Hack's Back Pages

You can take me to the paradise

Posted on December 9, 2022 by brucehhackett

In 2017, my wife Judy was shopping for clothes with her friend Marie in a Malibu boutique store. When she came out of the dressing room in a fashionable blue jumpsuit, a woman standing nearby exclaimed, “Oh darling, you have to buy that. It looks great on you!” As Judy and Marie returned to the dressing room, Marie whispered, “Isn’t that Christine McVie?” Judy replied, “Sure is!”

We had all gone to see Fleetwood Mac the previous day at Dodger Stadium as part of “The Classic,” a two-day concert showcase of classic rock bands including Steely Dan, The Doobie Brothers, Earth Wind and Fire, Journey and The Eagles. McVie was staying in Malibu for a couple of days and, as luck would have it, had wandered into the store where Judy was shopping.

I tell this story to illustrate that, on that day, McVie was every bit the sort of warm, kind person she has been reputed to be throughout her life. As a member of one of the most successful bands in rock music history, she could have easily been one of the more self-absorbed rock stars who wouldn’t have paid any attention to a stranger trying on a new outfit. But she made a point of stopping and offering a friendly remark, making a lasting impression in the process.

It was a sad day last week in our house when we heard that McVie had died at age 79. The cause of death was not reported, but she had been suffering from chronic scoliosis for some time, which affected her mobility and her ability to perform on stage.

In a Rolling Stone article six months ago, she responded to Mick Fleetwood’s hope that the band would reunite for one last farewell tour. “I don’t feel physically up for it,” she said. “I’m in quite bad health. I’ve got a chronic back problem which debilitates me. I stand up to play the piano, so I don’t know if I could actually physically do it. Touring is bloody hard work. What’s that saying? ‘The mind is willing, but the flesh is weak.'”

Said Fleetwood last week, “Part of my heart has flown away today. My dear sweet friend Christine McVie has taken to flight, and left us earthbound folks to listen to the sounds of that ‘songbird.’ I will miss everything about you, Chris.”

********************

Born in Lancashire, England, in 1943, Christine Anne Perfect was raised in a musical environment where her father and grandfather were accomplished performers (concert violinist and organist, respectively). She trained as a classical pianist until her older brother introduced her to rock and roll and the blues. “I couldn’t get enough of B.B. King, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, all those great Black American blues guys,” she recalled, falling in with other like-minded peers and singing in various struggling groups while attending art college, ultimately becoming keyboardist and singer with a London-based blues band called Chicken Shack.

“In 1966, we talked Christine into joining Chicken Shack,” Stan Webb, the band’s guitarist, said last week. “At that time there weren’t really any female band members on the British blues scene, so she was hesitant. I think she only joined to shut us up! Chicken Shack used the same studios as Fleetwood Mac in 1967-68, and it was there that Chris met Peter Green and his band. The rest is wonderful history. We sowed the seed, and from that seed grew this massive talent. I am grateful to have been a part of it. Rest In Peace, Chris. A legend never dies.”

In 1969, at the same time the original lineup of Fleetwood Mac had three Top Ten albums and four big hit singles on the UK charts, Chicken Shack, with Christine on lead vocals, charted at #14 with “I’d Rather Go Blind,” a smoldering cover of the Etta James blues track. By then, the bands became friendly, performing at the same clubs, often on the same bill. Christine took a fancy to Mac bassist John McVie — “He had a wonderful sense of humor, the most endearing person” — and the two married the same year.

Christine overlapped only briefly with Green, so you don’t see many photos of them together, but she was a huge fan of the original lineup and was keenly aware of Green’s contributions. “He was massively talented, and just a wonderful guy as well,” she recalled. When Green abruptly left the group he founded in 1970, Chris was invited to join on keyboards and occasional vocals. Thanks to guitarists/songwriters Danny Kirwan and, later, Bob Welch, Fleetwood Mac moved on from the blues to a more rock-based sound, sometimes hard-edged but usually with a sweeter, melodic groove. McVie’s original songs started showing up on the group’s LPs during this stage — thoughtful tunes like “Show Me a Smile” on 1971’s “Future Games,” “Spare Me a Little” on 1972’s “Bare Trees,” “Just Crazy Love” on 1973’s “Mystery to Me” and the rousing title track on 1974’s “Heroes Are Hard to Find.”

*The band in 1974: John McVie, Mick Fleetwood, Bob Welch, Christine McVie*

The media have typically given short shrift to this phase of Fleetwood Mac, overshadowed by the fertile blues period (in the UK) before it, and the stratospherically successful yet emotionally fraught era that followed. I think that’s a shame, because it was on these albums in the 1971-74 period when Christine McVie was showing significant growth as a songwriter and singer, taking on the role of the calm, steadfastly rational center of the lineup she would end up holding throughout her tenure in the band.

