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Fleetwood Mac\u2019s not-so-secret weapon held the group together through breakups and freakouts, ruptures and reinventions, blizzards of drugs and booze, until even she could take no more. But without her voice, her songs, and her sanity, they were only ever half the band. Mark Blake pays tribute to Christine McVie<\/span>.<\/p>\n
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(L-R) John McVie, Christine McVie, Stevie Nicks, Mick Fleetwood, and Lindsey Buckingham pose for a portrait in 1975<\/p>\n
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IN AUGUST 1987, LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM TOLD Fleetwood Mac he wouldn\u2019t be touring their new album, Tango In The Night<\/i>. The shows were already booked and a furious Stevie Nicks chased him up and down the corridors of Christine McVie\u2019s Beverly Hills mansion, hurling insults. Eventually, the couple ended up outside, physically threatening each other, among the manicured hedgerows and expensive cars.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI remember saying, \u2018Please don\u2019t kill each other on my driveway,\u2019\u201d said McVie, displaying her flair for understatement.<\/p>\n
Christine McVie passed away on November 30, 2022 after a short illness. Descriptions such as \u201cthe quiet one\u201d and \u201cFleetwood Mac\u2019s secret weapon\u201d appeared in several obituaries; \u201creferee\u201d could also be added to the list. Really, McVie\u2019s contribution was neither quiet nor secret.<\/p>\n
McVie composed or co-wrote eight of the group\u2019s 16 US Top 20 hits, including Don\u2019t Stop, You Make Loving Fun, Everywhere and Little Lies, and was the creative glue binding the original blues band, comprising drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie, with the Californian influx of Buckingham and Nicks.<\/p>\n
This writer was fortunate to interview her three times. She was always candid and considered, with a highly-tuned bullshit detector. McVie was also a musical giant, steeped in blues, pop and rock\u2019n\u2019roll, and adored and respected by the rest of Fleetwood Mac; even the notoriously single-minded Buckingham deferred \u201cto Chris\u201d. Yet it took her 15-year hiatus from the group and, finally, her death, for McVie\u2019s contribution to be more fully, and broadly, acknowledged.<\/p>\n
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McVIE WAS BORN CHRISTINE ANNE PERFECT IN Bouth, Cumbria, on July 12, 1943, and never liked her surname: \u201cTeachers would always say, \u2018I hope you live up to it.\u2019\u201d Raised in Smethwick, on the grey border between Birmingham and the Black Country, she was the second child of music tutor and concert violinist Cyril and his wife, Beatrice, a medium and faith healer.<\/p>\n
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Growing up, McVie was wary of her mother\u2019s interest in the occult. Though she recalled Beatrice once placing a finger on a wart under her nose and promising her it would be gone by morning: \u201cAnd it was. Though I still have a slight scar there.\u201d<\/p>\n
A talent for art was spotted early, and McVie was barely in her teens when she was fast-tracked into Moseley Junior Art School. But music was a parallel passion, nurtured by her father and her older brother John. McVie played piano and cello, and discovered the blues aged 15 when John showed her Fats Domino\u2019s piano songbook. Domino\u2019s seesawing left hand on Ain\u2019t That A Shame \u2013 \u201cthe boogie bass\u201d as McVie called it \u2013 would reappear in several of her signature hits.<\/p>\n
Soon after, she composed her first song, I\u2019ll Never Stop Loving You, hid in a cupboard backstage at the Birmingham Odeon so she could meet the Everly Brothers, and sung with a young Spencer Davis. One night, she ended up playing on-stage with a local band, Sounds Of Blue. There were very few female role models in groups at the time. \u201cIt was considered a novelty,\u201d she said. \u201cLike the girl bass player in The Applejacks or the drummer in The Honeycombs.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Graduating from Birmingham Art College with a diploma in sculpture but no idea what to do next, McVie found herself employed as a window dresser at Dickins & Jones department store in London\u2019s West End. \u201cThe job was boring and the uniform awful,\u201d she recalled. But salvation arrived in 1967: former Sounds Of Blue bassist Andy Silvester spotted her in the window and asked if she\u2019d play piano in his and guitarist Stan Webb\u2019s new ensemble, Chicken Shack.<\/p>\n
