Fleetwood Mac hitmaker Christine McVie dies at 79 (2023)

Christine McVie, the singer, songwriter and keyboardist who became the biggest hitmaker for Fleetwood Mac, one of the most popular music bands in the world, died on Wednesday. She was 79 years old.

His family announced his death on Facebook. The statement said he died in a hospital, but did not specify the place or cause of death. In June, McVie told Rolling Stone that he was in "very poor health" and suffered from debilitating back problems.

At its height in the 1970s and 1980s, McVie's commercial power was on full display in the Fleetwood Mac Greatest Hits anthology, published in 1988, which sold over eight million copies: she wrote or co-authored half of its 16 titles. Her tally was double that of the second most prolific member of the band's singer-songwriter trio, Stevie Nicks. (The third, Lindsey Buckingham, scored three big Billboard hits with this collection.)

The most popular songs that Mrs. McVie wrote favored upbeat rhythms and upbeat melodies, numbers like "Say You Love Me" (which cracked the Billboard Top 10), "You Make Loving Fun" (which just broke), "Hold Me" (#4) and " Don't Stop" (their lead hit, which peaked at #3). But she can also hit elegant ballads like "Over My Head" (No. 20) and "Little Lies" (which topped the top five of the 1987 release).

In just half an hour, he composed one of the band's most popular songs, "Songbird," a soulful ballad that served as the band's concert-ending encore for years. In 2019, bandleader Mick Fleetwood told New Musical Express that "Songbird" was the song he wanted to play at his funeral "to get me buzzing".

McVie's lyrics often captured the most intoxicating aspects of the novel. "I'm definitely not a pessimist," he told Bob Brunning, author of the 2004 book The Fleetwood Mac Story: Rumors and Lies. "I'm basically a love songwriter."

"This Chemistry"

The voice of Mrs. McVie also conveyed a variety of feelings. Her soulful contralto could sound alternately wise and sexually alive. Its reddish hue had the heady effect of a bourbon with a rich aroma and smooth finish. She found an elegant place in harmony with the voices of Mrs. Nicks and Mr. Buckingham, together forming a distinct Fleetwood Mac sound.

"It was that chemistry," he told Mojo. “The two just screamed in perfect three-way harmony. I just remember thinking, 'This is it!'"

A solid instrumentalist, Ms. McVie played a variety of keyboards, often borrowing the soulful tone of a Hammond B3 organ and the formality of a Yamaha grand piano.

He has won five gold, one platinum and seven multi-platinum albums with Fleetwood Mac. The band's biggest hit, "Rumours", released in 1977, was one of the most powerful climbers in pop history: it received a double diamond , which translates into sales of more than 20 million copies.

In 1998, Mrs. McVie was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame along with various Fleetwood Mac lineups, reflecting the frequent (and dramatic) personnel changes the band has seen throughout its labyrinthine history. Mrs. McVie has performed in incarnations dating back to 1971, but also had uncredited roles as keyboardist and backing vocals on the band's second album, released in 1968. Before joining Fleetwood Mac, she had reached No. 14 in the UK. Chicken Shack in a cover of Etta James' I'd Rather Go Blind, in which he played the title role.

Christine Anne Perfect was born on 12 July 1943 in the English Lake District to Cyril Perfect, a classical violinist and university professor of music, and Beatrice (Reece) Perfect, a clairvoyant.

Her father encouraged her to take classical piano lessons when she was 11 years old. Four years later, her approach changed dramatically when he found some sheet music for Fats Domino's songs. At the time, he told Rolling Stone in 1984: "It was goodbye Chopin."

"I started playing boogie bass," he told Mojo. "The blues got me. Even today, the songs I write still use that left hand. It has its roots in the blues."

After graduating from university in 1966, Ms. McVie moved to London and became a department store window dresser. A year later, he was invited to join Chicken Shack as a keyboardist and occasional vocalist. He wrote two songs for the band's debut album, 40 Blue Fingers, Freshly Packed and Ready to Serve.

She was voted best female singer twice in a Melody Maker readers' poll, but left the band in 1969 after marrying John McVie, bassist for Fleetwood Mac, who had formed in 1967 and had already recorded three albums. That same year, she recorded a solo album, The Legendary Christine Perfect Album, which she later described to Rolling Stone as "so cowardly".

"I just hate to hear it," he said.

join the band

Her disappointment with this record, coupled with her reluctance to perform, led to Ms. McVie to put music aside for a while. But in 1970, when Fleetwood Mac guitarist Peter Green suddenly left the band after a ruinous acid trip, Mick Fleetwood invited them to join him.

