Christine McVie biography!!!
 

Let's hope it's true!!!!
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Perfect-Int...w43DAAhK-sIXHI

Let’s hope it isn’t half-assed with loads of quotes from Stevie about pacts and the like. It better be balanced and accurate. Wonder if the Martin Birch affair will be mentioned.

It's probably just another pieced together bunch of sh*t that we already know.

The author is a british journalist and broadcaster who spent more than 20 years as a national newspaper journalist. I read she has toured with several stars, but it would be good if any (british) ledgie who know her comment how serious or reliable are her works.

More than the usual info about the Rumours sessions, the 70s tours, it would be could to know about her solo works, the 80s and 90s, etc.

I think after chris passed away this woman wrote a brief article about her relationship with her...they were friends but i don't know how close.

--Lis

Definitely going to check it out. Here’s an interview from just after Christine passed.

https://www.express.co.uk/entertainm...sley-ann-jones

I imagine it would be an entertaining read, but not sure what to expect in terms of accuracy when she's reporting here that one of Chris' tracks on Rumours was Say You Love Me.

Exactly. There's so much junk "journalism" out there. I was initially "so excited", but it's probably just more crap, strewn together.

Ugh—I hate that. Simple fact checking is just that: simple fact checking. Geesh.

So, I’ve read a few of the journalist’s pieces. She tends to position herself prominently in the work and there is a kind “I’m friends with rock stars” vibe. Still, the point of view she offers, from a social/on-the-scene participant perspective, is interesting. It’s just not likely to be a definitive biography.

Well, irrespective of how accurate and revealing it will be….the fact that it’s coming out is a brilliant thing. Can’t wait…..yippee…..summer reading 😊

It was pretty glaring.

I get what folks are saying, but here’s my thought- do I want to read a book about Christine by someone who’d never even met her, but knows the order of all of songs on her solo and FM albums, or by someone who knew her, and may have access to other folks who knew her?

I know which albums her songs are on, so I don’t need a book to tell me that. Hopefully this writer will be able to tell us things we haven’t heard a million times before.

I would choose someone who knew her, or have access to other folks who knew her. But on second thoughts I have read interesting bios about Napoleon, Oscar Wilde or Beethoven. So it may be worth it though the margin of error exists. I know that there are historians who strongly disagree with the image we have of Nero. Ergo in any case we can only doubt about some facts in the book.


That would be my interest too. Anyway I will wait for comments about the book when ledgies who read it share it with us.

I would want someone that proofread their work. Especially, if they didn't know her or have access to her.

If it had been a small mix-up of which track was on an early 70s album and which was on Chicken Shack or something, maybe I'd have let it slide (for an article, anyway... not for a biography). But... Rumours? I mean, come on.


Other than the personal anecdotes of interactions at parties etc. (the veracity of which we have to take on trust, especially regarding what people actually said), the filler about which songs were on which albums and all the other publicly available information could readily be assembled using AI. In fact, I had a go using ChatGPT 3.5. Please send a check to DownOnRodeo for a copy of the full book!

Homer will send you $$. He's rich.

Exactly. It’s not an either or issue.

Bob Brunning’s book offered some “unofficial” info that was great, but the inaccuracies on simple, easily-verified info was unforgivable.

"Songbird Chronicles: A Harmony of Life with Christine McVie"

After reading that quote, Lesley-Ann Jones contains episodes like does, it does make me look forward to reading that book. Those mentioned anecdotes sound funny, if not interesting too.

Slight mistakes or inaccuracies may be accepted, or perhaps we will never realize them. Like for example supposedly she played Sugar Daddy instead of Brown Eyes, that something we would even never know. But confusing albums, that would be serious.

And the pictures that book will contain :cool: .

However I doubt about how friends they were. If the book title says intimate, it hints they were close friends. However Mick's first book doesn't mention Lesley, as it does mention Robin Anderson for example.

I will send them my most prized possession.

My $tevie Nicks dart board! (I'm keeping the $tevie voodoo dolls).



:p

Over My Head….no idea what to believe now. A few years ago, the story was it was about Lindsey. Never did believe that BS.

That BBC thing was the only time I ever heard her say that old song was about Lindsey. It seemed a little odd to suddenly reach that conclusion. seems more likely to be about the stress and circus wheel of living with an alcoholic... jmho.

--Lis

Yeah, I never bought that story. I mean it’s possible but I would believe it has more to do with John.

