It’s February ‘71, Fleetwood Mac are touring the southwest US, and co-founding guitarist Jeremy Spencer has gone out for a magazine. He will not return — to the band at all, but initially not even to anywhere he could be located. Eventually it’s discovered that he’s joined the SoCal Christian cult the Children of God, now known as the Family.
Peter Green graciously rejoins to finish the final weeks of the jaunt, but when the remainder returns to their countryside estate, Benifold, they’re down to a power trio. Which leads to two developments that permanently and (eventually) successfully alter the course of Fleetwood Mac’s evolution.
1. Christine Perfect, now using her married surname McVie, is made an official member after three years of fleshing out the band’s sound from the periphery.
2. Unknown singer-songwriter Bob Welch, an American living in Paris, is hired to round out the lineup based solely on a demo tape of his songs.
Fortunately his spacier style jelled quite well with Danny Kirwan’s increasingly progressive/expansive approach — and as the coming years of recordings attest, Christine McVie simply makes everything better, musically and emotionally and otherwise. ‘[She] became the glue,’ Mick Fleetwood later explained. ‘She filled out our sound beautifully.’
Future Games, from September ‘71, contains the first fruits of this new union, a re-launch as crucial to the through-line consistency of Fleetwood Mac as the fracturing finality of Then Play On. It’s a diplomatically divided disc: three cuts from Kirwan, two apiece from McVie and Welch, plus a filler jam notable only because it features Christine’s brother David Perfect on sax.
The results are at times more Pink Floydian and Yes-ish than you might remember or expect, Welch’s title cut especially. But they also form a sturdy foundation for the empire-building (and -wrecking) to come this decade.
Christine’s two tunes are the most enduring standouts.
‘Morning Rain’ moves like ‘Rihannon’ will six years on, McVie’s husky soulfulness for the first time properly multitracked into a deep bed of lushness. ‘Show Me a Smile,’ meanwhile, is the best mother/son song you’ve never heard.
Other notes:
1. Only the earliest copies of Future Games were yellow with reddish-pink lettering, as you see here, although this is not an original copy. After that initial run, mostly in the UK and US, the artwork was changed to a green background. This copy, from the 4LP box set Fleetwood Mac: 1969 to 1972, reproduces the original look.
2. Notice the penguin on the back cover. This will become an iconic Fleetwood Mac image — dare I say mascot? — going forward.
3. Kirwan’s and Welch’s pieces are really strong as well, although the Moses chatter of ‘Lay It All Down’ isn’t half as compelling as, oh, Elton’s ‘Border Song.’ Collectively with Christine’s tunes, it’s a remarkably solid listen that cleanly breaks with the previous Fleetwood Mac and already sounds almost fully formed. The group’s identity may have been fragmented and in flux, but its music sure wasn’t.