Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
We must remove the earphones from their fleshy sockets and truly acknowledge the sound of the Songbird whilst we can. To wander in nature and feel the unblemished and resolute call to the early morning sun or the final song of rest as the day comes to its conclusion, is freedom that resonates unflinchingly, the adaption of the songbird’s voice, its pleasure, its pain, the very being that its soul is urging all around the hear, that is the liberty of expression that comes with opening ourselves up to the beauty of the voice.
Christine McVie is a legend of almost unequal standing, a long-term member of one of the most influential groups of all time, Fleetwood Mac, a pioneer within the history of British Blues stalwarts Chicken Shack, a song writer of international repute, and one who lights up the stage with her own deference, with her sheer skill on the keyboards, on piano, and the voice behind one of the most humbling of tracks, the eponymous Songbird, to which her latest release, with Glyn Johns on producing and orchestral arrangement, is the sum of the parts in which the performer has been rightly venerated for.
Songbird: A Solo Collection is a memory engrained, but one with a new edge, a temptation of discovery in which the music created by the Birmingham raised musician is given a new and exciting perspective.
From the initial debut solo release under her maiden name Christine Perfect and through subsequent albums, Songbird: A Solo Collection utilises the passion of her music with Glyn Johns’s immaculate sense of timing and arrangement to create an album which is unique and beautiful.
Across arrangements of songs such as Sweet Revenge, The Challenge, Northern Star, Givin’ It Back, All You Got To Do, and the stirring Songbird from Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, Christine McVie’s status as one of the most illuminating and emotional writers of the last fifty years is assured.
Songbird: A Solo Collection is an enormous undertaking, one that speaks volumes of both the music legend and the producer in equal terms. To be able to listen to a set of songs that were already thought of as being incredible and witness them taking on new life is an extraordinary feeling, and one that is as near perfect as the listener could ask for.
Ian D. Hall