Music · Born 1947
His parents trusted the work he chose for himself
Mick Fleetwood
The story
Mick Fleetwood was overwhelmed by school, could not turn what he understood in conversation into written work, and left at fifteen. He had never played in a band. The one sustained piece of evidence in his favor was the drumming he had taught himself at home.
School gave Mick Fleetwood little evidence that he could build a capable adult life. His father’s Royal Air Force postings had taken the family through Norway, Egypt, and England; in English boarding schools, Fleetwood struggled to put ideas on paper and fell far behind academically. The learning disability he later identified as dyslexia was not understood at the time. He loved discussion, drama, and rhythm. On school measures, he remembers having no academic worth at all.
His parents did not pretend the grades were good, but they refused to let the grades define him at home. Fleetwood says they never made him feel lesser. They had also been watching a different kind of work for years: the boy tapping on furniture while his mother listened to the radio, collecting drum catalogues at boarding school, and teaching himself to play along with records on a small kit. It was not a passing wish delivered after one bad term. It was the one pursuit he returned to without being chased.
When his father asked whether he wanted to continue to college, Fleetwood understood that money was tight but would somehow be made available. He answered that he wanted to go to London and play drums. His parents listened to the answer. At fifteen, they let him leave school and sent him off with their blessing, his modest kit wrapped in a blanket. He stayed with his older sister in London, so the experiment began from a family home rather than a room he had to find alone.
Fleetwood arrived without a record of conventional success or experience in a band. Peter Bardens heard him playing in his sister’s garage and offered his first opening. Fleetwood moved through early groups, met guitarist Peter Green, and in 1967 co-founded Fleetwood Mac with Green and bassist John McVie.
The drummer who had looked unusable on paper became the steady namesake of a band that survived repeated changes in sound and membership. Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours won the Grammy for album of the year, and Fleetwood’s career has stretched across more than five decades. Leaving school at fifteen is not a general prescription, and family support could not guarantee what followed. His parents based a difficult decision on a long record of chosen practice, then put practical support behind the next test: the kit, their permission, and a family address in the city where he could begin.
“I certainly never felt less-than, because I was never made to feel like that by my father and my mother.”— Mick Fleetwood, recalling his childhood in Classic Rock
Sources
- Mick Fleetwood’s first-person account of school, drumming, and his parents on Here’s the Thing
- Classic Rock interview with Fleetwood on dyslexia, school, and his parents’ support
- Associated Press interview on his academic struggle and move to London
- The Irish Times on Fleetwood’s upbringing, his father’s encouragement, and leaving school
- The Recording Academy’s career history for Mick Fleetwood