Christine Anne McVie (née Perfect; born 12 July 1943) is an English singer, songwriter, lead vocalist and keyboardist of Fleetwood Mac, which she joined in 1970. She has also released three solo albums. She has a contralto voice. Her direct but poignant lyrics focus on love and relationships. AllMusic describes her as an “Unabashedly easy-on-the-ears singer/songwriter, and the prime mover behind some of Fleetwood Mac’s biggest hits.” Eight of her songs appeared on Fleetwood Mac’s 1988 Greatest Hits album.
In 1998, McVie was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Fleetwood Mac, and received the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music. The same year, after almost 30 years with the band, she opted to leave and lived in semiretirement for nearly 15 years. She released a solo album in 2004. In September 2013, she appeared on stage with Fleetwood Mac at London’s O2 Arena. She rejoined the band in September 2014 prior to their On with the Show tour.
In 2006, McVie received a Gold Badge of Merit Award from Basca, now The Ivors Academy. In 2014, she received the Ivor Novello Award for Lifetime Achievement from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors, and was honored with the Trailblazer Award at the UK Americana Awards in 2021. She is also the recipient of two Grammy Awards.
McVie was born in the Lake District village of Bouth, Lancashire, and grew up in the Bearwood area of Smethwick near Birmingham. Her father, Cyril Percy Absell Perfect, was a concert violinist and music lecturer at St Peter’s College of Education, Saltley, Birmingham, and taught violin at St Philip’s Grammar School, Birmingham. McVie’s mother, Beatrice Edith Maud (Reece) Perfect, was a medium, psychic, and faith healer. McVie’s grandfather was an organist at Westminster Abbey.
Although McVie was introduced to the piano when she was four, she did not study music seriously until age 11, when she was reintroduced to it by Philip Fisher, a local musician and school friend of McVie’s older brother, John. Continuing her classical training until age 15, McVie shifted her musical focus to rock and roll when her brother, John, came home with a Fats Domino songbook. Other early influences included The Everly Brothers.
McVie studied sculpture at Moseley School of Art in Birmingham for five years, with the goal of becoming an art teacher. During that time, she met a number of budding musicians in Britain’s blues scene. Her first foray into the music field came when she met two friends, Stan Webb and Andy Silvester, who were in a band called Sounds Of Blue. Knowing that McVie had musical talent, they asked her to join. She often sang with Spencer Davis. By the time McVie graduated from art college, Sounds of Blue had split up, and as she did not have enough money to launch herself into the art world, she moved to London and worked briefly as a department-store window dresser.
In 1967, McVie learned that her ex-bandmates, Andy Silvester and Stan Webb, were forming a blues band, Chicken Shack, and were looking for a pianist. She wrote to them asking to join. They accepted and invited her to play keyboards/piano and to sing background vocals. Chicken Shack’s debut release was “It’s Okay With Me Baby”, written by and featuring McVie.
She stayed with Chicken Shack for two albums, during which her genuine feel for the blues became evident, not only in her Sonny Thompson-style piano playing, but also through her authentic “bluesy” voice. Chicken Shack had a hit with “I’d Rather Go Blind”, which featured McVie on lead vocals. McVie received a Melody Maker award for female vocalist in both 1969 and 1970. McVie left Chicken Shack in 1969 after marrying Fleetwood Mac bassist John McVie a year earlier. (wikipedia)
And the rest is history ….
Christine McVie (nee Perfect) is one of the great unsung talents of British blues and pop. Her work with Fleetwood Mac is often overshadowed by her more showy counterparts, Lindsay Buckingham, Peter Green or Stevie Nicks. She provided the spine to their material, and especially added a consistency during the group’s wilderness years between 1970 and 1975 (for those of you who haven’t had the pleasure, check out her contributions to 1973’s Mystery To Me album). This CD is her oft-reissued Christine Perfect album, recorded for Mike Vernon’s Blue Horizon label in the period between her leaving Chicken Shack and before she joined her husband-to-be John McVie in Fleetwood Mac. McVie herself has frequently played down the record. Although certainly not a major work, it is a pretty textbook example of pleasant blues rock as the 60s became the 70s.
To be honest, her tracks sound pretty much like later Fleetwood Mac album material, which given the presence of John McVie on bass and Danny Kirwan on guitar, is fairly understandable. Her version of Kirwan’s When You Say is a standout, easily giving Fleetwood Mac’s Then Play On version a run for its money. Perfect’s piano work here strives to distil the very essence of the blues. It is the additional material that highlights her at her best: the demo, Tell Me You Need Me, that was also demoed by Fleetwood Mac is by far and away the best track here.
The song underlines the pleasure of her best work; languid, expressive, soulful. With three BBC session recordings here as well, The Complete Blue Horizon Recordings, although hardly essential, is a very welcome listen. (by Daryl Easlea)
Personnel:
Martin Dunsford (bass)
Chris Harding (drums, percussion, flute)
Rick Hayward (guitar)
Christine Prfect (vocals, keyboards)
Top Topham (guitar)
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Dave Coxhill (saxophone on 08.)
Geoff Driscoll (saxophone on 08.)
Danny Kirwan (guitar on 06.)
John McVie (bass on 06.)
Terry Noonan (trumpet on 01., 02., 08.)
Bud Parkes (trumpet on 08.)
Andy Silvester (bass on 05.)
Derek Wadsworth (trombone on 08.)
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unknown string section
unknown trumpet, trombone, saxophone (on 01., 02.)
Tracklist:
01. Crazy ‘Bout You Baby (Jacobs) 3.02
02. I’m On My Way (Malone) 3.09
03. Let Me Go (Leave Me Alone) (Perfect) 3.35
04. Wait And See (Perfect) 3.14
05. Close To Me (Perfect/Hayward) 2.40
06. When You Say (Kirwan) 3.15
07. And That’s Saying A Lot (Jackson/Godfrey) 2.58
08. No Road Is The Right Road (Perfect) 2.49
09. For You (Perfect) 2.45
10. I’m Too Far Gone (To Turn Around) (album version) (Hendricks/Otis) 3.26
11. I Want You (White) 2.23
12. Tell Me You Need Me (previously unreleased) (Perfect) 3.20
13. I’m Too Far Gone (To Turn Around) (single version) (Hendricks/Otis) 3.17
14.Hey Baby (previously unreleased BBC sessions) (Perfect/Vernon/Webb) 2.34
15. It’s You I Miss (previously unreleased BBC sessions) (Perfect) 3.45
16. Gone Into The Sun (previously unreleased BBC sessions) 2.45
More from Christine Perfect:
Freshly Packed and Ready to Serve in 1968 and O.K. Ken? in 1969, and garnered a Top 20 hit in the U.K. with McVie’s impressive version of Etta James’ “I’d Rather Go Blind.” She left the band in 1969 after meeting Fleetwood Mac bassist John McVie, marrying him a year later, just after the release of her first solo album, the self-titled Christine Perfect. (by Steve Leggett)
John McVie & Christine Perfect
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