By the time Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined the group in 1975, giving Fleetwood Mac a compelling variety of strong material from three talented singer-songwriters, Christine had hit her stride with her sunny brand of melodic songs like “Over My Head” (the group’s first Top 20 single in the US), “Warm Ways” and the contagious “Say You Love Me.” This winning streak continued on the multiplatinum “Rumours” LP with “Don’t Stop” (#3) and “You Make Loving Fun” (#9), and what would become her signature tune, the gorgeous ballad “Songbird.”

Discussing the genesis of “Songbird,” McVie said, “I woke up in the middle of the night and the song just came into my head. I got out of bed, played it on the little piano I have in my room, and sang it with no tape recorder. I sang it from beginning to end: everything. I can’t tell you quite how I felt; it was as if I’d been visited. It was a very spiritual thing.”

*Fleetwood Mac in 1975: Lindsey Buckingham, Christine McVie, Mick Fleetwood, Stevie Nicks, John McVie*

Want more? There were plenty to come: “Think About Me” and “Brown Eyes” from 1979’s “Tusk”; “Hold Me” and “Only Over You” from 1982’s “Mirage”; and especially “Little Lies” (#4) and “Everywhere” (#14) from 1987’s “Tango in the Night.” McVie’s “Save Me” from 1990’s “Behind the Mask” was Fleetwood Mac’s final appearance on the US Top 40.

Nicks wrote and sang some killer songs in her early days, and Buckingham is a formidable songwriter in his own right, but for the most part, I’ve always found Christine McVie’s songs and vocals more to my liking. She could write a gorgeous, commercially appealing hook, integrate it into a three-minute pop symphony and deliver it with that authoritative yet sweet voice, and I, for one, just lapped it up. A songbird, indeed.

While Christine typically maintained a sense of normalcy as the other band members were caught in various melodramas and rock-star excess, she was not without her own issues. She and John McVie divorced in 1976; she had a public romance with one of the band’s crew members and also Beach Boy Dennis Wilson; and a 15-year marriage to musician Eddy Quintela that ended badly.

In the 1980s, when both Buckingham and Nicks pursued solo careers on the side, Christine stuck her toe in the water with a solo album that yielded a Top Ten single, “Got a Hold on Me.” She enlisted the help of Buckingham and Fleetwood on a few tracks, as well as British luminaries Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood, but the LP performed only modestly. Said McVie at the time, “Maybe it isn’t the most adventurous album in the world, but I wanted to be honest and please my own ears with it. I tend to like the traditional sound: three-part harmonies, guitar and piano.” (Check out my Spotify playlist below to acquaint yourself with some of the strong tracks from that album.)

The group’s lineup was full of change in the 1990-1997 period, with Christine McVie, Nicks and Buckingham each leaving for a spell, and temporary replacements Billy Burnette and Rick Vito (and later Dave Mason and Bekka Bramlett) gamely filling in. Somehow, the volatile original lineup mended seemingly unmendable fences and reunited in 1997 for “The Dance,” a live performance that was recorded as a live album that then sparked a year-long tour. It seemed the band was back in the saddle.

In 1998, though, McVie decided she’d had enough, and amicably quit the group and the music business in general. “I thought, ‘I want to be home in England and live a normal, domestic life with roots,'” she said in 2014. “I bought a house in Kent, and it had to be rebuilt brick by brick, and I did that quite lovingly. Then my marriage (to Quintela) fell apart, and I found myself in this huge place, alone in the middle of nowhere, and I got myself in a bit of trouble. I fell down the stairs, hurt my back and started taking pills for the pain. La-di-da, one thing led to the other, and I got a bit isolated. I sought help with a therapist, and discovered I had other issues. Eventually I had to figure out what the hell I was going to do with my life. The answer was clear: I couldn’t just sit there in the country anymore, rotting away. I needed to find my way back to Fleetwood Mac.”

She did record one solo album during that time, 2004’s “In the Meantime,” which again had typically great McVie melodies and vocal performances but was almost completely ignored, a fate for which she claims some responsibility. “I’d developed a fear of flying, which hindered my ability to promote the album or tour with my own band,” she noted. “I’ve never felt like I was a solo artist. I’ve always preferred to be part of a group. I’ve never really had the desire to be the center of attention. It just made me uneasy to headline a solo tour.” (Again, I think that’s a crying shame — I urge you to listen to the music from that album on the playlist below.)

