Mr. Wonderful (Fleetwood Mac album)

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Mr. Wonderful
Fleetwood Mac - Mr. Wonderful.jpg
Studio album by
Fleetwood Mac
Released23 August 1968
RecordedApril 1968
StudioCBS, London
Genre Blues rock [1]
Length41:30
Label Blue Horizon
Producer Mike Vernon
Fleetwood Mac chronology
Fleetwood Mac
(1968)		Mr. Wonderful
(1968)		 The Pious Bird of Good Omen
(1969)

Mr. Wonderful is the second studio album by British blues rock band Fleetwood Mac, released on 23 August 1968. In the US, the album was not released, though around half of the tracks appeared on English Rose . An expanded version of Mr. Wonderful was included in the box set The Complete Blue Horizon Sessions .

Contents

Background

The album was broadly similar to their debut album, albeit with some changes to personnel and recording method. The album was recorded live in the studio with miked amplifiers and PA system, rather than plugged into the board. [2] The vocals were distorted with a Vox amplifier and most of the album was recorded in mono. [3]

A horn section was introduced and Christine Perfect (later Christine McVie) of Chicken Shack was featured on keyboards. Mike Vernon, who served as the producer on the album, placed baffles and wooden partitions between the instruments to avoid audio spill. [4]

Green's material on the album was recorded on 28 April 1968, the same day that the band re-recorded their cover of "Need Your Love So Bad". One song from that session, "Stop Messin' Round", was recorded in five takes. "Rollin' Man", "Love That Burns", "If You Be My Baby", and "Lazy Poker Blues" were also recorded that same day. [5] Green remembered that Spencer opted not to play on his tracks on Mr Wonderful. [6] Another session was booked to record six tracks sung by Spencer, who granted the horn section leeway when determining what to play on his compositions, telling them to "just blow". [5] [7] The album took a total of four days to record. [8] "Trying So Hard to Forget", the album's final song, was a duet between Green on guitar and Duster Bennett on harmonica. [7]

In a June 1968 interview, Green mentioned that he would not be only singing his own songs on the band's forthcoming album. [9] A few months later, Green told Nick Logan in an interview with NME that the album would bear a greater resemblance to their live shows than their self-titled album. He said that several other musicians, including Perfect and Stan Webb would appear on his songs. [10] John Peel wrote some passages in the album's liner notes, which included commentary about the band members. [11]

On Mr Wonderful, four of the songs, "Dust My Broom", "Doctor Brown", "Need Your Love Tonight" and "Coming Home", all begin with an identical Elmore James riff. [11] conducted an interview after the release of Mr Wonderful where he explained his creative output on the album, saying "At the time we did the Mr Wonderful album, there was a lot of Elmore James, but I wanted the chance to clear it all out of my system on record, which I have, almost." He then expressed interest in pivoting toward novelty music for future releases. [12] Certain songs on Mr. Wonderful, including "Stop Messin' Round", "Lazy Poker Blues", and "Love That Burns", were performed live with members of the band Chicken Shack prior to the album's release. [13]

Title and cover art

The band originally wanted the album to be titled A Good Length, which would have featured an "obvious phallic symbol" on the album's front cover according to Fleetwood, although this idea was rejected as the label thought it would be too obscene. [8] [10] Udder Sucker was the next proposed title, and Fleetwood travelled to his godmother's farm to take a photo underneath a cow for the cover art, but the record label also turned this idea down. [8] Bob Brunning, who was the original bassist of Fleetwood Mac, said that he suggested the name Mr. Wonderful while socialising with Green at a restaurant. He mentioned that they were "mimicking and satirising television talk-show hosts' tendencies to eulogise their guests by announcing them as 'the truly wonderful', etc. [Green] liked the title and it stuck". [3]

With the exception of a hat and some fig leaves, Fleetwood posed naked on the cover of Mr. Wonderful. [8] [14] The foldable album cover, which was photographed by Terence Ibbott, revealed Fleetwood's full body, which showed him holding a doll and a toy dog while wearing a loincloth made out of branches. [11] Vernon mentioned that Ibbott "would come up with the most daft ideas, some of which were just vulgar to the point of being irresponsible and unusable". He also called Ibbott's work with the album cover "extraordinary". [15]

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svg [16]

Compared to the huge success of the band's first album, Fleetwood Mac , the follow-up received mixed critical reviews. Allen Evans of New Musical Express noted the album's "deep, exciting blues sounds" and thought that the vocals of Green and Spencer had a "smack of the Deep South" on certain tracks. [14] Writing for Record Mirror , Derek Boltwood thought that the songs were "all recognizably Fleetwood Mac" even with the additions of a saxophone section. He wrote that the song "Lazy Poker Blues" "isn't as lazy as the title suggests" and described "Need Your Love Tonight" as "psychedelic-Hawaiian blues". [17] In a retrospective review, Richie Unterberger wrote in AllMusic that the album as "a disappointment". He believed that "the limits of Jeremy Spencer's potential for creative contribution were badly exposed" and felt that Green's material failed to match his other material with Fleetwood Mac. [16]

