Christine McVie was Fleetwood Mac’s hit writer

Christine McVie was not just a member of Fleetwood Mac, as became clear when the band released a very successful Greatest Hits compilation in 1988: half of the sixteen songs were written by the singer and keyboardist.

McVie died on Wednesday at the age of 79, the band announced on social media. She passed away after a short illness, surrounded by her family, the statement said. Fleetwood Mac has sold over 100 million albums and is one of the most successful bands of all time.

Christine McVie was born Christine Perfect on July 12, 1943 in Bouth, near Birmingham. Her father was a concert violinist, her mother was a fortune teller. “I believed in her powers. She was truly a healer,” McVie said of her mother. As a young girl she took piano lessons and learned about rock music through her older brother John. In 1967 she joined the band Chicken Shack, which was formed by band members of a group McVie had previously been in. The band’s first song, “It’s Okay With Me Baby,” was written by McVie, and minor success came with “I’d Rather Go Blind.” McVie fell in love with the bassist of a band they regularly played support act for: Fleetwood Mac.

In 1968 she married that bass player, John McVie. During their honeymoon, which didn’t go that far (Birmingham), Joe Cocker turned out to be staying at their hotel. McVie said about it earlier this year The Guardian: “We got drunk with him on our wedding night! Until we threw him out.”

McVie left Chicken Shack in 1969 and joined Fleetwood Mac a year later, after guitarist and band founder Peter Green (deceased in 2020) left the band. But even before she joined the band, she already had backing vocals and keyboard parts for the album Kill House recorded for the band, and she had also painted the cover of that album. “It was heartbreaking for them that Peter left the band,” she said. “They practiced at Kiln House, and I was there with all the women. They came out of the rehearsal room and said, “Hey Chris, do you want to join us?” I couldn’t believe my luck. I said ‘seriously? I’m just a girl playing the piano.”

Alcohol rivers

The band members were known for their use of drugs and alcohol. “The group members officially lived in California, but usually lived in a self-chosen environment of cocaine mountains and alcohol rivers, in a mist of marijuana vapors,” NRC wrote in 2018. McVie said: “I am not innocent when it comes to that, but Stevie and I were always very careful. The boys were handed cocaine in Heineken caps on stage, but Stevie and I always only took small amounts. I took pretty good care of myself. My drugs were cocaine and champagne, I took nothing else. By the way, I think I performed better because of it, but someone could convince me otherwise.”

The band’s line-up continued to change, and Fleetwood Mac moved to the United States, where Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham joined the band in 1974. The album they made together, Fleetwood Mac in 1975, was quite successful. The McVie-written songs ‘Over My Head’ and ‘Say You Love Me’ made the charts. But they achieved greater success with the next album, Rumors, which would go on to become one of the best-selling albums of all time. It featured hits like “Don’t Stop,” “Never Going Back Again,” “Songbird,” and “You Make Loving Fun,” a song McVie wrote about an affair with the band’s lightsman—she and John McVie were divorced at the time of release. The song ‘Dreams’, written by Stevie Nicks (Christine McVie called it ‘boring’ during the recording), became a hit again in 2020, when Tiktokker Nathan Apodaca used it in a video. The song re-entered the charts, including on Spotify and Apple Music.

Hits still followed, but modestly. The song ‘Love in Store’ from Mirage (1983) did hit the charts, which was inspired by McVie’s relationship with Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson. And also the songs ‘Everywhere’ and ‘Little Lies’ (co-)written by her Tango in the Night, sold well. That would be Fleetwood Mac’s last studio album. In 1998 McVie left the band to retire to the English countryside.

Solo albums

McVie released three solo albums. Another for Fleetwood Mac, Christine Perfect, on which she made quite pure blues with her beautiful low voice. She made the second in 1984, Christine McVie, whose songs ‘Got a Hold on Me’ and ‘Love Will Show Me How’ did well. her third, In the meantime, came out in 2004 and didn’t do very well. “There were some good songs on it, but I had gone about it all wrong,” she said about it ten years later. “I did it the wrong way, with the wrong people. I didn’t want to fly, I didn’t want to promote it. I just made it in my garage and nothing happened to it.”

Her fear of flying was partly in the way. A therapist instructed her to buy a plane ticket to the destination she most wanted to go to. She bought a ticket to Hawaii, and eventually flew there with Mick Fleetwood. There she played a gig with him and her ex-husband John McVie with their blues band, which led to her return to Fleetwood Mac in 2014. A concert followed, including Nicks, Buckingham and Fleetwood, at London’s O2 Arena, and they decided to tour again.

In 2019 they were back at Pinkpop for the first time since 1971 – although Lindsey Buckingham had already been fired by the band. “A cheerful festive reunion, with the hit carousel spinning from the first notes,” NRC wrote in the review.

McVie’s death has not been disclosed. She said in June this year Rollingstone was struggling with her health, when the question arose whether a big farewell tour of the band was coming, a wish of Mick Fleetwood. “I’m not physically ready for that,” she said. “My health is pretty bad. I have a chronic back problem. I play the piano standing up, so I don’t know if I’m capable of that. What that means? The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

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A version of this article also appeared in the December 1, 2022 newspaper