To re-address @jldrueke’s question: Yes, I am including this one in my Christine McVie deep dive, for reasons some fans automatically know while others will learn below. That said, I’m not so sure I’d consider Bob Welch’s solo debut a truly bizarro follow-up to Rumours, as Jeremiah suggests.
I respect what he’s getting at: French Kiss arrived seven months after Fleetwood Mac’s eagerly anticipated February ‘77 confessional, and in a show of no-hard-feelings solidarity with their former frontman, much of Mac contributed conspicuous cameos to this above-average album and its lesser sequel, Three Hearts — both of which would come and go by the time the newly platinum quintet delivered Tusk in October ‘79.
How simpatico they got is nowhere more apparent than in this LP’s leadoff Top 10 smash: a smoothed-out, Rumours-y redo of ‘Sentimental Lady,’ originally from Bare Trees five years earlier. The more polished version recaptured that easygoing earworm at just the right moment — when Christine’s hauntingly lovely voice had become ubiquitous on FM radio.
With her lilting ‘all I need is you’ counterpoint heightening the chorus, surely some must have mistaken Welch’s not-so-new tune for yet another Fleetwood Mac single. Other contributing factors: Lindsey provided plenty distinctive handiwork; Mick Fleetwood, who managed Welch into the ‘80s, did likewise on drums; and Lindsey and Christine produced the remake.
But that’s about where the comparisons stop. The rest of French Kiss has more in common with ELO circa ‘77; at other times it hints at what’s to come from new-wave singer-songwriter types like Marshall Crenshaw.
McVie, however, is unmissable on two other tunes: ‘Easy to Fall,’ a truer example of the discofied power-pop dominating this record, plus the closing drift of ‘Lose Your Heart.’
She returned for Three Hearts, keyboard in tow that time, vocally anchoring a cover of the doo-wop classic ‘Come Softly to Me’ so that it plays like a duet, while also aiding Welch in refashioning a fresh take on ‘Good Things (Come to Those Who Wait),’ a leftover from Mystery to Me (‘73) renamed ‘Don’t Wait Too Long.’