So … obviously I’m not getting through this chronological Christine McVie deep-dive quickly enough to spend Sunday pontificating about an album that really requires no further pontification anyway: Rumours.
Cute how I thought I’d blast through seven posts in three days. Just my ambition runnin’ away with me. The pace will be what it will, the better to give her career proper consideration.
When last we heard, she had left her blues band Chicken Shack and married Fleetwood Mac bassist John McVie, although she hadn’t yet taken his name professionally. Thus, as 1970 ends, we find Christine Perfect persuaded into recording her same-named debut for Blue Horizon, the label and agency that then managed both the Mac and the Shack.
It’s been a mere three months since the release of the ramshackle Kiln House, to which she contributed while cutting her own tracks. So it’s hardly surprising that most of her material from this period would have slotted very smoothly next to Danny Kirwan’s pieces on that collection.
Makes me wish for one of those ‘alternate’ versions like they did for Tusk and Mirage. I can envision a much improved Kiln House that trades at least two (I’d ask for three) Jeremy Spencer ditties for better gems from Ms. Perfect.
Take your pick from at least a half-dozen standouts on her solo disc: the horn-dipped groover ‘No Road Is the Right Road,’ an even better jam called ‘Close to Me’ that hints at the feel she’d conjure on hits half a decade later, or the more Nick Drake-ish lovers lament ‘Wait and See’ — to say nothing of her best moment here, ‘I’m on My Way,’ a simmering, slow-waltzing blues in which Christine’s a creamy-smooth yet no-less-soulful yin to Janis Joplin’s raspier hollerin’ yang.
Meanwhile, the self-penned compositions reveal that romantic trappings and tribulations always were the cornerstones of her artistry. Oh wait, did I mention the one that sounds like a second cousin to Dusty’s ‘Son of a Preacher Man’? No?
It’s a cover of a Chuck Jackson tune called ‘And That’s Saying a Lot.’ Look it up. Good stuff.
Bet you hear what I hear: No wonder they wanted her.
No wonder she’d become the new soul of the group.
Two other notes:
1) When Fleetwood Mac finally went platinum in the mid-‘70s, Sire Records re-released this in ‘76 as The Legendary Christine Perfect Album. Wow … just six years later and it was already legendary, eh?
2) Full disclosure, because until now I hadn’t faked it: This is not in fact my vinyl copy, this is a picture of the Music on Vinyl reissue from last year. Still need to get my hands on that. Anyway, I didn’t want to skip this album just because I don’t own it.