Todd Sharp on Christine’s 1984 solo album

[dougl]

Great interview with Todd. Christine bit starts at 32:00.

https://youtu.be/uJyjIiNodmQ?si=zSt64CoR_PJG-gDd

[Macfan4life]

Thanks for posting. Todd is a great guy.
He lived the fairy tale dream we all would have fantasized about. Grew up listening to Chris, opened for Fleetwood Mac, developed a close relationship with Chris and made an album with her.

[WalkAThinLine.]

Todd Sharp also talks about his time recording The Visitor around the 17:30 mark. Great interview

[aleuzzi]

Man, what a tribute to Mick and Christine, respectively.

I loved hearing about his experiences in Ghana. And then to listen as he praised Christine’s generosity and unpretentious character. It was all so lovely. Btw: he has an impressive head of hair for a man his age.

[Street_Dreamer]

This is excellent. It's nice to get hear some new/fresh stories.

[Macfan4life]

Its incredible to think that the only song on Chris's 1984 solo album exclusively credited by her is The Smile I Live For. She co-wrote everything else even singing one of Todd's songs. She was not kidding when she wanted to make an album with someone and reluctant to do it all by herself.
Btw: I can hear some of that percussion "slickness" on songs Got A Hold On Me and The Smile I Live For. Some very nice percussion arrangements between Ferrone and Cooper on those songs.
Its interesting that Clapton got to pick the song her wanted to play on. Gosh can you imagine the demos of the tracks they did not use.
Remember that Chris also yielded the stage for Todd to perform Guitar Bug on her solo tour.

[BLY]

I love the selection of these songs from her 1984 solo outing…..I’m actually playing it as I type this post.

[Macfan4life]

To celebrate this great thread. Lets go back in a time machine and watch TV in 1984.
Here is SOLID GOLD from 1984 and Chris promoting Love Will Show Us How (co-written with Todd). I love watching these with the included commercials. Takes you back in time.

Chris is playing with Todd and Billy Burnette in this one. Eddy is even on stage with keyboards. They should have pulled this off live since they could make it sound exactly like the recording. But this is a lip sync.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OND...CCnh-QoFo9eUVw

[Penguin Emeritus]

That was a really good interview. he does have a great head of hair lol, as well as a great memory...the trip to ghana sounds so cool. very interesting stuff.

--Lis

[DownOnRodeo]

Originally Posted by dougl

Great interview with Todd. Christine bit starts at 32:00.

https://youtu.be/uJyjIiNodmQ?si=zSt64CoR_PJG-gDd

Thank you for sharing. I can see why they called it the "love album." Really a gathering of great easygoing people.

Ask Anybody is my favorite so it was great to get some anecdotes about that.

[Macfan4life]

Originally Posted by DownOnRodeo

Thank you for sharing. I can see why they called it the "love album." Really a gathering of great easygoing people.

Ask Anybody is my favorite so it was great to get some anecdotes about that.

Ask Anybody is definitely a highlight on the album. Most of Chris's songs are peppy love songs. But there are times she can really convey heartbreak and you feel it from the song. Why is the perfect example but Ask Anybody tugs on your heart a little too. Ask Anybody is really Only Over You part 2 but much darker. Instead of just proclaiming her love and how she is out of her mind to fall for Dennis, Ask Anybody is more realistic. Just how many people spoke to Chris about Dennis for her to be able to write such a heart felt song. She's not leaving the bad boy no matter what anyone says.

[WalkAThinLine.]

I found an interview from Sharp shortly after McVie's death. It's behind a paywall, but I can post the text here.

Former Cleveland guitarist Todd Sharp ‘shocked,’ ‘heartbroken’ over Christine McVie’s death

By Ed Wittenberg

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- In 1983, a dream came true for former Cleveland musician Todd Sharp when Christine McVie invited him to play lead guitar and help her write songs for a solo album she wanted to record while Fleetwood Mac was on hiatus.

“I did a double take,” Sharp said Thursday (Dec. 1) in a phone interview from his home in Nashville, Tenn. “I was like, ‘Did you mean me, actually?’

“At that point, Christine McVie could have written or recorded with anybody, and I’m certainly grateful that she invited me to do that with her. Of all the things I’ve had the opportunity to do in my career as a musician and guitar player, that’s at the top of my list.”