Initially, she found being asked to join her favorite band "a harrowing experience", she told Rolling Stone. But he rose to the occasion by writing two of the catchiest songs for his first official release with the band, Future Games (1971). On this release, the band moved from British blues to Southern California progressive folk-rock, aided by the addition of American singer, songwriter and guitarist Bob Welch.

The band refined that sound on their 1972 set, "Bare Trees," which sold better and contained one of McVie's most soulful songs, "Spare Me a Little of Your Love." The band's 1973 release Penguin went gold. 1974's Heroes Are Hard to Find was the band's first Top 40 album. But it was only after Welch's departure and the hiring of the romantically involved team of Mrs. simply "Fleetwood Mac" that the band started to show all its commercial verve.

The song "Over My Head" by Mrs. McVie began charting in the Billboard Top 20; Her "Say You Love Me" reached number 11. After a slow development, the album "Fleetwood Mac" finally peaked on Billboard.

A little over a year and a half later, the group released Rumors, which attracted outside attention not only for its four Top 10 hits (two of them written by McVie) but also for several highly dramatic behind-the-scenes events. . in the ranks of the band Band, which aired in the letters and openly discussed in the press.

During the production of the album, the band's two couples broke up: Mrs. Nicks and Mr. Buckingham and the McVies couple. McVie's song "You Make Loving Fun" celebrated an affair she was having with the band's lighting director at the time. (He first told Mr. McVie that the song was about his dog.) The upbeat "Don't Stop" was intended to lead her ex-husband into a new life without her.

"We wrote these songs in spite of ourselves," McVie told Mojo. “It was a therapeutic move. The only way to get this out was by saying it, and it came out the hard way. Imagine trying to sing those songs onstage with the people you're singing about."

He helped ease the pain, telling Mojo that "we were all so high", adding, "I don't think there's ever been a sober day." And the huge success of the album gave the members another high. “The thrill of realizing you've written one of the greatest albums ever written; It's been a phenomenal time," McVie told Attitude magazine in 2019.

But the group yearned to expand creatively. The result was the less commercial sounding follow-up to the 1979 double album Tusk. While not a hit on the rumored scale, it sold over two million copies and produced three hits. including "Think About Me" by Mrs. McVie.

in the 80's

The group got off to a bright start in the new decade with the 1982 release "Mirage", which reached No. 1, helped by Mrs. McVie, a Top 5 hit inspired by her turbulent relationship with Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys were inspired. Two years later, Mrs. McVie has released a top 30 solo album, while his strongest single, "Got a Hold on Me", reached the top 10.

In 1987, the revived Fleetwood Mac released Tango in the Night, which included two hits written by Ms. McVie, Everywhere and Little Lies. ("Little Lies" was written with Portuguese musician and songwriter Eddie Quintela, whom she had married the previous year. They divorced in 2003.) Buckingham left the group soon after, breaking the momentum that had made their recordings so stellar. The 1990 album "Behind the Mask" narrowly went gold and spawned only one Top 40 single ("Save Me", written by McVie), while "Time", released five years later, was the band's first unsuccessful album. in two decades. .

Mrs. McVie did not tour with the band in support of "Time". But in the early 1990s, his hit "Don't Stop" came to mainstream attention when it became the theme song for Bill Clinton's successful presidential campaign. In 1993, Clinton convinced the five musicians who played the hit to get together to play it at the inaugural ball.

In 1997, they reunited for a tour that spawned the live album The Dance, one of the best-selling concert recordings of all time. But the following year, a growing fear of flying and a desire to return to England from Los Angeles, the band's adopted home, inspired Ms. McVie to retreat to the English countryside.

Five years later, he agreed to add some keyboard parts and backing vocals to Fleetwood Mac's largely ignored Say You Will album, and in 2004 produced a little-heard solo album, In the Meantime, which he recorded and co-wrote with his guitar player. -Nephew Perfect Dan.

Finally, in 2014, fueled by boredom and a growing sense of isolation, she reunited with Mac's top lineup for the massive On With The Show tour. As a result, Mrs. McVie, as well as Mr. Buckingham, began writing a wealth of new material, leading to an album to their names and a joint tour in 2017. The full band also played shows that year. Although Buckingham was fired in 2018, McVie continued to tour with the group in a lineup that included Crowded House's Neil Finn and Tom Petty and Heartbreakers' Mike Campbell. In 2021, Ms. McVie sold publishing rights to his entire back catalog of 115 songs for an undisclosed sum.

Information about its survivors was not immediately available.

Throughout her career, Ms. McVie prides herself on never having been categorized by her gender. "I became one of the guys," he told British newspaper The Independent in 2019. "I've always been treated with a lot of respect."

While he always recognized the special chemistry of Fleetwood Mac's most successful cast, he believed his role went beyond that.

"Band members leave and other people take their places," he told Rolling Stone, "but there was always this space where the piano should have been."