Life before Mac: the very underrated blues debut from Mrs McVie
 

Christine Perfect – Christine Perfect (Reissue, 1970)

10th September 2021

Considering Christine McVie’s huge success with Fleetwood Mac, penning songs that would stay in the UK and US charts for months on end, this treasure of a debut album is curiously unknown. In 1970, Christine Perfect – the maiden name by which she was still known, at least professionally – was performing with Chicken Shack, dabbling with her husband’s band Fleetwood Mac, then led by Peter Green, and also finding time to record and release this bluesy delight on, naturally, Blue Horizon.

Christine Perfect is full of sultry brilliance. Take Crazy ’Bout You Baby, which manages to be sexy and yet also perhaps the most clipped English delivery on record. There are two strong Bobby Bland covers, of the B-side I’m On My Way, full of longing and sensual desperation, and I’m Too Far Gone (To Turn Around), which lacks the xylophone and cooing backing singers of the R&B original but again, is uniquely and charmingly delivered.

At times, McVie’s vocals are curiously detached from the music, as if she’s in the room with you, singing along to a recording of the backing. It works, though: her version of I’d Rather Go Blind doesn’t have the guts and grit of Etta James’s version from three years earlier, but it shines a whole new light on the song. Chicken Shack – bass guitarist Andy Sylvester, guitarist Stan Webb and drummer Dave Bidwell – back McVie on the latter track, which shows off their skill at sounding like they’re playing down the local pub, while also being telepathically locked in a groove. Elsewhere, Tony Joe White’s I Want You is more Thames than swamp without the lowdown dirty guitar White brought to the song. McVie shows off her keyboard skills throughout the album, though, but also stretches her voice, allowing it to soar, whisper or belt depending on what the songs need.

Danny Kirwan and John McVie turn up on Kirwan’s When You Say, a tender ballad with syrupy strings. McVie’s delivery, however, is distinctly Nico-ish, bringing an icy defiance to lines such as “When you say/That there’ll always be/You and me”. There are also a handful of original songs, from the minor-key blues of Wait And See and the funkier R&B of Close To Me. Funereal horns lift No Road Is The Right Road, while McVie really lets rip on the mutated 12-bar boogie of For You. These originals don’t have the indelible melodies of the likes of Don’t Stop or Little Lies, but they have a ragged soul that transcends the muddy production.

What a cool review! I've grown to love this album.

“No Road Is the Right Road” is my favorite. The Chris trademark style — reserved — is so much more up my alley than the belter style which alienates me. There was once a far greater American jazz and blues singer named Billie, and she kept it in reserve, too, and did all right by herself. “As if she’s in the room with you, singing along to the backing” — that’s Chris.

This article reminded me of something. In 1984 as her new solo album was breaking and her solo hit was racing up the charts, Chris bashed this album. She disliked it and hated that it was being re-released because of her current solo album. She made statements like she was embarrassed by some of the songs.
This has always been my peeve with Chris on how she bashes her solo work. She called In the Meantime somewhere in the gates of hell and she never really praised her 1984 album only calling it "pleasing to her own ears."

I want to grab her and shake her.......You are good girl. Yes you could sing good. Yes you have a knack for writing songs, and yes you can play a catchy groove. She has always been the loyal band member. But her solo work is excellent too. She is probably the only artist where I have never heard a horrible recorded song. There are a few I am not crazy about but they are never bad songs. Thats pretty rare in the music business. She knows what she is doing and it frustrates me when she constantly downplays herself.

I think if it has sold(much) better, she wouldn't have been embarrassed.

Goats can bleat all day, and people come a running.

So true!

If Stevie's feet are sometimes so far off the ground she's basically floating around in the clouds, Christine's so frustratingly grounded it's as though both legs are forever stuck fast in a Kentish peat bog, even when she's in a nationally broadcasted TV interview or on stage in a stadium.

Chris is overwhelmingly practical (i.e., self-depreciating). So is John — remember how he used to say, “I just play bass—I don’t cure cancer.” Those two are so unlike the other three drama queens.

I read this and the first thing that came to mind is- is this album being rereleased because Christine sold her catalog? Because if that’s the case, maybe we’ll see more rereleases, not just from Christine, but also Stevie and Lindsey, since they sold their catalogs as well.

