NEW YORK—Christine McVie, the British-born Fleetwood Mac vocalist, songwriter, and keyboard player, died Wednesday at age 79.
Her death was announced on the band’s social media accounts. No cause of death or other details were immediately provided, but a family statement said she “passed away peacefully at hospital this morning” with family around her after a “short illness.”
“A few hours ago I was told that my best friend in the whole world since the first day of 1975, had passed away,” bandmate Stevie Nicks said in a handwritten note posted to Instagram.
She added that one song has been “swirling around” in her head since she found out McVie was sick, quoting the lyrics to HAIM’s “Hallelujah": “I had a best friend/But she has come to pass.”
McVie was a steady presence and personality in a band known for its frequent lineup changes and volatile personalities—notably fellow singer-songwriters Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham.
Her death is the first among Fleetwood Mac’s most famous incarnation of McVie, Nicks, Buckingham, drummer Mick Fleetwood, and bassist John McVie, Christine’s ex-husband. In recent years, the band had toured without Buckingham, who was kicked out in 2018 and replaced on stage by Mike Campbell and Neil Finn.
Fleetwood Mac was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998, when at the ceremony they played McVie’s “Say You Love Me.” The group’s many other hit singles included Nicks’ “Dreams,” Buckingham’s “Go Your Own Way,” and McVie’s “Little Lies.”
McVie, born Christine Anne Perfect in Bouth, Lancashire, came from a musical family. Her father was a violinist and music teacher and her grandfather played organ at Westminster Abbey. She had been playing piano since childhood, but set aside her classical training once she heard early rock records by Fats Domino and others.
While studying at the Moseley School of Art, she befriended various members of Britain’s emerging blues scene and, in her 20s, joined the band Chicken Shack as a singer and piano player. Among the rival bands she admired was Fleetwood Mac, which then featured the talents of blues guitarist Peter Green along with the rhythm section of Fleetwood and John McVie. By 1970, she had joined the group and married John McVie.
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