Just when I thought I was back on track with my deep dive into Christine McVie’s lengthy discography we got smacked twice with miserable attention-diverting news: first Jeff Beck departed, then David Crosby.
So, again … where were we?
Ah, yes: late ‘73, in full fracturing transition.
Mystery to Me, the eighth album from the eighth (or ninth?) iteration of Fleetwood Mac, drops in mid-October, but emotional hazards abound.
The McVies’ marriage is buckling under pressure from constant collaboration, aggravated by John’s alcoholism. Meanwhile, guitarist Bob Weston, held over from previous LP Penguin, has secretly been playing slap ‘n’ tickle with Mick Fleetwood’s wife Jenny Boyd (sister of Patti Boyd, then still married to George Harrison). Mick is devastated, Weston is fired, and a months-long tour ends only two weeks in, days after Mystery had been revealed, with 26 more gigs to go.
The band effectively splits up, if very temporarily — yet it’s long enough for manager Clifford Davis (insisting he owns the FM name) to enlist stand-ins for an ill-advised fake-out tour in early ‘74 that unsurprisingly backfires.
All that obscures what’s actually one of the better efforts from this phase in their history, albeit with one of the dopiest covers. (Am I the only one who sees that creamy-lipped creature wearing bikini bottoms?)
Mrs. McVie and majority composer Bob Welch are consistently strong here. The latter unveils two more signature songs, the smoldering romance of ‘Emerald Eyes’ and the seductive groove ‘Hypnotized.’ Indeed, he has so many solid ones to offer that he turns the mic over to Christine for the almost-disco deep cut ‘Keep on Going,’ because she sings it better.
Her material is equally outstanding, further layering and (bitter)sweetening her yearningly infectious soft-rock-with-bite. ‘Believe Me’ boogies to a beautiful Beatles-esque finish, but not before Chris has lobbed several hand-grenade questions about the state of her love life. She does likewise amid ‘Just Crazy Love,’ scattering her deceptively happy garden with still-trapped seeds that eventually will blossom into the delicious duplicity of ‘You Make Loving Fun.’
Also, have I mentioned how absurdly great her piano playing is? Without her delicately soulful feel, the music would be empty. Within this Mystery she also snags her first nearly solo spotlight, ‘The Way I Feel,’ which I hear as undeniably influenced by Tapestry.
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Her output might not have matched the same level as Carole King’s or Laura Nyro’s or Roberta Flack’s or Joni Mitchell’s at the time, but she was still making equally vital strides for women in a brutal man’s game with material that measures up a half-century later.
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And all this with the arrival of Heart’s Wilson sisters still a year away.
What a trailblazer.
One other point: The inclusion of an inconsequential cover of the Yardbirds’s ‘For Your Love’ is a complete misfire. Not because it’s altogether bad; it isn’t at all. But why have chosen something so rote to replace a much better Welch composition, ‘Good Things (Come to Those Who Wait)’? As if somehow attempting to live up to its title, that stray was finally released in 2020 as the B-side of a bonus 7-inch included in the vinyl box set 1973-1974. It also can be heard via YouTube, so you can slot it into the running order yourself — and discover that it’s a much better fit. Would’ve been among the finest tracks on Mystery to Me. No wonder Welch revived it for his 1979 album Three Hearts.