Sharp, who grew up in Cleveland Heights, said he was shocked and heartbroken when he learned that McVie -- the longtime co-lead vocalist, keyboard player and songwriter for Fleetwood Mac -- died Wednesday (Nov. 30) at age 79. A cause of death was not released, but McVie’s family said in a statement that she died at a hospital after “a short illness.”

“I don’t know how she died; I don’t know what happened,” Sharp said. “If she was ill, I didn’t really know about it.” Sharp added that when he heard the news, he texted his friend, Mick Fleetwood -- Fleetwood Mac’s co-founder and drummer -- and said, “I’m absolutely heartbroken.” He said Fleetwood replied, “I don’t have any words right now.” “And I said, ‘Neither do I; let’s talk when we both do,’” Sharp said.

Sharp said the last time he spoke to McVie, she told him that she had moved to a new home -- he believes in London -- and that she probably would not be touring anymore as a performer. “It sounded like she was definitely quieting things down,” he said, adding that was probably around last Christmas.

Sharp said he considered McVie a special friend and said they kept in touch over the years. “I think that there was just a real honesty about her, an undeniable honesty of who she was and the way she sang and the kind of songs she wrote,” he said. “Christine really was a love song artist. She was a very easy-going person, very easy to be with. There really just wasn’t a whole lot of bull---- about her.”

Sharp, 66, said he grew up a fan of Fleetwood Mac and had admired McVie’s work with her previous band, Chicken Shack, which formed in 1967. He said he also owned her first solo album, titled “Christine Perfect,” her maiden name before she married Fleetwood Mac bass player John McVie. “Christine had a really special quality (as a singer),” Sharp said. “The tone of her voice and phrasing were just really warm and friendly, and it was distinctive. “It was very smooth and honey coated, very mellow sounding. She had a blues singer approach, but a little more melodic.”

In addition to playing lead guitar on McVie’s second solo album, titled “Christine McVie,” released in 1984, Sharp wrote or co-wrote most of the songs on the album. Five of them were co-written with McVie, including two top-40 singles: “Got a Hold on Me” -- which peaked at No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was a No. 1 Adult Contemporary hit -- and “Love Will Show Us How.”

A third single from the album, “I’m the One,” was written by Sharp alone, but did not chart.

“The song ‘Got a Hold on Me’ was written in pieces, and it came together in probably 30 minutes,” Sharp said. “It was just like, ‘boom.’ “As soon as I heard the first verse, I was like, ‘There we go; that’s Christine McVie pure hit song stuff right there.’ That was in her wheelhouse.”

Sharp said he believes one of the reasons McVie invited him to write with her for the album was that he had recorded some demos of songs he wrote, a few of which he had played for her and she liked.“One of them was ‘I’m the One,’ and she said: ‘Can I have that song? I want to record that,’” he said. “Of course, I said, ‘yeah,’ and it’s on the album.” Two other songs that Sharp co-wrote for McVie’s album were “Who’s Dreaming This Dream,” which he wrote with Danny Douma, and “Keeping Secrets,” which he wrote with Alan Pasqua.

Sharp got to know McVie after he joined Bob Welch’s band as a guitarist in 1978. Welch was a former Fleetwood Mac member and played on five albums with McVie as a bandmate. “We toured constantly (with Welch’s band) from 1978 through about 1980, and I believe we opened for Fleetwood Mac all the stadium shows we did over those two years,” Sharp said. “So being on all those gigs together, I got to know (the members of Fleetwood Mac) a little bit.

“Danny Douma was a great friend of mine and a great songwriter. I was doing some overdubs on his records, and Fleetwood Mac was in the studio next door recording ‘Tusk.’ “Christine came in for a few nights and did overdubs, and we kind of hung out together, and that’s how I really got to know her.” Sharp said McVie was a “super-friendly, fun person” and a “very comfortable rock star.” “She’d call my wife, Angela, and say, ‘Why don’t you guys come over and have dinner?’” he said. “She was a very social person and always pretty down to earth." “She seemed to enjoy (her success) in a really healthy way, for the most part. She just was who she was; she never really tried to be somebody different.”

