When you think Fleetwood Mac, you think Stevie Nicks. But the singer Christine McVie was also of great importance to the group. She passed away on Wednesday at the age of 79. McVie was more than the lead singer of the band, she was also the mastermind behind some of their biggest hits.
Born Christine Ann Perfect, Christine McVie knew she was creative from a young age. She played the piano for the first time at age four, but she didn’t start taking lessons until she was eleven.
While he never quite stopped making music, he took a different path after high school. She trained as a sculptor at the Moseley School of Art, hoping to become an art teacher.
But her musical heart continued to pound and McVie surrounded herself with artists. Two close friends, Stan Webb and Andy Silvester, asked her to sing in the band Sounds of Blue. Although that band broke up and McVie was forced to work in a department store, the members eventually found each other. Together they started Chicken Shack, where McVie was a backing singer and played piano.
The band signed to the Blue Horizon record label, which also featured the 1967 founded band Fleetwood Mac. While on tour, the two bands met regularly and played together. On Fleetwood Mac’s second album, Mr Wonderful (1968), McVie can already be heard as a pianist. Later he also sang background vocals and did the album cover Oven House.
McVie is shown to have a knack for writing
She only became a real part of the band after marrying bassist John McVie in 1970. Peter Green, who founded Fleetwood Mac, had just left the band and the other members hoped to fill some of that void with Christine McVie. The musician has always been a big fan of the band and he knew the repertoire well.
McVie quickly became a big part of the band. Not only as a pianist, but also as a singer. And she turned out to have a talent for writing songs. For the album Bare trees (1972) wrote Spare me some of your lovea song that became a major part of the band’s performances.
However, his early years at Fleetwood Mac weren’t easy. Band members came and went – that period has not been called the transitional period of the group for nothing. In 1974 the band moved to the United States, where Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham joined the group. It wasn’t very quiet after that, because McVie had an affair with the band’s lighting director. This led to his divorce from John McVie.
That story provided the number Make love fun op, one of the hits from the still immensely popular album Voices state. Even the numbers Do not stop in Songbirdboth by McVie, are considered classics.
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Difficult relationships and solo albums
While the atmosphere did not improve, the band continued to tour and new music was composed. However, the double album did Tusk not half as much as hoped. After a short hiatus, Fleetwood released Mac in 1982 Mirage out, for which McVie co-wrote the song Hold me. Her troubled romance with Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson was her inspiration.
McVie, who continued to use her ex-husband John’s name, has also been working on her solo career. Her first solo album was in 1970, but the record was re-released in 1976 due to her success with Fleetwood Mac. In 1984 she released Christine McVie out, an album she would later say may not have been the most exciting yet, but at least now she’s made her ears happy.
After her failed relationship with lighting director and drummer John Wilson, she married keyboardist Eddy Quintela in 1986. Together they wrote several songs, which ended up on subsequent Fleetwood Mac albums. That marriage lasted much longer: the the two separated in 2003.
After his father’s death in 1990, McVie decided to stop touring immediately. She didn’t quite say goodbye at first, until she finally ended her career in the band in 1998. Fifteen years later, she suddenly returned to the stage when she performed in Hawaii with Mick Fleetwood Blues Band. In 2014 she returned permanently to Fleetwood Mac.
The band immediately responded to his death on Wednesday. “We have been fortunate enough to share a lifetime with her. Individually and as a group, we love Christine and are incredibly grateful for the memories we have. She will be greatly missed.”
