Provider of love, friendship and heaps of worldwide success for Fleetwood Mac

How intense things were on the love side within Fleetwood Mac when the British-American rock band released the classic album Rumors (1977) is evidenced by two of the hits that keyboardist Christine McVie contributed to the album.

In Do not stop (one of Fleetwood Mac’s most famous hits), she wrote and sang about her divorce from bassist John McVie. In the meantime, she had an affair with a lighting designer in the group, Curry Grant, of whom she You have fun loving wrote. In order not to further escalate tensions in the band, she told her ex-husband and other bandmates that the song was about her dog.

She died at the age of 79, Christine McVie, who was perhaps a little less known by name than that other Fleetwood Mac woman, Stevie Nicks, but just as talented and important. She died surrounded by her family after a short illness.

Born in Lancashire in the north of England, she grew up near Birmingham and studied sculpture at the Moseley School of Art there, but towards the end of the 1960s she became particularly attached to the blues and the rock ‘n roll and started playing and singing. in bands, including Chicken Shack had some success.

perfect christine

She didn’t officially join Fleetwood Mac until 1970, but who took the album credits from Fleetwood Mac’s second album, Mr. Tremendous (1968), read carefully, finds her already there, under her maiden name Christine Perfect. Fleetwood Mac had asked her as a keyboardist and pianist friend to play on a number of songs.

At the time she joined the band and released her first album as a full member of Fleetwood Mac – Future Games1971 – she had become Mrs. McVie. morning rain was his first own song for the band.

Many more would follow, both for the original British Fleetwood Mac and for the legendary British-American line-up with Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, which was created when the band moved to the United States in 1974. Christine McVie didn’t want to at first, but she agreed anyway.

Also after Rumors she continued to deliver hits. Fleetwood Mac’s Newest US Top 10, little lies (1987), was by his hand. On the The biggest hitscompilation released in 1988, eight of the sixteen songs were written by her.

In the 1990s, she developed a fear of flying, and touring weighed her down more and more. She was still around when Fleetwood Mac was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998, but announced she was leaving the band soon after.

reclusive existence

For fifteen years she led a relatively isolated life, until suddenly appearing on the London scene in September 2013 to perform with her former band. Do not stop to sing. An extensive reunion tour of the hit band followed in 2014 and 2015. In 2017, she released a duet album with bandmate Lindsey Buckingham.

Fleetwood Mac said: “She was the best musician you could ever have in your band and the best friend you could ever have in your life. We consider ourselves lucky to have had a life with her.