Her final foray into the studio came in surprising fashion when she partnered with Buckingham in 2017 for “Lindsey Buckingham Christine McVie,” an enjoyable collection of tunes by the two songwriters, released after attempts fell through to record a new Fleetwood Mac album with songs from Nicks as well.

McVie had said she and Nicks hit it off right away when Nicks joined the band in 1975, and they became close during their long months on the road during the band’s peak years, but they had significant differences. “Stevie really had her feet on the ground, along with a tremendous sense of humor, which she still has,” she said in 1984. “But she developed her own fantasy world somehow, which I’m not part of. We really haven’t socialized much.”

Todd Sharp, a veteran American guitarist who worked closely with Christine on her 1984 solo LP, had this to say in the wake of her passing: “She asked me to write songs with her, put a band together and make a record in England. Somebody pinch me! Chris, you left this place better than you found it, and 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.”

Fleetwood Mac, with McVie still in the fold, did one last tour in 2019. Her final stage appearance, as it turned out, came in February 2020, just before the COVID pandemic hit, when she participated in a tribute concert at the London Palladium following the death of Peter Green.

Even as her health was flagging earlier this year, McVie stayed busy by re-recording some of the overlooked tracks from her two solo albums, plus an orchestrated rendition of “Songbird,” and released it several months ago as “Songbird (A Solo Collection).”

Mike Campbell, former member of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers who played guitar in Fleetwood Mac for that 2019 tour, said last week, “Dear, sweet Christine has left us…..that voice, those eyes, that smile. No one like her in the universe. I remember in rehearsal once after playing ‘I’d Rather Go Blind,’ she looked at me and said, ‘I like playing the blues with you, Mike.’ I’ve never met anyone with such an angelic aura. Always so kind to everyone. We will all miss you so. No one could ever fill those shoes.”

Christine McVie reflected on her time in Fleetwood Mac by saying, “Even though I am quite a peaceful person, I did enjoy that storm. Although it’s said that we fought a lot, we actually did spend a lot of our time laughing.”

Rest in peace, Christine. Thanks for all the deeply satisfying music you added to my music collection.

***********************

Some readers might find this 80-song playlist rather daunting, but I wanted to provide a complete overview of her songs to help readers understand the breadth of her songwriting career. In addition to every song she wrote and sang for Fleetwood Mac, there are several tracks from her time with Chicken Shack, her three solo albums and her 2017 project with Lindsey Buckingham.

I got a name, I got a name

Posted on December 2, 2022 by brucehhackett

They called it “The Name Game,” a silly, fun participation song that was all the rage in 1965, when R&B singer Shirley Ellis made it a #3 hit on the US charts.

You simply take anybody’s name, slip it into the basic format, and off you go. Party on, Garth! “Garth, Garth, bo-Barth, banana-fana-fo-Farth, fee-fi-mo-Marth, GARTH!”

So, as Shakespeare once asked, “What’s in a name?” In the world of popular music, there are dozens of examples of performing artists who conjured up new names for themselves. They did this on their own, if their ego was big enough…or an agent or record company insisted on a catchier stage name than the clunky or boring given name they’d been carrying around.

Some of the examples I’m offering up to you will be well known. Others, you might be surprised about. In either case, I’m here to expose these stars’ real names as part of my own Name Game.

********************

Farrokh Bulsara

Freddie-freddie-mercury-32486955-500-600

Farrokh was born in 1946 to parents from the Gujarat region of British-owned India. He was born in the African country of Zanzibar, then a British colony, and attended a boarding school in Bombay, India, where he learned piano and focused more on music than academics. After returning to Zanzibar at age 17, he and his family had to flee the 1964 revolution there, settling in Middlesex, England. He earned a degree in art and graphic design, but music was his passion, and he became a member of several bands between 1968 and 1970. Then he met guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor from the band Smile. In time, they changed their name to Queen, and Farrokh Bulsara became Freddie Mercury, whose astonishing four-octave vocal range and flamboyant stage presence were key to Queen’s international success.

Marvin Aday

35628EB400000578-3646164-image-a-41_1466160162823

Born and raised in Dallas, Texas, by a schoolteacher and policeman, Marvin showed an early interest in music and theater arts, appearing in several high school musicals. He was very close to his mother (who sang in a gospel quartet) and, following her death, he dropped out of North Texas State College and relocated to Los Angeles in 1969 to pursue a career in the arts, as was his mother’s wish. When Marvin formed a band (that had some notoriety warming up for the likes of Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead and the Who), he named it after his mother’s favorite Saturday night dish, Meat Loaf Soul. Tipping the scales at nearly 300 pounds, Marvin soon took on that name for himself, appearing in films and on stage as Meat Loaf. By 1977, his “Bat Out of Hell” LP made him an international star.