After Sharp toured with McVie’s band in support of the “Christine McVie” album, he said he didn’t have any more opportunities to tour with her. “This was all done during a hiatus from Fleetwood Mac,” he said. “I think Christine was like, ‘I did my solo album, and now I’m going back to Fleetwood Mac.’”

McVie released only one more solo album, “In the Meantime,” in 2004. “I was invited to maybe be a part of that (album), and for whatever reason, I wasn’t involved in it,” Sharp said.

In 1985, Sharp received a record deal from MCA Records and recorded an album released in 1986 titled “Who Am I.” He noted that McVie sang on a few tracks.

“One of the songs is a duet with her; it sort of featured her, and it’s largely unknown,” he said. “It’s really good, especially when she starts singing.” The song, written by Sharp, is titled “We Were Lonely.”

“I asked Christine if she would come in and sing on it, and she said, ‘Yeah, sure, of course,’” he said. “I mean, that was Christine; she was a generous person.” But MCA “didn’t really get behind” the album, and “We Were Lonely” was never released as a single, Sharp said. “That was really unfortunate,” he said.

Sharp, who attended Cleveland Heights High School, said he has lived in Nashville for about 25 years. Since 2016, he has owned and operated a business in Nashville, Todd Sharp Amplifiers, for which he designs amplifiers for electric guitars.

He still performs and writes music -- his last performance in Cleveland was in 2019 -- and is working on a musical project he hopes to launch in the near future. “Hopefully (it will be) a regular live show that would be either streamed or on one of the streaming networks,” he said.

Wednesday night, Sharp posted a moving tribute to McVie on Facebook, which he closed with this message for her: “Your music and voice will live on forever. I will never forget the opportunity you offered me and the confidence you instilled in me. “I will never forget your beautiful soul, your grace, friendship and generosity. I wish I could have had the chance to tell you that one more time.”

A native of the United Kingdom, McVie was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as a member of Fleetwood Mac, in 1998. She wrote and/or sang lead on many of the group’s hits, including “Over My Head,” “Say You Love Me,” “You Make Loving Fun,” “Don’t Stop,” “Hold Me,” “Everywhere” and “Little Lies.”


https://www.cleveland.com/entertainm...ies-death.html

[HomerMcvie]

That's a damned good article.
Thanks for posting it.

[Villavic]

I was reading what Bob Brunning wrote about this album in his 2004 book (yes, I found my long lost book, it was in the attic of my brother's house, long story).

I think LWSUH was more popular than GAHOM in Peru. It is still more played on those 80s music radios.


Meanwhile, Christine was organizing the recording of her second solo album. Her first, recorded way back in 1969, had been subsequently released in the US against her wishes. “I didn’t have one finger in the pie except that I wrote a couple of weedy songs!”

Like Stevie before her, she was anxious about her new solo work. “I was really scared about the project to start with, but my fears have been completely dispelled.” Why? She chose to surround herself with a mixture of old friends, proven colleagues, and highly respected session players for her all-important solo venture. The Average White Band’s drummer Steve Ferrone was joined by bassist George Hawkins and Todd Sharpe. Hawkins had played with Mick Fleetwood’s band Zoo, as had guitarist Todd Sharpe. Hawkins in particular, joining Christine and the rest of the band in the recording studios in Montreux, Switzerland, played an important additional role within the project. He co-wrote five songs with Christine for the album, and wrote two on his own. Other old friends joined Christine. Stevie Winwood and Eric Clapton helped out. McVie flew back to the UK to collaborate with Winwood. They sang together on ‘One In A Million’ and co-wrote ‘Ask Anybody’. Winwood also played synthesizer on four tracks. The British connection was completed when Enric played guitar on The Challenge.

‘Got A Hold Of Me’, the first single from the album, would make the USA Top Ten. The follow-up, ‘Love Will Show Us How’, was not successful, but her collaboration with producer Russ Titelman, Sharpe, Hawkins, Ferrone, Winwood, Clapton and Mac colleagues Fleetwood and Buckingham was a satisfying and rewarding venture. Christine had proved, like Fleetwood, Buckingham and Nicks before her, that she could produce a worthwhile and creative piece of work outside the constraints of Fleetwood Mac.