Mr. Wonderful (Fleetwood Mac album)

The album was broadly similar to Fleetwood Mac's self-titled 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. The vocals were distorted with a Vox amplifier and most of the album was recorded in mono. A horn section was featured throughout the album and Christine Perfect (later Christine McVie) of Chicken Shack played keyboards. Mike Vernon, who served as the producer on the album, placed baffles and wooden partitions between the instruments to avoid audio spill. Peter 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. Green remembered that Jeremy Spencer opted not to play on his tracks on Mr Wonderful. Clifford Davis received writing credits on Green's songs under the name C.G. Adams; Green told Guitar Player magazine in a 1994 interview that Davis did so as a "tax dodge". A second 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". The album took a total of four days to record. "Trying So Hard to Forget", the album's final song, was a duet between Green on guitar and Duster Bennett on harmonica. 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 his harmonica playing would be less prominent on Mr. Wonderful in comparison to the band's debut album and also mentioned that several other musicians, including Perfect and Stan Webb, would appear on his songs. 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. John Peel wrote some passages in the album's liner notes, which included commentary about the band members. ==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. Udder Sucker was the next proposed title, and drummer Mick 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. 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. 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". ==Critical reception==

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. Melody Maker dismissed the album as "unadventurous" that paled in comparison to the work of band's contemporaries such as Ten Years After and Cream. 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. Tom Pinnock of Uncut described the album as "lacking in inspiration" and "old-fashioned...having more to do with the canny industry wiles of the mid-'60s than the brave new world of expansive music, expensive recordings and progressive blues". ==Track listing==

Fleetwood Mac • Peter Green – vocals, guitar • Jeremy Spencer – vocals, slide guitar, piano • John McVie – bass guitar • Mick Fleetwood – drums Additional personnel • Christine Perfect – piano • Duster Bennett – harmonica • Steve Gregory – alto saxophone • Dave Howard – alto saxophone • Johnny Almond – tenor saxophone • Roland Vaughan – tenor saxophone Production • Producer: Mike Vernon • Engineer: Mike Ross • Coordination: Richard Vernon • Cover design: Terence Ibbott • Photography: Terence Ibbott ==Charts==