Or is there no relationship between this rerelease and her sale?

Love the Christine Perfect album the best out of all her albums.
Its raw, rough and technically not the best, but that gives it a charm.
Close to Me, No Road is the Right Road, And That's Saying a Lot...such a sexy album.

The problem is Chris talks more favorably about songs and albums that are successful. I see her as not modest, so much as commercially biased. That’s disappointing because she has some great songs that are every bit as good as the “hits”. And in Stevie’s defense, no matter how predictable her set lists, she is more likely to praise her least recognizable songs than Chris is.

The first time I heard the (Legendary) Christine Perfect Album, I was startled at how immature her singing seemed when compared to her voice on HEROES and the White album. I thought: "She's not yet there."

But I heard this album BEFORE I heard any of her songs on the first two Chicken Shack albums. When I did explore them, I was startled again--this time to hear her sounding confident and fully-developed as a blues singer. "It's Okay With Me Baby" is first-rate.

Then I returned to the 1970 solo album. I realized the "problem"--if there was one--was its in-betweenness, its transitional nature. She was moving away from the blues but not yet entirely acclimated to rock/pop-rock.

But then maybe her vocals weren't the problem. Maybe I was the one with deficient ears. I had never heard someone singing in this ambiguous space between blues/pop/soul. Whatever the case, when I hear the album now, I am impressed with about half of it. Most of side 2 is excellent--and "I Want You" is all-out sexy. "No Road" holds up as one of her finest songs--both as a performance and in terms of its writing.

Where the record falls short is when she just doesn't go far enough, when her reserve comes off as bland. Case in point: comparing "Crazy 'Bout You Baby" from that record with the live-in-studio version a year later is the difference between day and night. With Mac, she sounds energized and spirited rather than listless.

That was a good post, Tony.

I guess it's pretty safe to say that ALL of Christine's singing in her time with Chicken Shack was so confident and strong that she could easily wipe the floor with ALL of Stan Webb's strange and often quite irritating voicings. Her qualities as a singer are such that she never ever needed to shout it out or indulge in debatable acrobatics - this and her appropriate piano playing are what I love the most about these early Chicken Shack releases!

Amen, brother/sister!

. . . "brother" is completely sufficient in this life. :laugh:

Didn’t know your gender! Now I know….

Well one thing could lead to another, I believe we should stay sister and brother.

Seems awfully gender specific. Just sayin'....

You, dear, will always be both brother and sister…

I really love the Christine Perfect album. Its straightforward production is far from being a defect, as some fans of the later Mac would believe, I'm sure. To my ear, the simple, mostly unadorned recording of voice, keyboards, and drums/bass/guitar accompaniment is just right.

I'm sorry that Chris herself has criticized this album, when in my opinion what she doesn't like about it is why it's so good.

I absolutely love listening to the early Christine on keyboards, up through the end of the Bob Welch era of the Mac. Her piano and organ work on the early recordings is so prominent in the mix, and such a pleasure to hear. In fact, I really dislike the way the later Mac recordings tended to mix her keyboards down to the point that they sometimes get lost in the mix.

Won't you come to play a little while....

Agreed. When you hear the early take of Sugar Daddy, the organ is tasty!! It's so mixed down in the original studio that I cringe now when I hear it.

Or that YouTube version of Rhiannon where it’s just vocals and the Fender Rhodes. You really see how much of her presence has been mixed down. So sad. On the other hand, her layers of keyboards are all over Rumours.

Could you please provide a link to that - I haven't heard this version yet (I must confess that I'm more proficient in the Peter Green years than in the later eras).

Holy crap!!! I love it! Thanks, Tony.:woohoo:

Isn’t it great! I wish there were more audio videos that isolated Christine’s keyboard parts. And whatever we think of Stevie now, her voice was once so sexy and alluring….

That's true, and it's even more true of the White Album. I think that's the reason I like the White Album the best of the latter-day Mac albums (even more than Rumours).

Her playing is special. You can't copy those sensibilities!!! Thank you, Tony.

You’re welcome. I love her playing. It has real character...she’s not an anonymous session musician.

I listened to that and GDW. Just brilliant. Are there more?

