some reason, there are no sections on the album’s many noteworthy cover versions, although the authors do discuss readings on other Fleetwood Mac LPs of tunes like Bob Nolan’s “Cool Water” and Fats Domino’s “Blue Monday.”

However, this is a quibble about an authoritatively written, in-depth look at the super group’s catalog. In fact, it’s probably too in-depth for casual listeners. But rabid fans will eat it up and learn plenty in the process.

Noteworthy New Albums

Joe “King” Oliver, A Career Anthology 1923–31. Louis Armstrong, arguably the greatest jazz musician of the last century, influenced countless other artists. But who influenced Armstrong? The best answer is the innovative cornet and sometime-trumpet player Joe “King” Oliver, whom Armstrong once called “the first big musician in my life and still…the best I ever met.”

The Louisiana native, who wrote much of his material, was at his peak during the period covered by this five-disc, 126-song anthology, which comes with a 32-page booklet and delivers more than six hours of music. The sound quality is excellent, especially considering that the recordings are all approximately a hundred years old. Performances by Oliver’s own bands (including some with Armstrong) predominate, but the multi-label anthology also embraces his work with such other artists as blues singers Sippie Wallace and Victoria Spivey.

The Wildwoods, Dear Meadowlark. This is the fourth full-length studio album from the Wildwoods, a largely acoustic folk outfit consisting of guitarist Noah Gose; his wife, violinist Chloe Gose; and their friend, upright bassist Andrew Vaggalis. All of them sing, and their three-part harmonies will put a smile on your face. The group—backed here by a percussionist, a cellist, and an organ and steel guitar player—cite such influences as Gillian Welch, Sierra Ferrell, and Nickel Creek. You might also be reminded of 1960s British folk outfits like Fairport Convention and Dando Shaft.

“The main lyrical theme of the album is the appreciation for our home state of Nebraska and the homesickness that can come with long periods spent on the road,” says Noah Gose, who wrote all the music and lyrics. The album opens with the exquisite a cappella “Meadowlark,” after which we’re treated to such lilting, strings-spiced numbers as “Sweet Niobrara,” “Dear Stranger,” and “I’m in Sandusky.”

Jim Wurster, Transcendental Inclinations. Florida-based rock and Americana singer/songwriter Jim Wurster has popped up in recent years on a couple of multi-artist anthologies, and in 2023, he issued a three-song EP. However, the consistently impressive Transcendental Inclinations is his first full-length studio LP since 2017’s Life. Wurster plays acoustic guitar on the album and is accompanied by a band that includes co-producers Mike Vullo and Bob Wlos on multiple instruments.

Wurster, who sometimes sounds reminiscent of Warren Zevon, wrote most of the album’s dozen songs, including “Tried and True,” where he proclaims, “I like country music that’s got a lot of soul, but not that f-ing crap that they play on your radio”; the aptly titled “Sweet Melancholy,” a duet with its co-author, Omine Eager; and the bright, fiddle-spiced title track. Wurster also serves up superlative readings of three early rock and pop classics: Buddy Holly’s “Rave On,” the Johnny Burnette Trio’s “Tear It Up,” and “Lonesome Town,” the melancholy ballad that produced a Top 10 hit for Ricky Nelson in 1958.

Mike Delevante, September Days. Mike Delevante recorded and performed in the 1990s with his brother Bob as the Delevantes. Recently, he returned to the studio to produce his debut solo album, September Days, which is characterized by exhilarating, upbeat love songs, ringing guitars, and hooks galore.

Delevante, whose work sometimes sounds redolent of Freedy Johnston, has found a sweet spot that combines the best elements of Byrds-style folk rock, Americana, and power pop. His album’s only ballads, “Sunset” and “Make Believe,” are first-rate. As for the predominant rockers and mid-tempo numbers, they’re the sort of songs that might prompt you to crank the volume high enough to generate complaints from the neighbors.

Freddie Hubbard, On Fire: Live from the Blue Morocco. Jazz trumpeter Freddie Hubbard was a star by the early sixties and at the top of his game by the latter half of that decade. By then, he’d issued a series of acclaimed solo albums and played live and in the studio with such greats as Eric Dolphy, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Ornette Coleman, and Art Blakey, whose band he joined for about five years.

This two-CD set preserves a previously unissued (and, in fact, newly unearthed) concert from 1967. Well-recorded at the Blue Morocco club in New York’s Bronx borough, the aptly named On Fire comes with extensive liner notes. It features four Hubbard originals; two standards, “Summertime” and “Bye Bye Blackbird”; and bassist Robert Cunningham’s “Echoes of Blue,” a song that would later serve as the title tune on a studio LP by the trumpeter. The tracks’ average length is just over 16 minutes.

The record, which evidences the influence of Latin music and hard bop, finds Hubbard leading his first regular band as a soloist. The ensemble includes Freddie Waits on drums, Herbie Lewis on bass, Bennie Maupin on tenor sax, and Kenny Baron on piano. All of them garner time in the spotlight, and all of them shine.