Description

Herbert Worthington, a longtime collaborator of the band, took all of the photographs for Rumours, and his front cover is a staged tableau with only two of the five members in it. Stevie Nicks appears in the costume of Rhiannon, the Welsh witch she had written about on the band's previous album, while Mick Fleetwood stands with one foot raised on a stool. A crystal ball, a prop Worthington had also used on the band's 1975 self-titled album, completes the scene.

The strangest detail is Fleetwood's. Hanging between his legs are two wooden balls, part of a toilet flush chain that he had pulled from a pub lavatory early in his career and then hung from his drum kit as a good-luck charm. It became a running joke that made it onto the sleeve of one of the best-selling records ever made. Design is credited to Desmond Strobel, and the flowing calligraphy to Larry Vigon.

The theatrical, slightly mystical image is a contrast to what was going on inside the band. Rumours was made while two couples within Fleetwood Mac were breaking up, and the songs are full of those tensions. The front keeps all of that offstage; the back cover gathers portraits of the whole band. The album came out on 4 February 1977 in the US and a week later in the UK.

Credit

Cover concept and photography by Herbert Worthington; album design by Desmond Strobel; hand lettering by Larry Vigon.