"The Feminine Touch"
 

Saw this recent article in the Stevie forum:

[Nicks] attributes the group’s endurance to two things. One is the primacy of the work . . . The other thing, for want of a better term, was the feminine touch. She and Christine McVie brought a gender balance uncommon in major rock bands at the time. They were also major players because they wrote songs as well as performed them. If they clubbed together, they could exercise a veto over the rest of the band, and they did, frequently. “We became the mums,” they said. “There were times when we literally said, ‘OK, we’re going to have to fix this situation’. We did it many times. What can I say? Women are the caretakers. We can see a mess coming before they (the men) can.”

The Independent

http://www.thestatesman.net/page.new...ss=1&id=182190

Yet again, Stevie goes on record to say how valuable Chris's presence was to her in the band.

Having women in the band, one of whom was also a musician made Fleetwood Mac unique & different from any other band at the time. And the fact that Chris & Stevie were complete opposites in personality made it work even better.

Once again, it's nice to see Stevie give Christine her due.:thumbsup:

Except why does Stevie never frame her views on the band in musical terms? She doesn't say "Chris brought such & such to the band's sound." Even about her own music, Stevie frames all discussion in terms of the social (including the romantic) back & forth. I'm dying to hear Stevie talk more about music qua music, whether her own or Fleetwood Mac's. But I have a feeling that she never will.

Is she just totally intuitive when it comes to the mechanics of music? Does she have no conscious opinions she can share about those mechanics?

That wasn't Christine's primary importance to Fleetwood Mac -- that she was a caregiver & a problem-solver. That's of secondary importance. Christine's primary importance was as a singer, songwriter & musician.

Stevie rarely talks in musical terms. Although it's funny, you can tell she really writes from her insides.... rather than... hmmm I think I'll make this 3/4 with a 16 measure A section, a 4 measure bridge, an 8 measure B section, then a coda....

I think she just sits in a closet and sings a melody, records the melody on a tape recorder and then puts words to it.... and says... Waddy, Lindsey Christine... make this work... she probably directs the instrumentalists very little as they arrange...

and quite honestly, Mick is going to push out a pop beat.... John is going to find a groove with Christine and Lindsey will do his spastic meaderings and walla!!! a number one hit!!! Dreams!!!! :D

Maybe that's because Stevie isn't a musician, unlike the other four.

I know what you mean, MacFan: Stevie is barely proficient at piano and, I think, guitar.

However, I remember one of my composer friends who doesn't play any instrument well getting really pissed when people challenged his being a musician. Apparently, "musician" includes singers and songwriters, or anyone else who "makes" music in some way.

Who knew?

I agree. Christine's musical importance to the band has been underplayed over the years. It's funny how sometimes you only know how important something is when it's gone.

Fleetwood Mac were unique, though, in having 2 women in the band who wrote songs and in Christine's case played an instrument.

Gail

That's true. And neither of the women were traditional sex symbols. Stevie was a sex and fashion icon in the 70s, but not in the way most women were: she rarely wrote directly about men, and unlike Linda Rondstant and countless other women, she added layers of clothing to her ensemble instead of showing a lot of skin.

As far as Christine is concerned, she's like no one else in rock that I know of. Her lyrics and melodies are standard "I love you" fare, but her voice is truly unique. And her playing is so rooted through the rhythm section that it vibrates from the bottom up instead of flashing all over the surface. And she is, while striking and beautiful, not "pretty" at all. I have a picture of her in profile in one of my rooms at home: a friend saw it once and said "a woman with a nose like that could never be called pretty; she's more likely to break the backs of cows over her knee."

and sang melodies, harmonies, played a chair, ac guitar, maracas, snare drum... accompanied Stevie on Rhiannon, did Songbird solo... etc etc

major major player

I think it's safe to say that Christine was more proficient at playing a larger variety of instruments than Lindsey ever was, which is something a lot of people tend to ignore. Then again, it's kind of hard to bunny hop across the stage with a Hammond organ while pretending to hump it. :rolleyes:

I don't agree. Lindsey has performed on keyboards, guitars, banjos, drums, bass guitars, & complex sampling synthesizers -- & Lord knows what else -- on his albums. I'd have to give the edge to Lindsey as the master of the most instruments. Chris is essentially a keyboardist & only dabbles with a few other instruments (& typically not in the studio). Lindsey is in the Todd Rundgren mold: plays everything on his solo albums (or used to).

By the way, his piano playing is quite good, for what it is. Check out the work on "September Song" on Law & Order. Obviously, it's meant to sound tacky & toy-pianoish, but the arpeggios are solidly played & even contain some double-time work & show-offy cadenzas. Christine could do it half-asleep, but still it's light years ahead of any piano work Stevie has ever recorded.

The only thing I can thibnk of is when she said that she wanted to create a solo sound that would be like a female version of the Commodores, calling back and forth with her back-up singers. (Always reminds me of All the Beautiful Worlds.) But you're right, I can't think of anything she says about the mechanics.

- Jake

Fleetwood Mac had two female songwriter/musicians. One of these two was also an instrumentalist (someone who plays an instrument, as opposed to a musician, which also includes singers). However, it's not true that this was unique. There were numerous all-women bands, including for example the Go-Gos, the Bangles and the Runaways, who had several female songwriters and instrumentalists.

But those bands were entirely comprised of women. What made Fleetwood Mac different is that they had these two women songwriters/musicians in a mixed-gender group. This configuration is extraordinarily rare in the history of rock music. Heart is probably the only other instance of more than one woman musician in a famous mixed-gender group. But Christine was playing an instrument, singing, and writing her own songs years before Heart ever recorded an album. She is the true pioneer of women having an equal role as a singer/songwriter/instrumentalist in a mixed-gender band.

what's funny is that christine plays the hand percussion instruments so much better than stevie... i dont think stevie counts... just feels

Chris is pretty darn good on maracas, definitely. On Monday Morning on the Tusk Tour, she played the maracas with one hand & the organ with the other. It might not sound like much ... until you actually try doing it yourself! They're two different actions involved & they're both hard to synchronize. I've done it in performance. You wind up applying the maraca action to the keyboard & the keyboard action to the maracas. :lol::eek::shocked:

Stevie's tambourine work is purely for show. (In fact, I've always believed that it was Mick playing the tambourine part on studio work like Go Your Own Way & Storms.) But I will say she's solid on the güiro on that filmed soundstage performance of You Make Loving Fun. That's not a particularly easy action to keep on beat.