Bob Welch was a singer and guitarist in Fleetwood Mac from 1971 to 1974. Some of the band’s most acclaimed songs from that period were written by him, like “Future Games,” “Night Watch,” and “Hypnotized.” However, his most famous composition was “Sentimental Lady.” It originally appeared on the band’s 1972 album Bare Trees, but Bob re-recorded it for French Kiss, his solo debut released in September 1977. The re-recorded version featured Bob’s former bandmates Mick Fleetwood and Christine McVie, as well as Bob’s replacement in Fleetwood Mac, Lindsey Buckingham. Lindsey and Christine also produced the re-recording. Perhaps boosted by the enormous success of Rumours, “Sentimental Lady” was a top 10 hit on the Hot 100 and French Kiss went Platinum in 1978. The album also had a second big hit called “Ebony Eyes,” featuring backing vocals from country-pop singer Juice Newton. It peaked at #14 on the Hot 100. The third single, “Hot Love, Cold World,” was a minor hit that peaked at #31.
So with the album being so successful, does French Kiss hold up? Well, let’s start with “Sentimental Lady” since it opens the album. The Fleetwood Mac version was a single, but not a hit. It has a sort of folky soft rock sound, as well as a whole second verse that is absent from the Bob Welch version because his label, Capitol, wanted the song to be under three minutes. The result is a more polished and dreamlike yacht rock song with a little instrumental break instead of a second verse. If you look at the personnel credits, it’s almost funny how different “Sentimental Lady” is from the rest of the album: different drummer, different producers, even different mixing engineers in the form of Fleetwood Mac regulars Richard Dashut and Ken Caillat. The rest of the album is super catchy late-Seventies power pop, sometimes backed by disco-style string sections. At times, it almost sounds like Electric Light Orchestra. It’s all so catchy that it makes up for Bob’s admittedly unremarkable singing voice. He kind of sounds like Steve Miller (not the evil one), but I can look past that and recommend the album anyway. I especially recommend the song “Outskirts.” That might be even better than the singles.
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