“Boogie bass”: The musician who inspired Christine McVie’s piano playing
It’s easy to argue over which member of Fleetwood Mac was most essential to their success. The band owed its name to Mick Fleetwood, who drove their success from behind the drum kit. But the introduction of Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham would introduce a whole new songwriting prowess to the group, as the couple penned and led on future all-time greats like ‘Dreams’ and ‘Go Your Own Way’. Christine McVie would create just as many classics from her position on the keys.
Joining Fleetwood Mac in the late 1960s, McVie would become a grounding force in the band, bringing a little more lightness to their tales of hurt and heartache. With melodic yet raw vocals and powerful keys, she contributed some of Fleetwood Mac’s best work, from the sparkling ‘You Make Loving Fun’ to the gorgeously simple ‘Songbird’.
McVie’s piano playing brought an entirely new element to Fleetwood Mac’s soft-rock sound, serving to intensify feelings of heartbreak or to lighten them at will, but where did she take inspiration from for her singular sound? During an appearance on BBC’s Desert Island Discs series, McVie shared one of the greatest influences on her playing.
Amidst choices from classical composer Vivaldi and from Fleetwood Mac’s own catalogue, the keyboardist selected Fats Domino’s ‘Ain’t That a Shame’ as one of the tracks she’d pick to accompany her to a desert island. She went on to explain how the pianist inspired her own approach to the instrument in her youth.
A teenage McVie was at her piano practising when she stumbled across a book of his work. “I hadn’t seen it before,” she remembered, “so I picked it up and started sight-reading.” This casual sight-reading would be formative in McVie’s piano-playing style, as she quickly fell in love with boogie-woogie and adopted it into her own approach to the instrument.
“I think that’s where my boogie left hand has come from,” she recalled, “and that’s stayed with me throughout all my songwriting years. There’s always been a little bit of that boogie bass.” This element of her playing would find its way into her contributions to Fleetwood Mac, her left hand providing them with unique bluesy and funky piano lines.
She would go on to pen some of the band’s best work, with Domino’s influence always in the back of her mind. From the playful pop keys of ‘Little Lies’ to the powerful piano chords of ‘Don’t Stop’, her innovative use of the instrument and her masterful songwriting produced some of the band’s ultimate toe-tappers, walking the line between their soft rock stylings and her blues influences.
McVie isn’t the only artist who has been inspired by Domino’s work. The pioneering pianist has influenced everyone from the Beatles to Elvis Presley to Blondie, wielding a mammoth influence on all of the rockers and rollers that followed him. Debbie Harry even credits Domino as being one of the first musicians to move her in her youth.
McVie’s left-hand-driven piano lines are just one extension of his approach to the instrument and to music-making. Decades after his heyday in the industry, the enduring influence of his work can be found across modern music, in boogie-woogie-inspired piano lines, and in the history of rock and roll.