She joined in time for a six-week residency at Hamburg\u2019s Star Club, before composing Chicken Shack\u2019s first single, It\u2019s Okay With Me Baby, and two tracks on their 1968 debut, 40 Blue Fingers Freshly Packed And Ready To Serve<\/i>.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe worked seven nights a week, five hours a night,\u201d she recalled. \u201cBut I enjoyed being part of a group, and suddenly knowing where I was going.\u201d<\/p>\n
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(L-R) Honorees Stevie Nicks, John McVie, Christine McVie, Lindsey Buckingham and Mick Fleetwood onstage during MusiCares Person of the Year honouring Fleetwood Mac at Radio City Music Hall in New York City, 2018[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n
FLEETWOOD MAC ENTERED HER life in November 1967. At the show at London\u2019s Saville Theatre, most eyes were on the blues boom standard-bearers\u2019 mercurial lead guitarist, Peter Green, but she was drawn to the bass player, John McVie, \u201cwith his dry sense of humour and Fu Manchu moustache,\u201d she recalled. The pair married the following year, and spent their wedding night getting drunk with Joe Cocker, who was staying in the same Birmingham hotel.<\/p>\n
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McVie now had to navigate the dual roles of lone woman in an all-boys\u2019 club and a touring musician\u2019s wife. \u201cNobody chatted me up in the group. I wasn\u2019t even like a bird to them,\u201d she told Disc magazine in 1969. \u201cThe groupies used to glare daggers at me, and it rather put them off their stroke when I was around.\u201d<\/p>\n
In later years, McVie admitted to feeling conflicted about her early career. She won Melody Maker\u2019s Female Vocalist Of 1969, for Chicken Shack\u2019s hit cover of Etta James\u2019s I\u2019d Rather Go Blind, but quit the group to stay home, because she wasn\u2019t seeing enough of her husband. \u201cIt always destroys me when John\u2019s away,\u201d she said at the time. \u201cIt\u2019s like having my right arm missing.\u201d<\/p>\n
McVie\u2019s manager coaxed her into a solo LP, Christine Perfect<\/i>, but she was a reluctant performer and the subsequent tour was blighted by stage fright. \u201cThere were 300 people in this club and I ran off-stage and burst into tears,\u201d she said. In the meantime, Peter Green\u2019s departure from Fleetwood Mac had left the remaining members to take stock. The musicians, wives, girlfriends and roadies began living in a converted oast house in rural Alton, Hampshire.<\/p>\n
While Fleetwood Mac wrote and rehearsed 1970\u2019s Kiln House<\/i>, McVie cooked, cleaned, rolled joints, tie-dyed T-shirts and drew the children\u2019s book-style illustration on the LP sleeve. Then, 10 days before Fleetwood Mac were about to go on tour, they asked her to join the band. \u201cI knew all the songs,\u201d she told MOJO\u2019s Andrew Male. \u201cSo I just came chiming in with my piano and did a couple of harmonies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Green\u2019s fellow guitarists were still in the group, though Jeremy Spencer disappeared with The Children Of God religious movement in mid-1970, leaving Danny Kirwan to hold the fort on 1971\u2019s Future Games<\/i> and \u201972\u2019s Bare Trees<\/i>. Kirwan and McVie\u2019s relationship was fraught.<\/p>\n
\u201cI respected Danny as a musician,\u201d she told this writer in 2018. \u201cHe was a great player, but we did not get on as people. He certainly didn\u2019t know how to treat a woman.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kirwan didn\u2019t want McVie\u2019s harmonies on his songs, but her compositions and lead voice lit up both records, with Spare Me A Little Of Your Love pairing her cut-glass English enunciation with gospelly backing voices.<\/p>\n
Jeremy Spencer\u2019s replacement, Tennessee-born guitarist\/vocalist Bob Welch, was more encouraging. The Welch-composed Sentimental Lady, from Bare Trees<\/i>, made a feature of his and Christine\u2019s pealing harmonies. It suggested a new direction, but Fleetwood Mac ignored the signs a little longer.<\/p>\n
Instead, Brum bluesman Dave Walker made a fleeting appearance on 1973\u2019s Penguin<\/i>, before being fired. Kirwan\u2019s replacement, Bob Weston, duetted with McVie on Did You Ever Love Me (the only Mac song to ever feature steel drums), but was sacked for having an affair with Mick Fleetwood\u2019s wife, Jenny. \u201cOdd things happen to this band all the time,\u201d reflected McVie, understating again. \u201cWhen you\u2019re right in the middle, you become philosophical.\u201d<\/p>\n
