Fleetwood Mac

Fleetwood Mac's 1969 jam sessions at legendary Chess Recording Studios have been reissued in too many configurations to count. But outside the Blue Horizon box set, In Chicago is the only release to collect all of them. Compared to their official studio albums, the Mac sound a little in awe of rocking out with heroes like Willie Dixon and Otis Spann; Jeremy Spencer tones down his Elmore James shtick. Then again, guitar genius Peter Green could hold his own on both sides of the pond.

Why is this Fleetwood Mac album different from all other Fleetwood Mac albums? The answer is supergroup fragmentation in reverse: the addition of two singer-songwriters who as Buckingham Nicks were good enough--or so somebody thought--to do their own LP for Polydor a while back. And so, after five years of struggling for a consistency that became their hobgoblin, they make it sound easy. In fact, they come up with this year's easy listening classic. Roll on. (Grade: A-)