I agree. The "it's about Lindsey" would make more sense if Over My Head was written during Tusk or later album, cause he loose patience more often with the band during recording sessions, or so I read.

She also said it in 2013 ish right before she came back. I sort of believe that she was afraid to say it during their "heyday" Especially, after World Turning.

Didn’t know she said it in 2013-ish, too. Interesting. I still don’t buy it. But interesting.

Agree to disagree... The 2013 or 2014 interview where I'm claiming she said it was when they did the 5 of them on BBC. Separate interviews (obviously) and strung together. I think it's around the time Stevie was in Paris.

I hadn't heard that she said it 2013ish either. But if she wrote the song in early 1975, how well could she have even *known* LB by that point? Was his icy/ moody brilliance that evident early on when he and stevie had first joined the band?

I guess it's possible. just seems a bit unlikely. To me, his moods and intensity seem more likely to have made an imprint on her as more time went by and she had more opportunities to see it/deal with it firsthand.

--Lis

I'm going to go find it. It was right before the 2014 tour. :woohoo:

My theory to reconcile the two narratives is that the negative parts ("wasting my time") were primarily about (alcoholic) John, while the positive parts ("sure feels nice") were about this handsome and creative new man who had just joined her band. But considering how many countless hours of studio time Chris must have shared with Lindsey the brooding perfectionist, I don't see it taking long for the song to start applying wholly to Lindsey in Chris' mind.

eh, I choose to believe the words we heard come straight out of the songwriter's mouth than some secondhand claim by an unknown journo.:shrug:

If there were conflicts between Lindsey and Christine during 1975 recording sessions, probably it wasn't big deal. Or were overshadowed by those between John and Lindsey; those differences were mentioned in the Classic Albums Making of Rumours video, but more detailed in Mick's first book, all about J&L, but nothing between L&C:

And all did not go smoothly in the studio. Lindsey was full of ideas about how his new band should sound. He's a record producer at heart, and felt strongly about the way the music should come across. He'd sit down at the drums and suggest rhythms and parts. "Hey Mick, try this. " But when he started doing that with John McVie, he ended up in a whole heap of trouble. John has always been a bit overprotective of his own ability and never liked suggestions. So John and Lindsey got straight to loggerheads. That was the start-off, and of course Lindsey couldn't win. (McVie is a consummate game-player, and Lindsey just didn't know. If he wants, McVie can get me on my knees, exhausted, begging for him to stop.) Bloody-minded, John would growl, "I'm not sitting here being told what to do by someone who's just joined the ****ing band!"
There was a pecking order, and Lindsey had to be taught some tact or McVie would attack him. John would say, "Hang on a see, you're talkie' to McVie here!"

All this, I thought, was very healthy in the long run. At one point they told each other to **** off, and that was it. After that, there was a balancing situation between their personalities. Lindsey was confronted with the fact that although he had been dominant in Buckingham Nicks, now he was in a band, one which did things by consensus. Fleetwood Mac has always been a democracy.

Well, that last sentence, I'm sure it's far from accurate. :rolleyes:

It was a democracy until $tevie became the cash cow....err, goat.

No, it happened long before. I don't think the Tusk album was a product of democracy. They granted Lindsey many of his requests in favor of not leaving the band. That is not genuine consensus nor democracy.

The result was that some of Lindsey's things were recorded in his basement at home. Some of the rhythm tracks are Lindsey banging on shoeboxes. Some of the vocals were overdubbed on his hands and knees in his bathroom. I understood what Lindsey was going through, but neither John nor Chris really appreciated this method. It was felt that this kind of segregation away from the caldron of traditional Fleetwood Mac group creativity in the studio was . . . unhealthy. Lindsey himself later speculated that he might have been selfish.

You're correct. Lindsey is what made them superstars, with his vision on Rumours. How could you let that leave?

Lindsey would be correct- it was selfish of him to record FM songs on his own. He should have made a solo record instead. But here’s the thing- the band LET Lindsey do that. They could have said no, it’s a group album so we’re going to record it as a group, but they didn’t. So if anyone was unhappy, they were just as much at fault for letting it happen.

I don't agree that it was just him. I think FM had many aspects and attributes in their music and personalities that made them become a super group.

I think with Lindsey he was the one that resisted any corporate entity taking over what they should or should not do in terms of art. I really respect him for that. As you know, the other members were more than happy to keep going down the mgmt. road of being told what to do.