Christine McVie is the second solo album by the English musician, singer, and songwriter Christine McVie, released on 27 January 1984, by Warner Bros. Records. It was McVie's first solo effort in over a decade, following her 1970 debut album Christine Perfect under her maiden name. The album features guest appearances by Steve Winwood, Eric Clapton, Ray Cooper, and Fleetwood Mac bandmates Lindsey Buckingham and Mick Fleetwood.
The recording process lasted three months and primarily took place in Montreux, Switzerland. McVie collaborated closely with guitarist Todd Sharp to co-write much of the material and recruited Sharp, George Hawkins, and Steve Ferrone to form the album's backing band. The finished record produced two singles that reached the top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart: "Got a Hold on Me" and "Love Will Show Us How", which peaked at numbers 10 and 30, respectively. "Got a Hold on Me" also spent four weeks at number 1 on the Adult Contemporary chart. The album itself spent 23 weeks on the Billboard 200 chart, peaking at number 26, and reached number 58 in the UK.
The release of Christine McVie coincided with the airing of two MTV specials: a documentary on the recording of the album and a December 1983 live concert at the Los Angeles Country Club. Both specials were included in the album's LaserDisc edition, while Christine McVie: The Video Album, a home video release, only featured the concert. To support the album, McVie also embarked on a three-month tour from April to June 1984. Her setlist included various tracks from the album alongside select Fleetwood Mac "favorites". The touring band featured Sharp, Hawkins, and Ferrone, as well as keyboardist Eddy Quintela—McVie's then-boyfriend—and guitarist Stephen Bruton.
Background Before joining Fleetwood Mac, Christine McVie had released a debut solo album in 1970, titled Christine Perfect. She later expressed a strong dislike for it, believing that she was "very immature emotionally" and did not feel "artistically together" until she joined the band. After the Tusk Tour ended in 1980, several of McVie's bandmates—Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, and Mick Fleetwood—began working on solo projects. McVie later explained that she did not feel ready at the time to tackle a solo project as she lacked confidence in her creative material and did not want "that kind of pressure or responsibility". It was only after the conclusion of the promotional tour for Mirage, the band went on hiatus, and McVie started considering recording what she regarded as her first "real" solo album. She felt "shattered" from the tour and expressed a desire to spend more time at home, where she later prepared some material in her music room. She also said in the February 1984 interview that she felt a solo record was "expected" of her.
McVie had started the writing process in late 1982 collaborating with Todd Sharp who was asked for help in co-writing the material and assembling a backing band. Sharp met McVie in 1978 while touring with Bob Welch, a former member of Fleetwood Mac. Welch had opened for Fleetwood Mac at a few stadium shows between 1978 through 1980, giving Sharp the opportunity to familiarise himself with McVie. McVie first worked with Sharp in a musical capacity when she conducted overdubs for a Danny Douma solo record. During this time, McVie had expressed interest in recording some of Sharp's demos, some of which would be re-recorded for her self-titled release.
As reported by Los Angeles Times, McVie planned to record her project in December 1982 at a German recording studio, but the sessions did not occur, rescheduled to begin the following year in Switzerland. In February 1983, McVie announced that she was gathering material for her solo album and planned to release it by Christmas. McVie decided to hire Russ Titelman to produce the record, which she explained by her fondness towards him and trust in "his decision-making process". McVie did not expect the recording sessions to begin until June 1983, as Titelman was busy working on Paul Simon's Hearts and Bones. She had no interest in finding a different producer, so she waited until he was available.
Since Sharp had already been selected as the album's guitarist, McVie focused on assembling the rest of the backing band. At first she recruited bass guitarist George Hawkins who had previously played on Lindsey Buckingham song "Trouble", and had also worked with Sharp on some of Mick Fleetwood solo albums, including The Visitor in 1981. They were missing a drummer and, at Titelman's recommendation, ultimately chose Steve Ferrone, who had recently departed from the Average White Band and worked with Titelman on a Paul Simon recording session in New York City. Although Sharp and McVie were initially worried that Ferrone's playing was too "slick" and "upscale" for the project, they changed their minds after running through a few songs with him in his studio. Before selecting Ferrone, the original plan had been to complete the line-up with Tris Imboden, but he was unable to participate due to other commitments.
Recording The majority of the album was recorded in Montreux at the Mountain Studios, booked by McVie's manager John Courage upon her request. McVie decided to record in Montreux because she "wanted to make it something of an adventure, rather than just schlepping to Van Nuys every night and coming home." The studio was at the time owned by the band Queen and operated by engineer David Richards, who had been highly recommended to McVie by Arif Mardin. Richards was also in charge of audio recording at the town's Jazz Festival. Further work was conducted in various recording studios throughout the UK.
McVie and her collaborators entered Mountain Studios on 26 July 1983, and initially planned to stay there for six weeks to cut basic tracks. However, when the band already completed eight songs in ten days, they decided to stay and finish the album. This efficiency was largely due to the significant amount of preliminary work that McVie and Sharp had done before travelling to Switzerland, which included a one-week rehearsal in McVie's music room and the recording of demo tracks on a Teac four-track machine in the same room. McVie's music room also housed microphones, a drum machine, and various keyboards including an electric piano, grand piano, and a synthesiser. Sharp later commented that they "breezed through the record" as a result of their preparations, and that they completed most of it in around three weeks.
The basic-tracking took place in a large hall that usually housed the Montreux Jazz Festival. The drums were positioned in the center of the partitioned room, which resulted in some "great live drum sounds", according to McVie. Some of the vocal lines were recorded at the facility. At some point during their time in the studio, Sharp's Fender Stratocaster was stolen while the rest of the "expensive microphones" and other valuable gear housed in the facility remained untouched.
Following two weeks of initial recording in Switzerland, the band took a brief break while McVie fleshed out lyrics. Around this time, McVie reached out to Steve Winwood, who agreed to collaborate on a song with her. She and Sharp travelled to his home studio in Gloucester, where they spent ten days working on what would become "Ask Anybody". McVie also invited Mick Fleetwood to come over and play drums on the track. This was the only song on the album not tracked live; Fleetwood overdubbed some tom-toms over a LinnDrum pattern, which he later replaced with full drums. Due to time constraints, the second session with Winwood was arranged later, during which he added keyboard parts to "Ask Anybody", while McVie and Sharp included additional background vocals. Winwood also expressed interest in singing on "One in a Million", and at McVie's suggestion, took the second verse. Although the song was not initially conceived as a duet, McVie felt "it worked out really nicely". Moreover, Winwood contributed Prophet synthesiser fills to "The Smile I Live For".
After the first session with Winwood, McVie and Sharp travelled to London, where they spent an afternoon at Olympic Studios working with Eric Clapton. Clapton listened to the album and ended up doing the guitar solo on "The Challenge", recorded in about an hour using his Blackie Fender Stratocaster connected to a Tweed Twin amplifier. McVie thought it was "the perfect song for him to play on". It was taped in three takes, and during one of the takes Sharp went to the lounge to give Clapton space to work and saw James Taylor, who had "dropped in for a visit". They spoke for around 45 minutes, but Taylor did not end up contributing to the album. The next day, Ray Cooper, known for his work with Elton John, came into the studio to overdub percussion. McVie missed the session due to a prior commitment and was unable to meet him. As recalled by Sharp, Cooper was "brilliant" and had an "animated" way of playing tambourine, which somewhat distracted him when he watched for potential timing errors with the percussion overdubs.
Lindsey Buckingham and John McVie also visited Montreux while the album was being recorded. John, who was on vacation with his family, did not play on the album as all bass parts had already been completed. Buckingham was in London in search of a producer for his Go Insane album, and accepted McVie's invitation to the studio. Although she invited him for a vacation, McVie wanted him to "hear everything" and Buckingham ended up contributing guitar and vocal parts, including a solo on "The Smile I Live For" and harmonies on "Who's Dreaming This Dream". During the recording sessions, Eddy Quintela, whom Sharp had met at a bar near the studio, contributed additional keyboards to "The Smile I Live For". Sharp introduced Quintela to McVie, and Quintela later became her boyfriend. In an interview with Record magazine, McVie expressed interest in having Christopher Cross contribute to the album; he had previously travelled from Geneva to hear some of McVie's material in Montreux.
The album was finally mixed in New York City by Elliot Scheiner and producer Russ Titelman, a process that took approximately two weeks. Scheiner would later work with Fleetwood Mac to produce their 1997 live album, The Dance.
Writing and composition It was not until Mirage that McVie began collaborating with other songwriters on her compositions, as most of her previous work had been written alone. She chose to continue this approach for her solo album, believing that it gave her writing a different direction and seemed to "lift" her out of her insecurities. Additionally, McVie felt that an entire record of her own songs might have become "tiresome", and explained that it was more important to her for the content to be "exciting and innovative" than for it to simply be hers. For this reason, she co-wrote half of the album's tracks with guitarist Todd Sharp, who also contributed three additional songs. McVie later remarked that it was "fun co-writing with someone" and that she found the songs "refreshing".
A product of this collaboration was the album's lead single, "Got a Hold on Me", which McVie later revealed was totally fictional, as at the time she wrote it "no one did have a hold on [her]". When they started out, McVie already had a verse going for the song, and the rest was written in pieces, coming together in about half an hour. "Love Will Show Us How", the album's second single, was developed from a demo tape recording of McVie and her ex-husband John McVie playing piano and bass, respectively. She and Sharp spent an entire night working on the music and wrote the lyrics the night after. Sharp also recalled that the song began "very acoustic and soft" and that, when writing, McVie "started it with her verse".