By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2024-12-21 20:13:11 | Updated at 2024-12-23 00:34:51
1 day ago
Hunched over a glass of cider, staring into a candle flame night after night, nothing much about her later days said multi-millionaire rock star.
Who would have thought that the rangy blonde in a shabby tweed jacket was Christine McVie, the singer and song-writing legend who once toured the globe with Fleetwood Mac and contributed the lion's share of hits to their 1977 triumph 'Rumours', one of the best-selling albums in music history?
The pub in question, The Rose in Wickhambreaux, close to England's historic city of Canterbury in the country's southeast, was anybody else's chocolate-box idyll.
But to Christine, it was a daily escape from the fortress in which she had imprisoned herself: a large Tudor house and estate nearby, The Quaives, where she resided alone.
That Chris was there at all, however lonely, was no small triumph. Fleetwood Mac had lived so recklessly, it was a miracle any of them survived.
The biggest group in the world following their 'Rumours' success, they had once acquired mansions the way the rest of us buy books.
They purchased a private Boeing jet and became their own travelling orgy, bathing – sometimes literally – in champagne and wafting from continent to continent on clouds of cocaine.
Band members slept in specially redecorated hotel suites and indulged relentlessly in sex with friends and strangers, often in limousines the size of small yachts.
Fleetwood Mac had lived so recklessly, it was a miracle any of them survived. (Pictured, left to right: Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, Christine McVie, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood in 1977)
Fleetwood Mac eventually upgraded to a jumbo jet and became their own travelling orgy, bathing – sometimes literally – in champagne and wafting from continent to continent on clouds of cocaine.
It was said that Fleetwood Mac made even Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones look like the Salvation Army.
Drugs and drink might have stimulated their vast success – and all five band members' consumption of both was astronomical – yet the debauched, hedonistic dream almost killed them.
I first knew Chris during the '80s when we both lived in Los Angeles. I found her again at her estate near Canterbury after we each moved back to England, where we discussed writing her autobiography. We never got around to it.
When she died two years ago at the age of 79, only a handful of people had known she was gravely ill. In tribute to the woman whose lifestyle once almost destroyed her, I have written her life anyway in a new biography of rock's most reluctant superstar.
A war baby born in England's Lake District, Chris's childhood was unusual. Her music teacher father, Cyril Perfect's, unrequited dream was to play first violin in a symphony orchestra. Her mother, Beatrice, a faith healer, psychic and medium, had a spirit guide and danced with ghosts.
Chris studied piano, discovered the blues and enrolled at art school, thinking she might eventually teach sculpture.
But she found the local live gig scene, teamed up with blues outfit Chicken Shack and was even voted Female Vocalist of the Year in a music magazine's 1969 readers' poll. The previous year, at the age of 25, she married John McVie, bass player with the recently formed Fleetwood Mac.
Yet a professional music career was the last thing on Chris's mind; her ambition, then, was motherhood.
Band members slept in specially redecorated hotel suites and indulged relentlessly in sex with friends and strangers, often in limousines the size of small yachts. (Pictured circa 1977, left to right: John McVie, Christine McVie, Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham and Mick Fleetwood)
In tribute to the woman whose lifestyle once almost destroyed her, I have written her life anyway in a new biography of rock's most reluctant superstar, said biographer Lesley-Ann Jones (above right with McVie in 2015)
When Fleetwood Mac rented a large Hampshire house in southeast England in the county of Hampshire and they all moved in together, Chris happily cooked, cleaned and painted walls. The band coaxed her into contributing keys and backing vocals and soon she was an inextricable part of it.
The group relocated to California in the mid-70s, adding Lindsey Buckingham and girlfriend Stevie Nicks to the line-up. It was there on the West Coast that real success arrived and hedonism took hold.
Cocaine was acquired in bulk. On the road, each evening ahead of the gig, both band and crew would queue for their rations. The time allowed for the apportioning of drugs was even listed on their daily tour schedule.
During recording sessions, coke was dispensed in the studio like cups of tea.
White powder 'peeled off the walls in every room of the studio,' confided Mick Fleetwood.
On stage during a show, said Christine, 'the boys were served their doses in Heineken bottle tops. Stevie and I did the tiny little spoons, and I washed mine down with dainty glasses of champagne.'
'But…I got through bucketsful. We were all permanently intoxicated: addicted to booze and drugs, but ultimately to recklessness itself.'
Singing superstar Stevie Nicks and drummer Mick Fleetwood were the most prodigious users.
Cocaine was acquired in bulk. On the road, each evening ahead of the gig, both band and crew would queue for their rations.
During recording sessions, coke was dispensed in the studio like cups of tea. McVie is pictured aboard the band's private jet in 1975
McVie found her dream home, spent eight years renovating it, learned to cook, read a thousand books, watched TV, and drowned her sorrows and loneliness in wine and pills
Cocaine, Fleetwood once said, 'turned us into nutcases.'
Nicks later claimed that she spent more than $1 million on coke during the ten years of her addiction. To this day, she has a coin-sized hole in her septum, the result of snorting the drug.
As for their tour rider – the demands that bands make of their promoters when they are on the road – the Mac's were off the chart. Not only did they insist on a fleet of 14 sleek, black, polished limousines permanently at their disposal in every city, but also demanded that hotel suites be redecorated for them.
