Christine McVie’s biography explores life in Fleetwood Mac

Nearly two years after her death at the age of 79, Christine McVie is receiving overdue recognition as Fleetwood Mac’s dueling doyenne.

“Songbird: An Intimate Biography of Christine McVie” (out Nov. 19 from Hachette Books, 340 pages, $32.50), examines the Birmingham-raised, keyboard-savvy Englishwoman’s transformation from art student to presenter discreet by Fleetwood Mac.

The book is named for McVie’s signature song, one of his four contributions to Fleetwood Mac’s legendary 1977 album “Rumours.” Never a major hit — it was the B-side to the ethereal “Dreams” by Stevie Nicks – “Songbird” nevertheless became the band’s standard set, a stark piano ballad both heartbreaking and romantic, which spotlighted the usually reticent McVie.

But his contributions to the group (“Don’t Stop” and “You Make Loving Fun” among his many written hits), coupled with his understated authority, were so necessary to Fleetwood Mac’s alchemy that Nicks and Mick Fleetwood said that Mac is no longer without McVie.

British author Lesley-Ann Jones, a former Fleet Street journalist who has written biographies of Freddie Mercury, Marc Bolan and his childhood friend David Bowie, draws on her own conversations with McVie over the years, as well than exhaustive research and other meticulously conducted interviews. catalog.

Although the “Songbird” biography doesn’t drop any scandalous revelations, it provides a solid summary of the woman born Christine Perfect, whose love life and musical motivations often intertwine to evoke magic.

Here are some highlights.

Christine McVie considered becoming a sculpture teacher

Before joining the blues band Chicken Shack (the term means “roadhouse”) in 1966, McVie considered becoming a teacher, specializing in sculpture (she followed her father, Cyril, in his passions for art and music).

His intention was a combination of a genuine interest in the art form, particularly Egyptian and Greek friezes, and the idea of guaranteed employment.

“I had this idea in my head that if I chose a relatively unusual subject, I would still be working,” she said.

But a meeting with other art students who played the blues changed her trajectory, and her involvement in Chicken Shack led her down the fortuitous path to join Fleetwood Mac.

Christine McVie thought her marriage to John McVie could have survived

Although the band’s tangled relationships added to the soap opera that was often Fleetwood Mac and, intentionally or not, inspired the heartfelt songs crafted for “Rumours,” McVie believed that her six-year marriage to Mac bassist John McVie could have survived in another context.

“Looking back… I sometimes wonder if I would have been happier if I had stuck to the plan. Become a mom. I supported John in his career and stayed in the background,” she told Jones in 1999, a year after leaving Fleetwood Mac.

McVie also told Rolling Stone: “I just think it’s impossible to work in the band with your spouse. Imagine the strain of living with someone 24 hours a day, on the road, in an already stressful situation, with the added negativity of too much alcohol.

John McVie’s drinking problems have been well documented, and McVie confirmed the effect on their marriage, saying: “John is not the nicest of people when he’s drunk.” Very belligerent. I saw Hyde more than Jekyll.

Christine McVie was initially wary of Stevie Nicks joining Fleetwood Mac

When Mick Fleetwood approached the other band members with a recording of a duo called Buckingham Nicks and suggested they join the band (he really only wanted Lindsey Buckingham but was informed they were coming as a couple), McVie hesitated at the idea of another woman joining the group. gang.

But as soon as she met the handsome Nicks, she was smitten with the new co-star who would become her complement.

“It was essential that I got on with Stevie because I had never played with another girl,” McVie told BBC Four for a documentary broadcast after her death. “But I loved her instantly.” She was funny and kind, but there was no competition. We were completely different on stage… and we wrote differently.

Nicks agreed in a 2020 interview in The Face magazine, recalling that she was “stunned” the first time she met McVie when she was 28 and McVie was 33.

Nicks said elsewhere that she and McVie made a pact during their first rehearsal that “we would never agree to be treated like second-class citizens in the music business.”

Christine McVie leaves Fleetwood Mac and isolates herself

McVie decided to “leave the rock ‘n’ roll madness” in 1998 and return to his English mansion in Kent, longing for freedom and tranquility. But once the property’s lengthy renovations were completed, she found herself isolated and ambivalent about loneliness.

She became a voracious viewer (“ER” and detective series) and reader (fantasy novels), but also a heavy drinker who depended on medication to help her sleep. A fall down the stairs led to a life change when she realized “there was no one to hear her screams” living alone.

She joined Fleetwood Mac in 2014, telling the Sunday Times that she felt like she had emerged from “muddy, gray days, where your life is dark, your heart is dark and your brain is dark”.

The band’s On With the Show world tour performed 120 concerts over 15 months and grossed nearly $200 million. It was the last time the band members from the “Rumours” era – the McVies, Nicks, Fleetwood and Buckingham – toured.