Christine McVie Said She ‘Very Sledom’ Listened to Her 1st Solo Album: ‘I Think It’s Pretty Rum’
Between leaving Chicken Shack and joining Fleetwood Mac, Christine McVie released her debut solo album, Christine Perfect, in 1970. It gave fans a glimpse of what McVie was capable of as a singer-songwriter.
However, McVie wasn’t impressed with her efforts on the album. Years later, she hardly played it.
The singer-songwriter first joined Chicken Shack in 1967
In art college, McVie played in a band called Sounds of Blue with friends Stan Webb and Andy Silvester. However, the group eventually split up. After she graduated in 1967, McVie discovered her former bandmates were starting a blues band, Chicken Shack. She wrote to them and asked if she could join. They agreed, remembering she’d been a good musician in Sounds of Blue.
McVie told Uncut that she’d been listening to blues music since she was a teenager. However, being in Chicken Shack heightened her love for the genre.
She explained, “I played classical piano so I could read music. I found a book of Fats Domino in the music stool in a living room. I started playing it, sight reading; I learned how to play the bass lines with the piano. It kicked off from there. I started to get really keen when I was at Chicken Shack.
“Andy Sylvester, who was our bass player, used to give me all kinds of records, African American blues artists and I got hooked. I ripped off a lot of licks from some of those records…
“It was quite punchy, back in those days. A lot of kick a** music. We were all very underground. People would get their pints and pay half a pound to watch these bands sweating it out in these big halls above pubs. It was an amazing time. Then we’d travel to places like Eel Pie Island.”
Chicken Shack also did a stint at The Star Club in Hamburg, Germany, where The Beatles did their residency. The group also crossed paths with Fleetwood Mac, which they loved. “When I was in Chicken Shack, if Fleetwood Mac were playing when we weren’t, we’d always trail around after them. We were huge fans,” she said.
In 1968 McVie joined the Fleetwood Mac family when she married Fleetwood Mac’s bassist, John McVie. McVie left Chicken Shack a year later because she felt she’d hardly see her husband if they worked in separate bands.
However, that didn’t mean McVie couldn’t have a solo career on the side.
Christine McVie said she seldom listened to her debut solo album
In 1970, just before she joined Fleetwood Mac, McVie released her debut solo album, Cristine Perfect. It was a step forward for the singer-songwriter. Although, later on, she didn’t think so.
Uncut asked McVie what she thought of her solo album. She replied, “Oh, God. Do I have to say? [laughs] I think it’s pretty rum. When I listen to it now – which is very seldom – I don’t get what I was doing at all. I think I was inexperienced at songwriting and too inexperienced to be holding a whole solo album on my own.
“There are a couple of good songs on there, but most of them are pretty mediocre. But you’ve just to keep on trying and you will eventually come out at some point with something you like, so if I’m feeling charitable about it, I could say at least it was part of the learning process.”
That same year, McVie stretched her songwriting skills further when she joined Fleetwood Mac. She helped change the group’s sound.
McVie liked releasing music solo, but she hated performing solo
During her interview with Uncut, McVie said doing her solo album was fine, but she didn’t like being a frontwoman.
It wasn’t exciting being center stage. “I don’t like being center stage, I never have,” McVie said. “A solo album, that’s different. But performing solo, that’s not my bag at all. I like to be part of a group. I was invited to make a selection of my own favourite songs outside of Fleetwood Mac – but ‘Songbird’ was the exception, I was allowed to do them.”
Her dislike of performing solo might’ve crushed her future as a solo artist. So, it’s good that Fleetwood Mac invited her to join not long after. McVie might not have liked her debut solo album, but she became Fleetwood Mac’s songbird.
