Well, as we're nit-picking, or being accurate, Time wasn't released until 10 October 1995, and the last date on the 1995 tour was on 30 August so the album wasn't out at that point. Another stroke of genius.... They only ever played Blow by Blow and Dreamin the Dream to plug the forthcoming release, as far as I can make out.

Even on the most optimistic timeframe, if a new Mac album were to be released in Autumn 2015, are they really going to immediately launch into another mammoth tour to promote it?

The point is they were playing new music. Are they doing that now? And as for whether they tour after a 2015 release, it wouldn't matter to me. I'd rather get the new music.

That was messed up by WB since they rejected the done album and had Christine come in to add some songs and have others dropped, hence the delay. What was FM going to do? Say "we're going to cancel all shows, sit at home then book new dates when the album comes out"? They were probably getting strung along by WB saying "we'll put it out soon, don't worry, keep touring".

John

Apologies for veering this off-topic but I wonder about this. I can remember Christine saying somewhere that her participation in Time was a contractual obligation. Then there's this online chat transcript from 1995 which indicates that she had been working with Mick and John maybe from 1993

Chrstine McVie Cybertalk Transcript

OnlineHost : Welcome to CYBER-TALK!
CYBER-TALK (TM) is Warner/Reprise Online's weekly interactive talk show. Each segment of CYBER-TALK (TM) features a different music persona.

OnlineHost : Christine McVie will be available to chat with fans regarding Fleetwood Mac's upcoming album, 'Time,' from Warner Bros. Records. Time will be released October 10th.


JBatman95 : Do you still interact with other members of Fleetwood Mac?

Christine: Very much so, I have not seen Stevie in a while. I have been recording with John and Mick for the last couple years, and just ran into Lindsey at a club a couple weeks ago and had a good chat.

Gre1440: Give us your perspective on this most recent
incarnation of Fleetwood Mac.

Christine: I find it a bizarre combination of people, but Mick chose Dave Mason... I don't think he is a bad guitar player, but I just don't know how he fits in with Fleetwood Mac... Great guitar player he is, he would not have been my first choice.

see

http://www.fleetwoodmac.net/fwm/inde...844&Itemid=195

This is the "contractual obligation quote in the context of a 1997 Mojo article

“It was fine,” says drummer Mick Fleetwood. The beanpole who once seriously considered giving his coke dealer a sleeve credit on Rumours ("unfortunately, he got snuffed - executed! Before the thing came out," his book wryly recalls) is talking about the last days of the Bramlett/Mason Mac. “It was an experiment in true Fleetwood Mac tradition, that me and John have always kept going. The reason Stevie and Lindsey were in Fleetwood Mac is because we kept going and didn't say, Oh, it's over now that Bob Welch has left the band. What'll we do? We haven't got a lead guitar player and a songwriter...

“It's what I've done for 30 years, so it was very normal behaviour. And we made a really good album that didn't do diddley****. We went out on the road, and we did OK. But without a hit album, and a reaffirmation with new members on radio, we didn't stand a chance. It was a good band, with the wrong damn name.”

“I was sad to see it go,” agrees grizzled penguin-lover John McVie. “But it was necessary. It started getting financially tough to run. You couldn't support yourself on the gigs; basically you were going out and playing for nothing.” And when it ended? “I said, OK, I'll sit on a boat for a while. Which I did.”

Also appearing on Time was one Christine McVie, who politely notes that her appearance, “was something that I had not volunteered to do; it was contractual. I don't like to harp on it very much, but I thought the music was starting to get a little strange, the choices a little funny. I wasn't really enjoying that particular incarnation of the band, and I left.” At that point, the former Miss Perfect's plans included moving back to England - she's had a home in Kent for five years - and pursuing the hobbies one would expect of a former member of Chicken Shack: "Painting, illustration, I'd like to write a book, I'd like to go to cooking school. I know it sounds utterly absurd, but I really love cooking and I take it very seriously.” Plus a solo album “sometime before the next millennium”.

http://www.fleetwoodmac.net/fwm/inde...616&Itemid=195

Yes, so I think Warners got legal (when they felt the original version of Time wasn't going to have that "familiar" sound) to make it sound more that way by forcing Christine to get some songs in there to make it more to what they felt the public would accept as FM (which is a shame). Don't know why they bothered since they didn't get behind it anyway.

John

Did the original track list ever leak, I don't recall reading about this?

ChiliD came across a T-shirt which had a list, not to say that's slam dunk evidence but it's the closest we've come as I recall it included The Bigger The Love which has been in discussions all along as one of the tracks that was removed to make room for a CM song. Hopefully he can enlighten us with more here soon. :) I could swear he typed it out before but after doing a search I couldn't find it, maybe it was so long ago it's been archived now and therefore not searchable or on another board?

John

Hmm! Christine was actually thinking of a solo album as early as 1995? That is a new twist (for me) on her retirement. I always assumed that when she started to back away from Fleetwood Mac, it was her intention to back away from music altogether, but this suggests that she was at least entertaining thoughts of a post-FM solo career.

Of course, she did wind up recording another solo album (In The Meantime), and its release date wasn't too far past the start of the millennium.

I wonder if she still intends to write that book.

I’m still not buying that Christine wasn’t involved from the beginning. She may have quit at some point (maybe when Richard quit the project), but, she was definitely there from the start.

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...eMacD/FM94.jpg
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...acD/Mac951.jpg

http://bla.fleetwoodmac.net/index.ph...1048&c=2<br />

(10/2/92)



http://bla.fleetwoodmac.net/index.ph...2&id=6543&c=18

(7/4/94)
(Does this sound to anybody else like Billy Burnett wasn't considered a member of the band at that point?)


--


http://bla.fleetwoodmac.net/index.ph...2&id=5943&c=18

(7/7/94)
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http://bla.fleetwoodmac.net/index.ph...v2&id=896&c=18

(7/22/94)
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http://bla.fleetwoodmac.net/index.ph...2&id=6827&c=18

(8/11/94)
--

http://bla.fleetwoodmac.net/index.ph...2&id=6541&c=18


(8/28/94)
--

http://bla.fleetwoodmac.net/index.ph...v2&id=275&c=12

8/13/95

But, there were a few songs that got cut for this album.

The point I'm trying to make, if Christine McVie ever left Fleetwood Mac during that period, it was a pretty big secret. Even to the rest of the band, apparently.

Word!!! I think that is why a lot of us don't post. One slight wrong date or time and we are done for! "Off with their heads" ;)

If the "WB getting legal" deal is right then it must've been a case of CM being there originally, then "not liking the direction" and leaving, then WB not liking the album not including her songs so they got her back to do those that were included on the album, then she was out anyway since it was known from day one she wouldn't tour with them (if she had changed her membership in 1990 to only include recording and not touring this is probably how WB was able to make her record and not tour, maybe her leaving due to the direction earlier was informal, and therefore, "secret" to the band?) so this could make sense. The quote leading us to believe Billy wasn't there makes sense as well since he did leave for a while then came back himself. However, since it's clear from the album liner notes (regardless what Billy said at the Penguin Q&A) her songs were done separate from the rest (Michael Thompson etc.) those must've been the ones done when WB made her come back otherwise the same credits as the others would've applied. It does make you wonder if she cut anything with them before she left though. Yeah, I remembered there were other tracks cut from the album other than Bigger The Love but can't remember what they were, if only we could find that T-shirt with the original album tracklisting... :)

John

I think some of us just care about what happened during that time frame is all and we're just trying to figure it out. I don't think anyone is trying to jump on anyone about anything being inaccurate. :)

John