Not that I have seen/heard. Wish there were!

Wish you were here to listen with me. There's distance between us. :wavey:

But you’re on my mind. As I lay here in the darkness…

Christine is the only person who could have joined Fleetwood Mac after Peter quit.

Unlike Danny or Jeremy, she’d been the center of attention in Chicken Shack, even though it was Stan’s band. Of the first four Chicken Shack singles, three were Christine’s, while she only got two songs on the first album and four on the second. It was big enough to get her a solo stint she wishes we’d forget about.

She’d been playing on Fleetwood Mac albums since April, 1968, ten months after the band formed, and was John’s wife within a year of the band’s debut gig. Actually, they were married before Danny was officially in the band.

And, as a result, she was a massive part of their inner circle.

Jeremy and Danny strike me as having been especially fragile, and bringing in someone, i.e. Jeff Beck, wasn’t going to fly.

Adding Christine wasn’t adding someone new, but it was adding someone who they were comfortable with and who’d already dealt with the pressure if being the focal point in a band. She was exactly what they needed and the only way they could move beyond Peter Green.

Not bad, this analysis, not bad at all. I have to somewhat disagree, though, on the thesis of Christine having been "the center of attention in Chicken Shack". This is dependent on the angle from which one is looking at that band.

As I'd already pointed out, I certainly share this view in musical terms. But one mustn't forget that Stan Webb has always been a kind of eccentric and pretty egotistic character. And so he sort of "used" Christine in the band in a way, that was beneficial for himself on one hand and the musical aspects of the Shack on the other. What I mean is this: Of course he was aware of her musical potential and power and the way the band would benefit from that. That was furthermore helped by the fact of Christine being a rather attractive female band member. Nevertheless he always kept an eye on Christine not getting in the way of the "star" role he saw himself in.

Her part in 45 releases of CS - that was to CATCH the attention. On the LPs this looked quite different - Stan made sure to have the lion's share of attention there to himself. Even more so on stage.

There's a concert video of CS live in France 1968 on a double bill with "The Gun". They played a mere half hour 5-song set. Webb wouldn't let Christine be featured singing AT ALL . . . or even playing only one single solo chorus! Would you believe that?! I also remember reading a concert review once, where the author mentioned that Christine only got to sing the odd number in order to get Mr. Webb a breather for a while.

And then there's Webb's mostly dreadful guitar soloing. There's good reason for him not being mentioned in a row with the really remarkable Brit guitar heroes - because he never could compete up there with them. Instead he put on some mock virtuosity, additionally trying to mask his shortcomings with uninspired use of a wah-wah pedal and his "famous" stage antics like walking into the crowd by way of an over-dimensionally long cable - all this just to draw attention permanently on himself.

To cut a long story short: By the time Christine had earned her Melody Maker award, her stint with CS has been over since 5 months already. To the average consumer it's always been STAN WEBB's CS - only the real blues aficionados appreciated the fact that Christine was the true secret weapon, and quite rightly so . . . even more in hindsight, and certainly in a group like this here, where Christine is the topic.

^^^

Truth is, most of the bands that rode the British blues boom were sub-par. Chicken Shack was more typical than Mac. When I listen to those first two albums, it’s Christine’s voice and piano that stand out. Webb’s guitar work, while above average and compellingly frenetic, is not nearly as distinctive as Green’s or Kirwan’s. His voice and songs are unoriginal, too. The rhythm section is...passable.

Still, it’s true that Stan Webb was the main focal point on stage and on the records. Discerning ears heard Christine and celebrated her talents. I think the most remarkable thing about her work on those first two records is her ability to understand and interpret the blues through her own compositions. She could comp with the band on blues standards from Buddy Guy and Sonny Thompson, but when she assumed the lead, she did so with original material. “It’s Okay with Me Baby” is structurally very straightforward and simple, as are all her CS songs, but the limits of expression she reaches from three basic chords is remarkable.

^^^ Love all this, and may I add that her soloing skills were fantastic but also shoved under the rug in so many instances. I remember discovering these albums sometime in the 90's. She's such a great blues player who was told not to outshine the men.

I doubt she would want to outshine them. That's never been her style.

Of course she's as elegant as she is rough, but not at all my point. :p