Christine McVie
Biography Christine McVie
Christine McVie
Christine Anne Perfect, daughter of Cyril and Beatrice, was born on July 12th, 1943 into a very musical family.
It is therefore not surprising that Christine ended up taking a similar path. Growing up, her father wanted her to become a concert pianist, but unfortunately for him, (as Christine admits on the liner notes for ‘The Chain’), she discovered Fats Domino.
Growing up in the Midlands of England she joined her first band, ‘Shades of Blue’, (a blues band for whom she played bass), while she was in art college.
She left Birmingham to move to London with a teaching degree in sculpture and spent some time working as a window dresser; a job she quickly realised that was not for her.
She therefore accepted immediately when she was invited to join another blues band by old College friend Stan Webb. It was 1966, and the band was Chicken Shack. During her time with Chicken Shack, Christine became familiar with Fleetwood Mac.
In the beginning her relationship with the band was simply that she was a fan and would go to see them when she herself was not playing.
But she soon caught the attention of the band members, as the two bands would often play the same circuits. After courting for a short time, Christine was married to Mac bassist John McVie in 1968. However, soon after they were married, the two were to be separated by their duties to their respective bands and rarely found the time to see each other.
Chicken Shack had a hit single in 1969 with ‘I’d Rather Go Blind’, which featured lead vocals by Christine. Also that year she was voted ‘Best Female Vocalist’ in the musical publication ‘Melody Maker’. However, despite this success, she made the decision to leave the music business to become a housewife and spend more time with John.
After releasing a solo album entitled ‘Christine Perfect’, an album which Christine herself was not entirely happy with; she was asked to join Fleetwood Mac in 1970.
Although she had already made uncredited contributions to the album ‘Kiln House’, her first official album with the band was ‘Future Games’ in 1971. After a while, both John’s drinking and the fact that they spent so much time together took it’s toll on the marriage, and it is recorded that Christine had a brief affair with producer Martin Birch.
Then in 1974, after a number of albums did not get the reaction that they’d hoped for in Britain, the band decided to move to America, where their records were more successful.
Christine was not happy about the move, but agreed to give it a go for a trial period. Soon after the move, singer and guitarist Bob Welch left the band and Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks were invited to join.
It was shortly after this period that Christine decided to end her marriage to McVie and the pair separated. For a time she lived with Curry Grant, the band’s lighting director while John went to live on his boat.
Then, in 1979, she started a two-year relationship with Beach Boy Dennis Wilson and in 1984 she released a self-titled solo album. It was during the making of this album that she met Eddy Quintela who she married in 1986.
Christine reunited with the rest of the Rumours line up in 1997 to go on the road with ‘The Dance’ album, but is not expected to make an appearance on the current album.
In recent years Christine McVie ( now divorced from Quintela) has moved back to Britain and set up home in a village near Canterbury in Kent where, as Stevie Nicks reports, Christine is indulging her passion for cookery.
