Christine McVie on the “genius” and “Jesus” of Fleetwood Mac
Without the introduction of Christine McVie, it’s highly likely that the story of Fleetwood Mac would have ended with the departure of founding member, frontman and lead guitarist Peter Green in 1970. Already a fan of the band, she had gotten to know them well after touring with her outfit Chicken Shack, who were also on the Blue Horizon label and playing the piano on a handful of Green cuts on 1968’s Mr Wonderful. That was also the year she married bassist John McVie, so it’s safe to say that she knew the group better than any other of their biggest fans.
After Green’s sad departure under a black cloud of severe mental decline—exacerbated by taking large doses of LSD—McVie was invited to join Fleetwood Mac on a full-time basis in 1970 as a keyboard player. She’d already added piano and backing vocals, albeit in an uncredited capacity, to that year’s fourth album, Kiln House, so a continued collaboration made sense. Demonstrating her broad creative scope included providing the cover art for the record.
Although the introduction of McVie eventually proved to be a shot in the arm for the group, in the immediate aftermath of Green’s departure, they were still unsure if they could keep going. Fans met them with apprehension at live shows, and the absence of a leader led to them sharing duties. It all felt very alien, from the new sound to the communal leadership roles.
Over time, McVie’s talent became central to Fleetwood Mac keeping going and refusing to break up, an end they’d seriously debated before she joined. Drummer Mick Fleetwood would later call her “the glue” that held them together amid the departure of Green as well as guitarists Danny Kirwan and Jeremy Spencer. She also helped thicken their sound and push them in a new direction.
It helped that McVie knew Fleetwood Mac inside out before she joined. Part of this intense fandom and personal closeness to the band was understanding just how central to the operation Green was, as an excellent songwriter, vocalist and guitarist. When speaking to Mojo in 2017, she recalled that the group’s original pull in the live setting was phenomenal “kick-ass chemistry”, with each member, Green, Kirwan, Spencer, McVie and Fleetwood, all bringing something vital to the fold. Noting their leader’s brilliance, she likened him to a musical Jesus: “Peter Green who was like Jesus, playing out-of-this-world guitar”.
Significantly, McVie also maintained that Green’s decline wasn’t any fault of his own and that, echoing the accounts of other members and those around them, the die was cast that fateful night in March 1970 when he took LSD at a commune near Munich. After that moment, there was no going back.
The following few years would be shaky for Fleetwood Mac, with 1974’s Heroes Are Hard to Find critically slammed and made under much tension, typified by guitarist Bob Weston having an affair with Fleetwood’s wife. Again, it looked like the end was nigh. However, after engineer Keith Olsen played ‘Frozen Love’ to Fleetwood by the Californian folk duo Buckingham Nicks at Sound City, the drummer eventually hired the pair, and they refreshed the band. Fleetwood Mac’s first album with this new-look lineup was 1975’s Fleetwood Mac, and it saw them distil their approach and lay the foundations for the record hailed as their masterpiece, 1977’s Rumours.
While the introduction of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks revitalised the band, at first, McVie felt unsure about Nicks’s arrival and saw her as a rival female figure. However, these insecurities quickly dissipated as the pair became very close, complementing each other’s personal and creative gaps. Just like the indelible effect Green’s talent had on her, Nicks’ “genius” also left a mark on McVie.
“She’s very direct, very honest, very self-obsessed in a way. And I don’t mean that in a bad way. She has her brand, you know? She’s an icon,” McVie told Rolling Stone in 2014 about Nicks. “She’s a genius. She’s a lovely, kind, beautiful woman and I love her to death. She and I are different, and I can’t not love the woman; she’s just amazing. She’s very, very generous in every, single department.”