Track listing

Side one
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."Stop Messin' Round"
2:22
2."I've Lost My Baby" Jeremy Spencer 4:18
3."Rollin' Man"
  • Green
  • Adams
2:54
4."Dust My Broom"
2:54
5."Love That Burns"
  • Green
  • Adams
5:04
6."Doctor Brown"
3:48
Side two
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
7."Need Your Love Tonight"Spencer3:29
8."If You Be My Baby"
  • Green
  • Adams
3:54
9."Evenin' Boogie"Spencer2:42
10."Lazy Poker Blues"
  • Green
  • Adams
2:37
11."Coming Home"James2:41
12."Trying So Hard to Forget"
  • Green
  • Adams
4:47

Personnel

Fleetwood Mac

Additional personnel

Production

Charts

1968 weekly chart performance for Mr. Wonderful
Chart (1968)Peak
position
Finnish Albums (The Official Finnish Charts) [18] 6
Norwegian Albums (VG-lista) [19] 8
UK Albums (OCC) [20] 10

References

  1. ↑ "The Top 30 British Blues Rock Albums Of All Time". Classic Rock . Future plc. 23 March 2007. Retrieved 1 September 2018.
  2. ↑ Mick Fleetwood (30 October 2014). Play On: Now, Then and Fleetwood Mac. Hodder & Stoughton. p. 76. ISBN   978-1-4447-5326-4.
  3. 1 2 Brunning, Bob (2004). The Fleetwood Mac Story: Rumours and Lies (3rd ed.). Omnibus Press. p. 18. ISBN   1-84449-011-4 – via the Internet Archive.
  4. ↑ Vernon, Mike (1999). The Complete Blue Horizon Sessions 1967–1969 (Boxed set booklet). Fleetwood Mac. New York City: Sire Records. p. 7. 73003-2.
  5. 1 2 Hjort, Christopher (2007). Strange Brew: Eric Clapton and the British Blues Boom . Jawbone Press. p. 174. ISBN   978-1-906002-00-8 – via Internet Archive.
  6. ↑ Blake, Mark (2024). "'Dog and Dustbin' and Mr. Wonderful". The Many Lives of Fleetwood Mac. New York: Pegasus Books. pp. 57–58. ISBN   978-1-63936-732-0.
  7. 1 2 Carr, Roy; Clarke, Steve (1978). Fleetwood Mac: Rumours n' Fax . Harmony Books. pp. 34–35. ISBN   0-517-53364-2.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Fleetwood, Mick; Davis, Stephen (1990). Fleetwood: My Life and Adventures with Fleetwood Mac. New York: William Morrow and Company. pp. 60–62. ISBN   0-688-06647-X.
  9. ↑ Wilson, Tony (3 August 1968). "Emotion! That's The Blues Secret" (PDF). Melody Maker . p. 10. Retrieved 19 September 2025– via World Radio History.
  10. 1 2 Logan, Nick (3 August 1968). "Fleetwood Mac rap the blues purists" (PDF). New Musical Express . p. 10. Retrieved 9 May 2025– via World Radio History.
  11. 1 2 3 Roubin, Olivier; Ollivier, Romuald (1 April 2025). Fleetwood Mac: All The Songs. New York: Black Dog Leventhal Publishers. pp. 75–76. ISBN   978-0-7624-8630-4.
  12. ↑ Celmins, Martin (1998). The Vaudeville Years (Liner Notes). Fleetwood Mac. UK: Receiver Records. RDPCD 14 Z.
  13. ↑ Barraclough, Pete (10 August 1968). "Caught In The Act - Fleetwood Mac" (PDF). Melody Maker . Retrieved 9 May 2025– via World Radio History.
  14. 1 2 Evans, Allen (31 August 1968). "Stevie Wonder, Fleetwood Mac: LPs Reviewed by Allen Evans" (PDF). New Musical Express . p. 10. Retrieved 9 May 2025– via World Radio History.
  15. ↑ Tiller, Joe (26 November 2022). "Best Fleetwood Mac Album Covers: All 18 Studio Album Artworks, Ranked And Reviewed". Dig!. Retrieved 9 May 2025.
  16. 1 2 Mr. Wonderful at AllMusic
  17. ↑ Boltwood, Derek (31 August 1968). "Wonderful Fleetwood Mac" (PDF). Record Mirror . p. 8. Retrieved 14 June 2025– via World Radio History.
  18. ↑ Pennanen, Timo (2006). Sisältää hitin – levyt ja esittäjät Suomen musiikkilistoilla vuodesta 1972 (in Finnish) (1st ed.). Helsinki: Kustannusosakeyhtiö Otava. p. 166. ISBN   978-951-1-21053-5.
  19. ↑ "Norwegiancharts.com – Fleetwood Mac – Mr. Wonderful". Hung Medien. Retrieved 12 December 2022.
  20. ↑ "Official Albums Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 12 December 2022.
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