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Christine McVie had already spent several years in Fleetwood Mac when Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham joined the band. In the Nicks-Buckingham era of the band, McVie wrote many of the band’s hits and frequently closed out their concerts with her song “Songbird.” Before they joined the group, though, McVie said she stuck to a background role. She attributed this to laziness on her part.

Christine McVie took a backseat role before Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham joined Fleetwood Mac

Though McVie was always a singer and writer in Fleetwood Mac, she said she allowed guitarist Bob Welch to take the lead on most of the band’s songs in the early half of the 1970s. She became a background player in the band.

“You know, you’re the second person today who’s told me he thought Bob Welch was hogging the show,” McVie told a reporter for Rolling Stone in 1975. “It never struck me that much until the Don Kirshner TV show we did last fall. When I saw that, I said, ‘Hang on a minute. Am I in the band?’”

A black and white picture of Christine McVie wearing sunglasses and headphones and sitting at a piano.
Christine McVie | Fin Costello/Redferns

She said she didn’t intentionally take a step back. She had just grown overly comfortable with letting Welch take the lead.

“I don’t know how it really happened,” McVie said. “I guess I let myself get pushed back. Bob Welch was such an energetic, speedy guy. I was happy to let him do all the work. It just boiled down to basic laziness on my part. Anyway, it’s a lot more balanced now.”

Christine McVie said Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham brought life to the band

While Fleetwood Mac had seen modest success before Nicks and Buckingham, the two new additions ushered in a new era for the band. They exploded in popularity. McVie said this was her favorite period in Fleetwood Mac’s lengthy history.

“I would be silly not to say the Stevie [Nicks] and Lindsey [Buckingham] era, because that was pretty sensational,” she told The Guardian in 2022. “We had our fights here and there, but there was nothing like the music or the intensity onstage. We weren’t doing anything in Britain, so just decamped to America and fell into this huge musical odyssey.”

She said she could tell almost immediately upon meeting the two Americans that they would be good for the band.

“Stevie and Lindsey had been playing as a duo, made a great record [Buckingham Nicks], which to this day I really love, but hadn’t got very far. I think it was Mick [Fleetwood] who invited them to meet us,” she recalled. “We all met in this Mexican restaurant, drank a few margaritas and decided to give it a go. We all got into this little rehearsal room and it just shot off like firecrackers.”

Fleetwood Mac has no plans to reunite without Christine McVie

McVie took a far more dominant role in the band after Nicks and Buckingham joined. She wrote hits like “Say You Love Me,” “You Make Loving Fun,” and “Don’t Stop.” She was such an integral part of the band that they have no plans to reunite following her death.

Mike Campbell, John McVie, Stevie Nicks, Christine McVie and Mick Fleetwood stand with their arms around each other.
Mike Campbell, John McVie, Stevie Nicks, Christine McVie and Mick Fleetwood | Kevin Mazur/Getty Images For The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

“I think right now, I truly think the line in the sand has been drawn with the loss of Chris,” Mick Fleetwood told the LA Times. “I’d say we’re done, but then we’ve all said that before. It’s sort of unthinkable right now.”

Nicks has made similar remarks.

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