McVie\u2019s songs \u2013 notably, Mystery To Me<\/i>\u2019s lovelorn Why and Heroes Are Hard To Find<\/i>\u2019s brass-filled title track \u2013 gave this phase of the band an illusion of continuity. In reality, Fleetwood Mac were in limbo. In a last attempt at a relaunch, Fleetwood persuaded the McVies to move to Los Angeles with him. \u201cI agreed, just for three months, as I really didn\u2019t want to leave England,\u201d said Christine.<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t help that, sped by her husband\u2019s alcoholism, her marriage to John McVie was ending. But the move, and the marital trauma, would have unpredictable impacts on the band. \u201cHad we stayed in England,\u201d she told this writer, \u201cFleetwood Mac might never have survived.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks perform at The Omni Coliseum in Atlanta Georgia June 1, 1977[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n
IN WINTER 1974, BOB WELCH BECAME THE MAC\u2019S latest man overboard, frustrated by their lack of hits and battling heroin addiction. Fleetwood Mac were now down to three exiled Brits, clinging onto their record deal. Mick Fleetwood\u2019s latest gambit was to induct Californian guitarist Lindsey Buckingham and singer Stevie Nicks, the boyfriend-girlfriend duo whose 1973 debut had landed with a resounding thud. The two parties needed each other, but Fleetwood required the buy-in of his group\u2019s remaining songwriter. \u201cChristine had to meet Stevie first,\u201d explained Fleetwood, \u201cbecause there would have been nothing worse than two women in a band cat-fighting.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201cI liked Stevie straight away,\u201d said McVie, who realised that having another woman in Fleetwood Mac offered strength in numbers, and found that the new recruits brought out the best in her voice and songs. The first single from 1975\u2019s Fleetwood Mac<\/i> was McVie\u2019s Over My Head, which twinned her pristine vocal with a sleepy West Coast groove, and gave the band its first US Top 20 hit. \u201cYour mood is like a circus wheel,\u201d sang McVie, \u201cyou\u2019re changing all the time\u2026\u201d It was partly written about Buckingham, who intimidated McVie with his mood swings and perfectionism. \u201cBut it forced me to up my game,\u201d she said. \u201cBoth Lindsey and Stevie made me a better writer.\u201d<\/p>\n
The previous year\u2019s ailing blues-rockers had been transformed by a slick American paint job. \u2018The White Album\u2019 sold a million copies within a month of release in July 1975 \u2013 and kept on selling.<\/p>\n
Everything changed, though. Nicks was almost five years McVie\u2019s junior and had a fraction of her songwriting experience, but she became Fleetwood Mac\u2019s on-stage frontwoman, a whirling dervish of hair, silk and lace.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor a while, I got jealous,\u201d admitted McVie. \u201cIt didn\u2019t last long, because I saw my role as part of the rhythm section with John and Mick. I could no more do twirls in chiffon than Stevie could play the blues on the piano.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Christine McVie in recording studio, wearing sunglasses<\/p>\n
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WHAT HAPPENED NEXT IS UNIMAGINABLE WITHOUT the input of Fleetwood Mac\u2019s most graceful element. Released in January 1977, the all-conquering Rumours<\/i> topped the charts in four countries, including the UK and US, and would go on to sell in excess of 45 million copies, shored up by two of Christine McVie\u2019s greatest hits.<\/p>\n
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By now, Buckingham and Nicks had broken up, John and Christine had split, and the latter had begun a new relationship with the group\u2019s lighting engineer, Curry Grant. The mixed emotions flooded through the three writers\u2019 work. But while Buckingham goaded Nicks in Go Your Own Way, McVie delivered the album\u2019s most upbeat songs. On the American Top 3 hit Don\u2019t Stop she urged her estranged husband to get on with his life, and serenaded her new boyfriend in its US Top 10 follow-up, You Make Loving Fun. \u201cI\u2019m good at pathos,\u201d she told MOJO. \u201cI write about romantic despair but with a positive spin.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her voice and songs were also a link to the old Fleetwood Mac, without being stuck in the past. McVie avoided faux Americanisms and always sang in an unapologetically English accent. She was also the self-proclaimed \u201cqueen of the hooks\u201d \u2013 always starting with the chorus, and working backwards. \u201cChristine wrote the hits,\u201d said Nicks. \u201cWay more than I ever did.\u201d<\/p>\n
