.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
This one-of-a-kind Alembic Series 1 fretless bass with stainless steel fingerboard was custom-made for John McVie in 1976 and delivered to the studio during the recording of Fleetwood Mac’s seminal 1977 album Rumours. McVie used this fretless bass extensively in the studio and on stage with Fleetwood Mac from 1976 to circa 1982, most notably to record the iconic bass line on ‘The Chain’, widely regarded as one of the most recognizable bass lines in rock history, and for live performances of the song on the subsequent Rumours Tour. The bass can also be heard on seductive album track ‘Gold Dust Woman’ and the gorgeous B-side ‘Silver Springs’. Recorded primarily at the Record Plant in Sausalito, California, in 1976, the sessions for Rumours were famously fueled by decadent drug use amidst the collapse of multiple relationships within the band, racking up production costs of almost $1 million over nearly a year. Yet despite the chaos, Fleetwood Mac turned their emotional turmoil into a pop-rock masterpiece that remains one of the best-selling albums of all time. It’s a miracle everyone made it out alive, McVie told Bass Player magazine in 1995. But we did what was necessary to get through it, and if we had to do it over again, I think we’d do exactly the same thing.
As the band began to assemble in Sausalito ahead of recording, Alembic co-founder and luthier Rick Turner was a regular visitor to the studio. In 1976 I got a call at Alembic from John McVie of Fleetwood Mac, Turner wrote in 2016. The band was ensconced at the Record Plant in Sausalito to record their second album, to be known as “Rumours,” with Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, and John invited me down to meet them all [and] check out the setup on his early Alembic bass... I quickly became very at home with the band and their studio crew… John started buying Alembic basses that I’d bring to the studio, and they included the very first carbon fiber necked instrument, a short scale bass in the shape now made famous by Stanley Clarke, and a long scale fretless with a stainless steel fingerboard. Referring to the instrument’s all-metal fingerboard, Alembic co-founder Susan Wickersham has quipped: Rather than call it a fretless bass, I preferred the term 'continuously fretted' bass. In his 2012 memoir Making Rumours, album co-producer Ken Caillat notes that, during the sessions, McVie’s fretless bass was nicknamed “the Bay Bridge” as a joke, based on our time in Sausalito, and especially for its all-stainless-steel neck. Turner adds that the fretless bass can be heard on ‘The Chain’ from Rumours. It’s the one used in the bass intro to the song outro – bum, ba ba bum ba ba ba ba ba booooommmmm before Lindsey’s screaming Strat comes in.
According to Caillat, ‘The Chain’ was the first song the band worked on when they began recording on 2 February 1976, evolving from the first couple of run-throughs of a Christine McVie song called ‘Keep Me There’. After the last chorus, they started playing a jam or tag out, where everyone played hot and heavy, recalled Caillat. John started it with an amazing bass line in the break before the tag. Then Christine and Lindsey started playing off each other for about three minutes. Each time they played the song, it got better. The initial backing track with McVie’s new fretless bass, drums, electric guitar, and organ was recorded on the third run-through, although only the end section from McVie’s bass line onwards would ultimately be used in the final song. The song remained incomplete and was almost omitted from the album until various disparate elements were pieced together in the final few weeks before the band wrapped recording. Christine’s chord progression was retained from the original song, while Stevie Nicks provided a melody and lyrics that she had been working on, referencing the breakdown of her relationship with Lindsey Buckingham. Mick [Fleetwood] played his famous kick lick that we all know as the intro to ‘The Chain’, writes Caillat, and Lindsey played his renowned Dobro licks through the intro and the first verse. Due to the collaborative way the song was spliced together with contributions from all five members, it would be the only track on Rumours whose authorship is credited to the whole band. The ending was the only thing left from the original track, Buckingham told Cameron Crowe for Rolling Stone in 1977. We ended up calling it ‘The Chain’ because it was a bunch of pieces.
Caillat suggests that McVie also used the fretless bass on the song ‘Gold Dust Woman’, which songwriter Stevie Nicks has since admitted was an ode to cocaine. The end always surprised and amazed me, writes Caillat. It had this whole vamp rock tag like ‘The Chain’, all seemingly moving around that great John McVie bass line. How did he do that? It sounded as if he was playing fretless again. He slid up the bass, then he ran down. Check it out at 3:21 in the song. I think this may be one of John’s finest bass parts on Rumours. Caillat confirms that the fretless can be heard on another Nicks ballad recorded during the Rumours sessions, ‘Silver Springs’, explaining that McVie decided to add a more powerful bass part after hearing Buckingham's layered guitar overdubs: Left to his own creativity, John was a genius. His inspiration for his bass part on Stevie’s masterpiece was brilliant… An hour later, John had played a new bass part on his Fretless. It surpassed anything Lindsey could have imagined for the bass part on this magical rock ballad. It was spectacular and all John’s own. Despite Nicks’ strenuous objections, ‘Silver Springs’ was deemed too long for inclusion on the album and was instead released as the B-side to the single ‘Go Your Own Way’, although it would eventually be included on the 2004 reissue of Rumours.
Critically acclaimed and certified platinum within months of release, Rumours is widely regarded as Fleetwood Mac’s magnum opus and has sold over 40 million copies worldwide to date. Rolling Stone ranked it seventh in their 2020 list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. The second most streamed Fleetwood Mac song on Spotify with over 1.6 million streams, ‘The Chain’ was a popular staple of the band’s live shows from its release. McVie used the Alembic fretless bass for live performances of ‘The Chain’ during the Rumours Tour from February 1977 to August 1978, as well as the Tusk Tour from October 1979 to September 1980. The band’s electric performance of ‘The Chain’ at the St. Louis Checkerdome on 5 November 1979 was included on the Tusk tour documentary Fleetwood Mac: Documentary and Live Concert, which was released on VHS in 1980. McVie was last pictured playing this fretless bass during rehearsals for the Mirage Tour in August 1982.