Stevie would not stay in a hotel unless her rooms were repainted pink, with a white grand piano brought in specially. 'The piano often had to be hoisted up the side of the building and in through a window,' explained Chris.
'The expense was eyewatering. The funny bit was that Stevie couldn't even play piano … whereas I was the keyboard player, and I never asked for one!
'That was a bit of role play on her part,' Chris laughed. 'Part of Stevie saw herself as an accomplished pianist, whereas I never saw myself as a twirling chiffon-clad dervish up at the mic center-stage, commanding the audience from behind all that hair.
'She was the Welsh witch [Nicks liked to channel a Welsh goddess called Lady Rhiannon], I was Mother Nature and Mick was our resident raving lunatic.'
Devoid of inhibitions, the band became a sexual free-for-all.
Cocaine, Mick Fleetwood once said, 'turned us into nutcases.' (Pictured in 1978, left to right: Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood, Christine McVie and John McVie)
'We used to say that cocaine was our curse,' commented McVie (pictured with her arm around Stevie Nicks at the 20th Grammy Awards in 1978). 'But was the curse in fact the band itself?'
Nicks (at left with bandmate, and on-and-off partner, Lindsey Buckingham at the 1978 Grammy Awards) said she spent more than $1 million on coke during the 10 years of her addiction
'It was easier somehow to live in that permanent haze than face reality. Those things made me who I was. Until they made me who I wasn't,' said McVie, pictured at left in 1970
After Nicks separated from her long-term love, the guitarist and vocalist Lindsey Buckingham, and Mick dumped his wife Jenny, the drummer and the frontwoman fell on each other and conducted a raging affair, not caring who knew about it.
Christine kept her liaisons outside the group and went for the crew instead, indulging in affairs with a sound engineer and a lighting director.
The fall-out from such a lifestyle was catastrophic.
Mick went bankrupt for the first time in 1984, never saved money and spent what he did have on multiple divorces.
John McVie suffered addiction-related seizures. Stevie was admitted to the Betty Ford clinic for her cocaine addiction, wound up addicted to prescription drugs instead, and underwent several abortions.
Like Christine, she has always mourned her childless state.
'We used to say that cocaine was our curse,' commented Christine. 'But was the curse in fact the band itself?'
Christine stayed with the band because she didn't know how to get out of it – but with a growing sense of unease.
Stevie Nicks would not stay in a hotel unless her rooms were repainted pink, with a white grand piano brought in specially
'The greater the success, the more money, the more opportunities, the bigger our world became, the more I found myself shrinking inside,' McVie told the author. (The band is pictured after being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998)
'The greater the success, the more money, the more opportunities, the bigger our world became, the more I found myself shrinking inside,' she told me.
'[I was] reducing. Becoming … less. Less confident. I needed – I thought I needed – a man to validate me. I need coke and booze to fortify me to go on [stage].
'It was easier somehow to live in that permanent haze than face reality. Those things made me who I was. Until they made me who I wasn't.'
Chris quit Fleetwood Mac in 1990, blaming her departure on fear of flying, 'aviophobia'. She could no longer tour.
She found her dream home, spent eight years renovating it, learned to cook, read a thousand books, watched TV, and drowned her sorrows and loneliness in wine and pills.
When she fell down the stairs one night, injuring her back, she realized that no one could hear her scream.
In 2014 – because she had nothing else to do – Chris went back to Fleetwood Mac, but the moment had passed.
She was, she told me, unlucky in love. Two failed marriages plus a disastrous engagement to Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson – and a chain gang of unsuitable others – had left her washed up and alone.
Christine (above right with Stevie Nicks and her dog) stayed with the band because she didn't know how to get out
'She was the Welsh witch [Nicks liked to channel a Welsh goddess called Lady Rhiannon], I was Mother Nature and Mick was our resident raving lunatic.' (McVie, at left, pictured with Nicks at Radio City in 2018)
'Rock stars age in dog years in reverse,' she told me cryptically. (McVie, above, performs at the O2 Arena in London in 2015)
'I need coke and booze to fortify me to go on [stage], said McVie, pictured in concert with Fleetwood Mac circa 1970
At the age of 25, she married John McVie, bass player with the recently formed Fleetwood Mac. The pair are pictured (above) at a party for the band in London on Feb. 20, 1969
Virtually every song she ever wrote – Little Lies, Everywhere, You Make Loving Fun, Songbird – had been about romantic love, and her lack of lifelong love and children would be her greatest regrets.
'Rock stars age in dog years in reverse,' she told me cryptically. 'We are much older than our chronological ages. We are weary and worn. Our skin is thin. We have seen too much. We have caused as much damage as we have survived.
'All that excess, all that having everything you could want, money no object: it drains and numbs you. It ceases to be exciting after a while.
'All you want is your mother's kitchen with a scrubbed table, old-fashioned crockery and a stool to put your feet up on. The road, my love, is never a luxury. It is a drudge.'
Write a song like Songbird, she said of her signature hit, 'and people assume you have all the answers. 'If only they knew.'
Songbird: An Intimate Biography of Christine McVie by Lesley-Ann Jones is published by Hachette Books in the US: hardcover price $32.50, ebook $16.99, audiobook download $27.99
Published by John Blake/Bonnier in the UK, price £22