Inevitably, Curry Grant was fired and the relationship ended. The band always<\/i> came first. McVie composed Rumours<\/i>\u2019 ballad, Songbird, as a love letter to the rest of Fleetwood Mac. It came to her one night, fully formed \u2013 \u201cafter a couple of toots of coke and half a bottle of champagne\u201d \u2013 and she stayed awake until she could get to the studio. In defiance of her earlier stage shyness, McVie would perform Songbird, alone at the piano, closing the vast majority of the shows she subsequently played with the band.<\/p>\n
The song summed up the band\u2019s shared philosophy: Fleetwood Mac versus the world, regardless of any personal squabbles. But there was still something terribly British about how the McVies coped. Christine poured out her heart in song and her spurned husband \u2013 bucket hat or flat cap pulled down over his eyes \u2013 dutifully played the bass lines. \u201cI never really listened to the words,\u201d John once said. \u201c\u2018Don\u2019t stop thinking about tomorrow\u2026\u2019 Yeah, OK.\u201d<\/p>\n
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CHRISTINE\u2019S STEADIER HAND PROVED invaluable as Fleetwood Mac embarked on 1979\u2019s Tusk<\/i>. Fleetwood and Nicks had begun a not-so-secret affair and the band\u2019s cocaine use was excessive even by \u201970s standards. \u201cI was the most restrained of the lot,\u201d claimed McVie, \u201cand I was certainly no angel.\u201d<\/p>\n
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On Tusk<\/i>, McVie anchored Buckingham\u2019s more outlandish songs and production ideas. While he played percussion on lavatory seats and Kleenex boxes and sounded like a one-man band on The Ledge and Not That Funny, McVie soothed the Rumours<\/i>-loving fanbase with Over And Over and Tusk<\/i>\u2019s gorgeous hidden gem, Brown Eyes.<\/p>\n
She also policed the others. On 1979-80\u2019s Tusk<\/i> tour, McVie threw a glass of wine in Buckingham\u2019s face after he mocked Nicks\u2019s on-stage dancing. \u201cI told Lindsey, \u2018Don\u2019t you ever<\/i> do anything like that to this band again,\u2019\u201d she raged.<\/p>\n
Despite the pure voice and poignant songs, there was a side to McVie that one contemporary member of the Mac\u2019s entourage described as \u201cearthy and tough\u201d, adding that \u201cshe was the band mother\u201d. But McVie wasn\u2019t immune to romantic drama either. By now, the Beach Boys drummer and notorious bon vivant<\/i> Dennis Wilson had moved into her Coldwater Canyon estate after a whirlwind courtship. \u201cI watched in trepidation as Chris almost went mad trying to keep up with Dennis,\u201d recalled Fleetwood.<\/p>\n
McVie composed Only Over You on 1982\u2019s Mirage<\/i> for Wilson. \u201cPeople think I\u2019m crazy,\u201d she sang. \u201cBut they don\u2019t know\u2026\u201d Nevertheless, the relationship ended, not long after McVie discovered he\u2019d been using her credit card to buy underwear for his teenage girlfriend.<\/p>\n
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With Fleetwood Mac off the road, McVie made another solo album, Christine McVie<\/i>, and coaxed Buckingham and Fleetwood into playing on it. When the group reconvened for 1987\u2019s Tango In The Night<\/i>, she and Buckingham wrote most of the hits, while Nicks struggled with an addiction to the prescription tranquilliser, Klonopin.<\/p>\n
While McVie had married again, to Portuguese musician Eddy Quintela, Tango<\/i>\u2026 was a testament to another partnership \u2013 Buckingham and McVie \u2013 the pair going about their business without a past romantic entanglement to confuse matters. Buckingham applied his studio wizardry to Little Lies and Everywhere \u2013 their sing-song choruses and sweet hooks distilled the essence of Christine McVie \u2013 but his departure after Tango In The Night<\/i> was a case of history repeating. Once again, McVie tried to steady the listing ship on 1990\u2019s inconsequential Behind The Mask<\/i> and \u201995\u2019s Time<\/i>. Her song, Save Me, from this era, had a gold-standard chorus but could be now considered a cry for help.<\/p>\n
McVie clashed with the new recruit, ex-Traffic guitarist Dave Mason, and eventually quit. \u201cChris helped to the degree she could,\u201d said Fleetwood. \u201cThen, for her own survival, she couldn\u2019t do one bit more.\u201d<\/p>\n
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SUBSEQUENTLY, CHRISTINE McVIE could easily have used Michael Corleone\u2019s words about the Mafia \u2013 \u201cJust when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!\u201d \u2013 to apply to Fleetwood Mac.<\/p>\n
