Christine's playing on the early-early-early stuff
 

Is there a list anywhere of which songs Christine played or sang on before she officially joined the band (meaning up through the 'Kiln House' LP)? When I listen to those early records I like to know if I'm listening to Christine, or Jeremy (or someone else) on keyboards. I can easily hear her vocals in a couple of places on 'Kiln House,' but what about other early albums? Did she sing on any of the others?

According to the liner notes from the Blue Horizon box set:

Need Your Love So Bad-Chris played organ. She also played piano on several early takes.

Mr. Wonderful album-Chris played piano on Stop Messin' Round, Rollin' Man, Love That Burns, If You Be My Baby & Lazy Poker Blues.

Worried Dream from The Original Fleetwood Mac album-Chris played piano.




Chris has said that she contributed backing vocals to "When You Say" from Then Play On. I can't really hear her. To my ears, it just sounds like Danny Kirwan harmonizing with himself on that track.

As far as I can recall, she played most, if not all, of the piano on the Mr. Wonderful album (and therefore, the identical tracks that were on the English Rose album). I don't recall hearing her voice on any of the tunes prior to the Kiln House album.

EDIT: Dang! Beaten to the punch by 60 seconds!!

LOL! You two are too much. I actually expected to get replies from one or maybe both of you but not within one minute of each other.

I will listen to the above tracks with a new ear for Chris' playing. And I will also listen to "When You Say" to see if I can hear what sounds like Chris' voice, and I will get back to you on that, MacFan.

Anyone else? Can you hear Chris' voice on that song, or does it just sound like Danny?

Mike Vernon claims that on Mr. Wonderful she played piano on all the Peter Green tunes while Jeremy played the piano on all of his songs.

Does she play the piano on Coming Your Way?

I would guess that would have been Jeremy on CYW. Chris has talked only about contributing vocals to the album. And, Jeremy has said that the piano part on "Oh Well" was him, not Chris.

Peter has said that the only thing Jeremy did on Then Play On was piano on Oh Well.. which suggests the piano on Coming Your Way might be Chris. Also I'm 99% sure that the vocals on When You Say are all Danny.

Peter always said that Jeremy didn't want to help with his songs, so I always assumed that the piano on Peter's songs was Chris. I suspect Jeremy always played on his own songs.

I'm not sure who plays throughout Kiln House though.. Earl Gray for example.. :shrug:

That's Jeremy on "Earl Gray". He said so in that Madison Blues DVD interview.

Ahhhh.. I knew I should've watched that more than once :o Thanks :)

I pulled out my copy of 'Then Play On' and listened to "When You Say."

First of all -- this is off topic, but man, what a great album. Peter and Danny together were just magic. Everything from the hard-driving instrumentals to the softer Danny tunes work so well, and it has the kind of wonderful balance between contrasting elements that became Fleetwood Mac's enduring trademark through all of their personnel changes.

That being said, I can't hear Christine's voice on "When You Say." It's just barely possible that she is singing along very faintly in unison in the background in some of the verses but I don't think so, and I'm very sure the "la-la-la" sections are all Danny. By the way, I think those la-la-la's are beautifully arranged. I think maybe I have to go start a Danny appreciation thread on the pre-Rumours board.

It's interesting to note that there is very little keyboard on this album. Jeremy is hardly on this album at all, which leaves his keyboard playing out (except for the bit in "Oh Well"). Why Chris' keyboard playing was not utilized more during this record I do not know .... was she busy with other music at the time and not available, or did the band just feel like making a guitar album? It probably has less keyboard than any other FM album, at least during the early days.

Chris has said that she contributed backing vocals to this album. Maybe she did some backing vocals but they were never used. That's the only reason I can think of why she would say that, unless she just forgot what she did. I believe the liner notes on my CD mention that she sat in on the Then Play One sessions. I have no idea why they didn't use her, as they had done earlier the year before.

Chris DID sing "When You Say" on her solo album, so it's technically true that she did "contribute vocals" to that song, but it's unlikely that she would forget that she didn't sing on the Fleetwood Mac version of the song. Without seeing the original citation I can't really speculate on what she meant. In any case I think it's safe to say that whatever contributions she made to this album, if any, were not used, and we'll probably never know more about it. I'll settle for the idea that Peter and Danny were striving for a more guitar-oriented sound. As I said in my above post I think they worked very well together, but I do wish that there was a Fleetwood Mac album with a Peter-Danny-Christine lineup.

That was eons ago, so she might have just mixed up Then Play On with Kiln House! Sometimes artists are less than clear about the chronology of their own work.

By the way, I think most if not all the piano on Kiln House is Jeremy, Tell Me All the Things You Do might be the exception, even though Chris is not credited for it.

Danny arranged Chris's solo version of WYS, but he doesn't sing on it, it's possible she got the two versions mixed up, I guess. On a slight tangent, I don't think Peter is on the Mac version of WYS either, or John and Mick.. it might just be Danny all on his own.

I believe any electric piano on Kiln House(Station Man & Tell Me All The Things You Do) is Chris. I'm sure Jeremy played all of the accoustic piano parts on the album.