Fleetwood Mac

Christine McVie Deep Dive: Billy Burnette’s ‘Try Me’

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We encountered this well-coiffured scion earlier in my fathoms-deep dive into the discography of the late great Christine McVie.

Billy Burnette — son of Dorsey, nephew of Johnny, heir to their rockabilly bona fides since he was a child star touring with Brenda Lee — first entered the Macverse back in ’83 as a creature in Mick Fleetwood’s Zoo. For the oft-overlooked detour ‘I’m Not Me’ (see previous post) he provided plenty of fretwork and sang four numbers: the title track, a Beach Boys obscurity, his dad’s ditty ‘Tear It Up’ and his own tune, ‘Gimme You.’

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Christine McVie Deep Dive: ‘The Many Faces Of Fleetwood Mac’

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This is an absurdly arranged bootleg compilation from 2019 that would require at least two more LPs to do justice to its misleading title. Yet it’s an almost essential addition if someone (like me) is attempting to acquire on vinyl every recording involving Christine McVie.

The problem is that most of the Many Faces presented in the set’s first half are relatively inconsequential when it comes to Fleetwood Mac’s lengthy list of lineups.

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Christine McVie Deep Dive: Self-titled solo album No. 2

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Finally, 14 years later, a second solo album!
And what can be most quickly discerned from even a cursory spin? That at this point, late January ’84, Christine McVie had become such a reliably strong songwriter that she’d fully established a signature style as recognizable as Elton John’s.

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Christine McVie Deep Dive: Mick Fleetwood’s ‘I’m Not Me’

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Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks weren’t the only ones from Fleetwood Mac to pursue solo ventures after the Tusk tour of ’79-’80 ended acrimoniously (again). The front half of the group’s namesake did likewise, releasing his noble failure The Visitor in June ’81.

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Christine McVie Deep Dive: The Alternate ‘Mirage’

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Six points about The Alternate Mirage as we continue deep diving into Christine McVie’s recorded past:

1. I know all they did was flip the back cover to the front and vice versa, but I can’t help but smile at the sight of the band’s rhythm section whenever they’re posed with their namesake moniker. It’s why I prefer the ’75 white album display over the iconic shot for the LP that followed it.

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Christine McVie Deep Dive: ‘Mirage’

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At last: a new Fleetwood Mac album!
New, that is, for this ongoing deep dive into the discography of the late great Christine McVie, following 10 posts dedicated to things she did to keep busy after the Tusk tour of ’79-’80.

That’s when we last found the most famous Mac-ateers all in the same room, sounding like cocaine as much as looking it and rapidly getting on each other’s nerves (again). A healthy break was needed — and maybe should have lasted longer?

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Christine McVie Deep Dive: Bob Welch’s ‘Live from the Roxy’

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There was a time, so soon after their ascendency to superstar status, when the most enduring incarnation of Fleetwood Mac was on such good terms with former frontman Bob Welch that it remains baffling why he was left out of their Hall of Fame induction and acrimony ensured for decades.

Ok, yes, the fact that he sued them in ’94 for unpaid royalties probably had lots to do with that snub. Rewind to November 1981, however, when this star-studded set was captured at West Hollywood’s world-famous Roxy Theatre, and you’ll find they were rarely chummier.

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Christine McVie Deep Dive: Lindsey Buckingham’s ‘Law and Order’

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The keen eyes and ears of @all.the.records summed up this phase of my already-leagues-deep dive into Christine McVie’s discography in a comment on the previous installment in this series: ‘The takeaway I’m getting from these most recent … posts is the members [of Fleetwood Mac] worked on a lot of songs or records during some downtime in FM in the early ‘80s.’

I’d go a step further, actually: non-Mac downtime work became the band’s new standard operating procedure post-Tusk.

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Christine McVie Deep Dive: Robbie Patton’s ‘Distant Shores’

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Time again to play the vinyl community’s fastest-growing game: Who Among Us Remembers This Guy?

Reintroducing Robbie Patton, another likable wannabe rock star who caught his big break opening for Fleetwood Mac’s troublesome tour behind Tusk — although Christine McVie, whose discography I’ve been revisiting, clearly took a shine to him more brightly than she did the focus of our previous post in this deep dive, Danny Douma.

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Christine McVie Deep Dive: Danny Douma’s ‘Night Eyes’

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We’ve reached the point in my year-old deep dive into Christine McVie’s vast discography where we must ask, for the first of several times: Who among us remembers this guy?

If you were lucky enough to catch Fleetwood Mac during the first North American leg of their Tusk tour in late ‘79 — and you bothered arriving on time — then you probably saw a warmup set from this likable fellow, Danny Douma.

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