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A one-off performance of Don\u2019t Stop at President Bill Clinton\u2019s 1993 inauguration gala was followed in 1997 by a full reunion tour. But she\u2019d had enough of it months before its end. \u201cDon\u2019t tell anyone,\u201d she told this writer after the Mac\u2019s show in Auburn Hills, Michigan, on October 4. \u201cBut when this tour\u2019s over, I am leaving the band to open a restaurant.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the end, she only made it as far as cookery school. But McVie underwent a drastic life change. She sold her song publishing for an unspecified amount and moved into a 19-acre estate in the Kent village of Wickhambreaux. \u201cI\u2019d had enough of living out of a suitcase,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
McVie and Quintela\u2019s marriage didn\u2019t last, and the couple divorced in 2003. A third solo LP, In The Meantime<\/i>, snuck out the following year before disappearing almost without trace. McVie now found herself rattling around a country house, with just her two Lhasa Apsos, Dougal and George, for company. She walked the dogs, read plenty of books, and watched crime dramas and Have I Got News For You on TV. \u201cI used to be a late-night person,\u201d she told MOJO\u2019s James McNair. \u201cBut these days I\u2019m more of an early bird and go to bed about nine in the evening.\u201d<\/p>\n
In reality, she was drinking too much and had developed agoraphobia, plus fear of flying. As she would tell Andrew Male, in 2013 a psychiatrist asked McVie if she could bear to fly, where would she go? She said Maui to see Mick Fleetwood. The therapist told her to book a plane ticket for six months\u2019 time.<\/p>\n
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Over the intervening weeks, McVie gradually began to regain her confidence and leave the house again. When Fleetwood came to London, she flew back to Maui with him: \u201cAnd I barely noticed the plane taking off.\u201d<\/p>\n
McVie rejoined Fleetwood Mac for good in 2014. She\u2019d played as a session musician on some of their last album, 2003\u2019s Say You Will<\/i>, and the others had missed \u201cthe queen of the hooks\u201d. Even so, there was a caveat. Buckingham, emotionally invested in his past collaborations with McVie, did not want to get his hopes up. \u201cI called her up and said, \u2018Chris, I think it\u2019s a great idea,\u2019\u201d he told MOJO\u2019s Jim Irvin, \u201c\u2018but you do know that if you come back you can\u2019t leave again!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
For the 2015 world tour, McVie was back behind her keyboard, customised with a wing mirror so she could see the trusty rhythm section behind her. \u201cThe prodigal daughter returns,\u201d said McVie, but even she couldn\u2019t stop Buckingham and Nicks from clashing, and old tensions soon resurfaced.<\/p>\n
A planned Fleetwood Mac studio album morphed into 2017\u2019s Lindsey Buckingham Christine McVie<\/i> instead, before Buckingham was fired from the band at Nicks\u2019s insistence. The album\u2019s closing song, Carnival Begin, sounded autobiographical. \u201cTravelling girl is moving north, west, east and south,\u201d sang McVie, sounding like she\u2019d been around the world more times than she could remember.<\/p>\n
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FEW OUTSIDE FLEETWOOD MAC\u2019S INNER CIRCLE knew she was ill, and her death came as a shock to many. Christine McVie always felt like a constant presence in the Fleetwood Mac story, even though she\u2019d stepped away from the band more than once.<\/p>\n
Initially bound to them by marriage, McVie\u2019s roles as musician, hit songwriter, confidante and friend proved vital to the group\u2019s chemistry and long-term success. As Mick Fleetwood said after learning of her death, \u201cThe healer\u2019s daughter will always be my sister and inspiration.\u201d<\/p>\n
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This article first featured in the March 2023 issue of Mojo<\/I><\/p>\n
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Images: Getty<\/p>\n
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Fleetwood Mac\u2019s not-so-secret weapon held the group together through breakups and freakouts, ruptures and reinventions, blizzards of drugs and booze, until even she could take no more<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":3052,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mojo-presents"],"acf":[],"modified_by":"kschwarz","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3051"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3051\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3060,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3051\/revisions\/3060"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}