Ellen Cohen

Ellen was born during WWII in Baltimore to Jewish parents who were children of Russian immigrants, and the family struggled there and in Alexandria, Virginia. Blessed with a versatile voice and a knack for stage performance, Ellen appeared in several musicals in New York before becoming part of a successful singing trio called The Big 3, appearing on “Ed Sullivan” and elsewhere. They became The Mugwumps, and eventually she lobbied hard to join a group she admired called The New Journeymen, featuring John Phillips, Michele Phillips and Denny Doherty. By then, Ellen had begun referring to herself as Cass (short for “Cassandra”), and her incredible pipes ended up winning her a spot in the group despite Phillips’ misgiving about her obesity. The public didn’t care about that when The Mamas and The Papas exploded on the scene with huge hits like “California Dreamin’” and “Monday Monday,” among others, carried by Mama Cass Elliott‘s soaring alto.

Richard Starkey

Little Ritchie had a rough childhood, spending most of his time in bed in hospitals. He took to picking up pencils, pens, whatever was handy, and banging out rhythms on any horizontal surface he could find. Eventually, his parents bought him a set of drums, and he became very proficient, at least in the circle of bands and clubs in and around Liverpool, England. He took to wearing rings — many rings, big showy rings — on his fingers, and soon found himself with a nickname: Ringo. His last name could be shortened by a syllable, and Ringo would then be a Star…or, more precisely, Starr. In any event, after a stint with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, he was tapped by the younger lads who made up another local group, The Beatles, to replace their mate Pete Best on drums, and well, there you have it. What a great gig for Ringo Starr.

Paul Hewson

Paul was born and raised in a north suburb of Dublin, Ireland, and was a rather rebellious kid in school, becoming more so after his mother’s death when he was 14. He didn’t get along with his father and instead hung out with his surrealist street gang, Lypton Village. As is the case with many gangs, everyone was given nicknames, and Paul went through several: First came the unwieldy Steinhegvanhuysenolegbangbangbang, which was shortened to Huyseman, then Houseman. Next he was Bon Murray, then “Bonavox of O’Connell Street,” named for a neighborhood hearing-aid shop. That was abbreviated to “Bono Vox,” which happened to be Latin for “good voice,” which Paul liked, so it stuck…after it was shortened to just Bono. Within a couple years, he and his mates David Evans (“The Edge”), Adam Clayton and Larry Mullens Jr. formed a band called Feedback…then The Hype…and finally, U2, who became one of the most popular bands on the planet.

Stevland Judkins

Born in Saginaw, Michigan, in 1950 and raised in Detroit, Stevland suffered from premature retinopathy, which causes the retinas to detach from the corneal wall, resulting in blindness. He made up for this deficiency by pouring himself into all the music he heard and felt all around him — gospel, rhythm and blues, country, rock ‘n roll. He mastered harmonica, piano and drums by age 10, and was signed to a recording contract as a child prodigy. Stevland made his debut on the Top Ten at age 12, and maintained an enviable chart track record throughout the 1960s with a dozen Top Ten hits, more than a dozen albums and many TV appearances. By the 1970s, his talents mushroomed, and Stevie Wonder became producer, songwriter, instrumentalist and singer, and one of the leading musical artists of all time, winning multiple Grammys and multiple Number One albums and singles.

Reginald Dwight

Raised by a free-spirited, music-loving mother, Reggie proved to be something of a child prodigy on piano, playing difficult classical pieces after hearing them only once. Although his classical training continued, he was also drawn to the rock and roll of Jerry Lee Lewis, and soon landed a weekend gig as pianist in a neighborhood pub. Reggie also played in a band called Bluesology, who opened for American soul bands like the Isley Brothers, and became the support group for Long John Baldry, one of the pioneers of the British blues movement. Reg began writing songs for a music publisher, who teamed him up with a lyric writer named Bernie Taupin. Around that time, he decided he needed a better stage name, so he combined the names of two musicians he admired — Bluesology sax player Elton Dean, and Long John Baldry — to create a new moniker: Elton John. You may have heard of him.

