Maps of Music

Mr. Wonderful (1968)

Where the lyrics of Mr. Wonderful take you, and where it was really made.

The first title the band wanted, A Good Length, was dropped because the label found the front-cover idea too obscene.

Key places

Where the album was recorded live (1968)

Recording site CBS Studios — The album was recorded at CBS Studios in April 1968. The band played live there, with their amplifiers miked rather than plugged into the board. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Mr. Wonderful: second studio album by British blues rock band Fleetwood Mac
• Produced by Mike Vernon
• Recorded at CBS Studios in April 1968, with the band playing live and their amplifiers miked
• Released by Blue Horizon in August 1968
• Mixture of blues rock originals and covers
• Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer split the lead vocals
• Christine Perfect (later Christine McVie) on piano, Duster Bennett on harmonica, and four saxophonists

Background

• Broadly similar to the self-titled debut, with some changes to personnel and recording method
• Recorded live in the studio with miked amplifiers and PA system, not plugged into the board
• Vocals distorted with a Vox amplifier; most of the album recorded in mono
• Horn section featured throughout the album
• Mike Vernon placed baffles and wooden partitions between instruments to avoid audio spill
• Green's material recorded on 28 April 1968, the same day the band re-recorded "Need Your Love So Bad"
• Spencer's six tracks recorded in a second session; the whole album took four days
• "Dust My Broom", "Doctor Brown", "Need Your Love Tonight" and "Coming Home" all begin with the same Elmore James riff
• Spencer later said he wanted to clear the Elmore James influence out of his system, then expressed interest in novelty music

Cover

• The band first wanted the title A Good Length; the label rejected it as too obscene
• Udder Sucker was the next proposed title, also rejected by the label
• Bob Brunning suggested the name Mr. Wonderful; Green liked it and it stuck
• Apart from a hat and some fig leaves, Mick Fleetwood posed naked on the cover
• The cover was photographed by Terence Ibbott, whose work Vernon called "extraordinary"

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• Formed in London in July 1967 by Peter Green after leaving John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, with Mick Fleetwood on drums.
• The name combines Fleetwood's surname with bassist John McVie, who joined in 1967.
• Early line-up was primarily a British blues band; "Albatross" reached UK No. 1 in 1968.

Members

• Core members over time: Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Christine McVie, Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham.
• Buckingham and Nicks joined at the end of 1974 and drove the band's global success.

Career

• Rumours (1977) is one of the best-selling albums of all time and won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 1978.
• The band has sold more than 120 million records worldwide.
• Received a Hollywood Walk of Fame star in 1979 and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998.
• Received the MusiCares Person of the Year award in 2018.
• Christine McVie died in 2022; Stevie Nicks later said she saw no reason to continue the band.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Compared with the huge success of the debut Fleetwood Mac, the follow-up received mixed critical reviews
• NME's Allen Evans noted the "deep, exciting blues sounds" and felt the vocals had a "smack of the Deep South" on some tracks
• Record Mirror's Derek Boltwood thought the songs were "all recognizably Fleetwood Mac" even with the saxophone section
• Record Mirror's Derek Boltwood described "Need Your Love Tonight" as "psychedelic-Hawaiian blues"
• Melody Maker dismissed the album as "unadventurous" and said it paled beside contemporaries such as Ten Years After and Cream

Reappraisal

• AllMusic's Richie Unterberger called the album "a disappointment" in a retrospective review
• Unterberger felt Jeremy Spencer's creative potential was badly exposed and that Green's material did not match his work with Fleetwood Mac
• Mojo called it a "misfire" that lacked the spark of the singles "Albatross" and "Man of the World"
• Uncut's Tom Pinnock described it as "lacking in inspiration" and "old-fashioned"

Records

• Released by Blue Horizon in August 1968; reached the top 10 in the United Kingdom, Finland and Norway later that year
• Not released in the US; around half of its tracks appeared on English Rose

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• Clifford Davis received writing credits on Green's songs under the name C.G. Adams; Green told Guitar Player in 1994 that Davis did so as a "tax dodge"
• Spencer told the horn section to "just blow" when they chose what to play on his compositions
• "Trying So Hard to Forget", the album's final song, is a duet between Green on guitar and Duster Bennett on harmonica
• Danny Kirwan joined Fleetwood Mac as their third guitarist in the same month the album was released
• John Peel wrote some passages in the album's liner notes, which included commentary about the band members

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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