ADDITIONAL REFERENCES
C. Crowe, ‘The True Life Confessions of Fleetwood Mac’, Rolling Stone, Issue no. 235, 24 March 1977.
A. Sklarevski, ‘A Life with Fleetwood Mac – John McVie’, Bass Player, May/June 1995.
As the band began to assemble in Sausalito ahead of recording, Alembic co-founder and luthier Rick Turner was a regular visitor to the studio. In 1976 I got a call at Alembic from John McVie of Fleetwood Mac, Turner wrote in 2016. The band was ensconced at the Record Plant in Sausalito to record their second album, to be known as “Rumours,” with Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, and John invited me down to meet them all [and] check out the setup on his early Alembic bass... I quickly became very at home with the band and their studio crew… John started buying Alembic basses that I’d bring to the studio, and they included the very first carbon fiber necked instrument, a short scale bass in the shape now made famous by Stanley Clarke, and a long scale fretless with a stainless steel fingerboard. Referring to the instrument’s all-metal fingerboard, Alembic co-founder Susan Wickersham has quipped: Rather than call it a fretless bass, I preferred the term 'continuously fretted' bass. In his 2012 memoir Making Rumours, album co-producer Ken Caillat notes that, during the sessions, McVie’s fretless bass was nicknamed “the Bay Bridge” as a joke, based on our time in Sausalito, and especially for its all-stainless-steel neck. Turner adds that the fretless bass can be heard on ‘The Chain’ from Rumours. It’s the one used in the bass intro to the song outro – bum, ba ba bum ba ba ba ba ba booooommmmm before Lindsey’s screaming Strat comes in.
According to Caillat, ‘The Chain’ was the first song the band worked on when they began recording on 2 February 1976, evolving from the first couple of run-throughs of a Christine McVie song called ‘Keep Me There’. After the last chorus, they started playing a jam or tag out, where everyone played hot and heavy, recalled Caillat. John started it with an amazing bass line in the break before the tag. Then Christine and Lindsey started playing off each other for about three minutes. Each time they played the song, it got better. The initial backing track with McVie’s new fretless bass, drums, electric guitar, and organ was recorded on the third run-through, although only the end section from McVie’s bass line onwards would ultimately be used in the final song. The song remained incomplete and was almost omitted from the album until various disparate elements were pieced together in the final few weeks before the band wrapped recording. Christine’s chord progression was retained from the original song, while Stevie Nicks provided a melody and lyrics that she had been working on, referencing the breakdown of her relationship with Lindsey Buckingham. Mick [Fleetwood] played his famous kick lick that we all know as the intro to ‘The Chain’, writes Caillat, and Lindsey played his renowned Dobro licks through the intro and the first verse. Due to the collaborative way the song was spliced together with contributions from all five members, it would be the only track on Rumours whose authorship is credited to the whole band. The ending was the only thing left from the original track, Buckingham told Cameron Crowe for Rolling Stone in 1977. We ended up calling it ‘The Chain’ because it was a bunch of pieces.
Caillat suggests that McVie also used the fretless bass on the song ‘Gold Dust Woman’, which songwriter Stevie Nicks has since admitted was an ode to cocaine. The end always surprised and amazed me, writes Caillat. It had this whole vamp rock tag like ‘The Chain’, all seemingly moving around that great John McVie bass line. How did he do that? It sounded as if he was playing fretless again. He slid up the bass, then he ran down. Check it out at 3:21 in the song. I think this may be one of John’s finest bass parts on Rumours. Caillat confirms that the fretless can be heard on another Nicks ballad recorded during the Rumours sessions, ‘Silver Springs’, explaining that McVie decided to add a more powerful bass part after hearing Buckingham's layered guitar overdubs: Left to his own creativity, John was a genius. His inspiration for his bass part on Stevie’s masterpiece was brilliant… An hour later, John had played a new bass part on his Fretless. It surpassed anything Lindsey could have imagined for the bass part on this magical rock ballad. It was spectacular and all John’s own. Despite Nicks’ strenuous objections, ‘Silver Springs’ was deemed too long for inclusion on the album and was instead released as the B-side to the single ‘Go Your Own Way’, although it would eventually be included on the 2004 reissue of Rumours.
Critically acclaimed and certified platinum within months of release, Rumours is widely regarded as Fleetwood Mac’s magnum opus and has sold over 40 million copies worldwide to date. Rolling Stone ranked it seventh in their 2020 list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. The second most streamed Fleetwood Mac song on Spotify with over 1.6 million streams, ‘The Chain’ was a popular staple of the band’s live shows from its release. McVie used the Alembic fretless bass for live performances of ‘The Chain’ during the Rumours Tour from February 1977 to August 1978, as well as the Tusk Tour from October 1979 to September 1980. The band’s electric performance of ‘The Chain’ at the St. Louis Checkerdome on 5 November 1979 was included on the Tusk tour documentary Fleetwood Mac: Documentary and Live Concert, which was released on VHS in 1980. McVie was last pictured playing this fretless bass during rehearsals for the Mirage Tour in August 1982.
ADDITIONAL REFERENCES
C. Crowe, ‘The True Life Confessions of Fleetwood Mac’, Rolling Stone, Issue no. 235, 24 March 1977.
A. Sklarevski, ‘A Life with Fleetwood Mac – John McVie’, Bass Player, May/June 1995.