Credit: Far Out / LastFM
Sun 6 September 2026 20:30, UK
It’s often forgotten just how much road had been travelled before all members finally settled into Fleetwood Mac’s classic 1970s line-up.
Everybody knows the band started as a bluesy jam outfit. Initially captained by former Bluesbreaker Peter Green, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie would form the band’s respective drums and bass core and soldier their surname-mashed moniker through several years before Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham joined the fold and turned the blues ensemble into a soft rock behemoth that’d dominate the pop charts into the late 1980s.
However, a crucial recruit had orbited the band as early as their second album. Back in 1968, Chicken Shack singer Christine Perfect had lent her piano chops to Fleetwood Mac’s Mr Wonderful, pulled deeper into the band’s orbit by marrying John McVie, leaving Chicken Shack to spend more time with her new husband, and slowly emerging as a key singer and songwriter after Green’s departure. Christine Perfect would adopt the McVie name and stand as an official member for 1971’s Future Games, and the road to the later soap opera was paved in earnest.
However, to the music world, Christine McVie was still Christine Perfect. Even as she stepped up as a legit Fleetwood Mac member, Christine was yet to be defined by her new band role; the former glories of her top 20 cover of ‘I’d Rather Go Blind’ with Chicken Shaw and the six-month tour with her namesake live band – featuring The Yardbirds’ old guitarist pre-Eric Clapton, Top Topham – meant a solo debut was to be issued under he Perfect mainden name.
“A half-hearted project,” Christine quipped to Mojo in 2017. “I didn’t feel confident in a solo world.”
It’s a self-deprecating remark that doesn’t quite feel fair when listening to 1970’s Christine Perfect today. While not sensational, a few underrated gems can be gleaned amid the standard blues rock fare, from ‘Wait and See’s haunting jazz introspection to an infectiously slinky groove that strolls along the ice-cool ‘Close to Me’. In Christine’s estimation, however, her solo effort’s saving grace is the cover that opens the album.
“That’s my favourite track,” Christine furthers. “I heard that recently and thought, ‘Little Hohner transistor piano, under-produced, that sounds so good!’”
Further reading: From The Vault
Itself a take on an old 1950s Sonny Boy Williamson tune, ‘Crazy ‘Bout You Baby’ was tucked away on the B-side of ‘The Hunter’ when Ike & Tina Turner cut their R&B stomper in 1969. Naturally, Turner’s passionate howl is hard to top, but Christine manages to maintain the number’s fired-up strut while pulling the piece down to the smoky languor that hovers all over her 1970 solo debut.
While Turner was certainly a star at the time, the ‘River Deep, Mountain High’ singer and Christine would both travel a shared trajectory to pop elevation, the former eclipsing even her heights with abusive partner Ike as one of the 1980s’ most mammoth names alongside the latter steering the Fleetwood Mac machine to the decade’s Billboard domination with her co-written ‘Everywhere’ and ‘Little Lies’ from Tango in the Night.
