Christine McVie

Christine McVie remained central to Fleetwood Mac across most of its turbulent shifts throughout the 1960s and 1970s, directing the ensemble’s progression from blues foundations toward pop with her warm yet powerful vocals and her lush, expansive melodies. Those qualities surfaced clearly on the albums the group issued while sharing the stage with guitarist Bob Welch, yet they crystallized sharply once Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks entered in 1975 and propelled Fleetwood Mac into an immediate pop/rock force. Across the following twelve years the band dominated the pop charts, frequently through McVie’s own successes. Although the turbulent partnership between Buckingham and Nicks and the material it produced drew constant attention, McVie supplied and performed a greater share of the ensemble’s major singles, among them “Say You Love Me,” “Don’t Stop,” “You Make Loving Fun,” “Hold Me,” “Little Lies,” and “Everywhere.” Stepping beyond the band, she issued a self-titled solo album in 1984 that yielded the Top Ten single “Got a Hold On Me,” then delivered another solo set, In the Meantime, two decades afterward, once she had departed Fleetwood Mac after its initial reunion with Buckingham and Nicks. She rejoined for a further reunion in 2014, a tour that prompted her and Buckingham to issue a joint album in 2017.

Born Christine Anne Perfect on July 12, 1943, in the small village of Greenodd to a concert violinist father and a faith healer mother—an upbringing that naturally encouraged a vivid imagination—McVie began piano lessons at four and undertook serious study at eleven, maintaining classical training until fifteen, when rock & roll captured her attention. While pursuing sculpture for five years at an arts college near Birmingham, she immersed herself in the surrounding music community and joined the band Sounds of Blue on bass. After earning a teaching degree, she found that Sounds of Blue had disbanded, so she relocated to London. In 1968 she rejoined two former bandmates, Andy Silvester and Stan Webb, in the British blues outfit Chicken Shack, where she played piano and sang. The group released two albums, 40 Blue Fingers, Freshly Packed and Ready to Serve in 1968 and O.K. Ken? in 1969, and scored a U.K. Top 20 hit with McVie’s striking rendition of Etta James’ “I’d Rather Go Blind.” She exited Chicken Shack in 1969 after encountering Fleetwood Mac bassist John McVie; they married a year later, immediately following the appearance of her debut solo album, the self-titled Christine Perfect.

After the wedding, now performing as Christine McVie, she entered Fleetwood Mac as pianist and vocalist and stayed for twenty-five years, achieving superstar status in 1975 within the Lindsey Buckingham/Stevie Nicks configuration. She and John McVie divorced in 1978 yet both remained with the band through Tusk (1979) and Mirage (1982). In 1984 she recorded and released her second solo album, simply titled Christine McVie. She wed keyboardist Eddy Quintela in 1986; they parted four years later in 1990, coinciding with the band’s release of Behind the Mask, recorded without Buckingham. After that album’s tour, McVie informed her colleagues she would no longer perform live, though she continued studio work and contributed five songs to 1995’s Time. A reunion of the Buckingham/Nicks lineup produced the 1997 live album The Dance, after which McVie completed the subsequent tour before officially leaving Fleetwood Mac in 1998 following the group’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She then remained out of the spotlight until issuing her third solo album, In the Meantime, in 2004. In 2006 she received the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors’ Gold Badge of Merit.

When Fleetwood Mac announced its 2012 world tour, Nicks tempered expectations that McVie might return. The next year McVie appeared with the Mick Fleetwood Blues Band, marking her first stage performance in fifteen years. That autumn she joined Fleetwood Mac onstage in London for “Don’t Stop” and performed on two additional dates. Early in 2014 the band formally confirmed McVie’s return, allowing the Rumours lineup to tour together for the first time since 1998. McVie and Buckingham convened at Village Recorder’s Studio D in Los Angeles—the same space where Tusk was recorded—to rebuild their creative rapport, a process that succeeded. Once back in England, an energized McVie began forwarding Buckingham demos and fragments; the pair then recreated the recording dynamic with John McVie and Mick Fleetwood for a new Fleetwood Mac studio album, with Nicks adding her contributions afterward. The quartet completed eight tracks before pausing to prepare for the On with the Show tour, which launched that fall and ran a full year. When Nicks chose to tour her own songs in 2016 instead of reconvening, McVie, Buckingham, Fleetwood, and John McVie resumed work and finished the project they had started earlier. The resulting Lindsey Buckingham/Christine McVie appeared in June 2017. Over the ensuing two years she continued touring with Fleetwood Mac, and she and Stevie Nicks supported Neil Finn—by then a touring member—on a 2020 charity single. Her solo output was honored in June 2022 with the Rhino compilation Songbird (A Solo Collection), the final release issued during her lifetime; she died after a brief illness on November 30, 2022.