Henry Deutschendorf

Henry was the son of a decorated military man, John Deutschendorf, Sr., who earned a spot in the Air Force Hall of Fame, but the father had little time for his son. It was his mother’s mother who instilled in him the love of music and bought him his first guitar. He lived in Roswell, NM, and Montgomery, AL, and Tucson, AZ, and Fort Worth TX, never fitting in anywhere. Henry’s uncle, Dave Deutschendorf, was a member of the New Christy Minstrels, who encourage him to write songs and work on his guitar techniques. New Christy member Randy Sparks told Henry to lose his last name, so Henry (whose middle name was John), adopted the capital of his favorite state, Colorado. By the time he was 22, Henry was John Denver, replacing Chad Mitchell in The Mitchell Trio, writing his own songs and dreaming of a solo career. His song, “Babe I Hate to Go,” was picked up by Peter Paul and Mary, retitled “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” and became the #1 song in the country in late 1969, the first step in a hugely successful solo career.

Declan McManus

Declan’s father, Ross MacManus, was a London-based jazz trumpeter and singer with The Joe Loss Orchestra, a popular British Big Band act from the 1940s through the ’60s. He instilled a love of all types of music in his son, even after a divorce which sent Declan and his mother to live in Liverpool. Declan formed a folk duo there when he was just 16, then returned to London in the mid-’70s and fronted a pub rock band called Flip City. His father had performed under the name Day Costello and, in tribute to him, he adopted the name D.P. Costello around that time. He continued writing songs and pursuing a solo recording career, and was eventually signed to the new upstart independent label, Stiff Records, who focused on punk and New Wave acts. His manager, Jake Riviera, suggested Declan make the bold move of adopting Elvis Presley’s sacred first name, and Elvis Costello went on to become one of the most celebrated and respected musicians to emerge from the British New Wave movement.

Vincent Furnier

Vincent was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, the Motown City, but the R&B bug didn’t really bite, and at age 14, Vincent and his family moved to Phoenix, Arizona. He and his fellow cross-country teammates won the school talent contest miming Beatles songs, which inspired them to buy and learn how to play guitar, bass, drums and so on. Vincent liked being the lead singer, but he recognized he and the band needed to find a way to stand out from all the other bands out there. Hey, how about controversial, shocking, perverse? It’ll attract lots of press coverage, even though it was just an act. OK, cool, but what shall we call ourselves? Something completely opposite of the outrageous image they envisioned… Hmmm… How about we pick a character from the wholesome family sitcom “Mayberry RFD,” a neighborly woman named Alice Cooper? Perfect. The band, formerly The Spiders, became Alice Cooper, and Vincent himself pretty much became the perverse persona soon known worldwide as Alice Cooper, with snakes, bats, guillotines and other gruesome props as part of his shtick. In fact, once the band broke up in 1974, Furnier successfully sued to adopt the Alice Cooper name as his own. Not sure what his IRS tax returns say…

* * * * * * * * *

There’s a rather long list of name-changing recording artists who make my “honorable mention” list, and some of their stories are interesting enough to inspire me to do another blog post someday.

Steven Georgiou evolved into Cat Stevens (and then Yusaf Islam); Walden Cassotto was renamed Bobby “Mack the Knife” Darin; The Police and solo star Sting was born Gordon Sumner; Malcolm Rebbenack became known as Dr. John the Night Tripper; Ernest Evans morphed into Chubby Checker; country star Crystal Gayle started out as Brenda Webb; even as a teenager, McKinley Morganfield was known as Muddy Waters; a youngster named Perry Miller ended up better known as Jesse Colin Young; we know a girl named Judith Cohen as Juice Newton; British boy Paul Gadd was eventually Gary Glitter; and Ray Sawyer was “on the cover of Rolling Stone” as Dr. Hook.

Some stars changed only their last names: Francis Castellucio (Frankie Valli); Edward Mahoney (Eddie Money); Dominic Ierace (Donnie Iris); Carol Klein (Carole King); LaDonna Gaines (Donna Summer); Cherilyn Sarkisian (Cher); Georgios Panayiotou (George Michael); John Ramistella (Johnny Rivers); Hugh Cregg III (Huey Lewis); Richard Penniman (Little Richard); Peter Blankfield (Peter Wolf); David Jones (David Bowie); Robert Zimmerman (Bob Dylan); Ray Robinson (Ray Charles); Patricia Holt (Patti LaBelle); Martyn Buchwald (Marty Balin); Patricia Andrzejewski (Pat Benatar); Priscilla White (Cilla Black).

And this tradition goes on well past the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. Just about every hip-hop artist of the last 30 years has a made-up name… And we really need look no further than Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, the young lady born in 1986 in New York’s Upper East Side. In 2006, when the aspiring singer arrived at the studio, her first producer used to greet her with a few lines from his favorite Queen song “Radio Ga Ga.” In a text message he sent to her one day, “radio” auto-corrected to “lady,” and Lady Gaga was born.

Share this:

Share this: