The more I listen to early-day Fleetwood Mac, the more I\u2019m convinced they could have easily been one of the best Chicago blues bands who wasn\u2019t even from the Windy City. Hell, they weren\u2019t even from the right continent.<\/p>\n
Taking the lessons they had learned from their debut effort, Peter Green and company tightened up both their performances and their songwriting and expanded their lineup slightly on their sophomore effort Mr. Wonderful<\/i> — a disc that wouldn\u2019t see the shores of the U.S. until the addition of a few songs, another new band member and a new title (along with even more hideous cover art than Mick Fleetwood shirtless, looking rather startled.)<\/p>\n
At first, I wasn\u2019t crazy about the horn section that permeates some of these tracks, but after closely listening to Peter Green\u2019s Fleetwood Mac<\/i>, their addition to the sound seems like the natural progression for the band. Adding one Christine Perfect on keyboards for additional help doesn\u2019t hurt, though it often seems like her work is buried in the mix — sometimes, to the weakness of the song.<\/p>\n
Critics used this disc to claim the limitations of guitarist Jeremy Spencer — and I will admit that having two songs that sound exactly the same (\u201cDoctor Brown\u201d and \u201cNeed Your Love Tonight\u201d) one after the other might not have been the smartest move. But I happen to like the Elmore James-influenced sound and the slide guitar work — it reminds me a lot of Hound Dog Taylor, of whom I can\u2019t seem to get enough. So, bring on another cover of \u201cDust My Broom.\u201d I like it all.<\/p>\n
Critics be damned (uh, yeah, err\u2026), Mr. Wonderful<\/i> is an improvement on an already good thing. From the opening blasts of \u201cStop Messin\u2019 Round\u201d to the all-out rollicking good time on \u201cEvenin\u2019 Boogie,\u201d Fleetwood Mac quickly proves that they were, quite possibly, the best blues band to come out of that British musical phase, all respect to John Mayall.<\/p>\n
Having listened to this before tackling the American version English Rose<\/i>, I can\u2019t tell at this time which is the better investment. (Guess you\u2019ll have to check that review for that comparison.) But fans of well-performed, energetic yet slightly rough around the edges blues will find precious little wrong with Mr .Wonderful<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28909,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5794],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-40411","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-fleetwood-mac","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40411"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40411"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}