A steadying musical influence

From 1975, when Fleetwood Mac first hit the American Top 40 with “Over My Head,” to 1988, when the group last hit the charts with “Save Me,” the dusky alto voice of Christine McVie, who sang lead on both of those songs, was such a frequent radio presence that it was easy to take her for granted.

The media certainly did, preferring instead to focus on the lightning rods of Fleetwood Mac’s perennial internecine conflicts, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks.

But McVie, who died on Nov. 30 at age 79, was by all accounts content to stay in the background, serving as the band’s primary peacekeeper.

Musically, she was a steadying influence as well, penning and singing the group’s most positive and emotionally uncomplicated material while guaranteeing keyboards a presence in a band that at one point boasted three distinctive guitarists.

Like Fleetwood Mac, McVie—born Christine Perfect—emerged from the British blues scene of the ’60s, first as a member of Chicken Shack and later as the leader of the short-lived Christine Perfect Band. Her first solo album, Christine Perfect (aka The Legendary Christine Perfect Album) remains an ideal (OK, “perfect”) soundtrack to a rainy day.

Upon joining Fleetwood Mac (she’d married the group’s bassist John McVie, the “Mac” of the band), she unveiled a sunnier side, composing and singing songs that eased the group toward the pop sound that would, with the arrival of Buckingham and Nicks in the ­mid-’70s, make Fleetwood one of the biggest-selling and most consistent hit machines of the pop-rock era.

McVie herself did much to make that machine purr. The titles alone of “Over My Head,” “Say You Love Me,” “You Make Loving Fun,” “Hold Me,” “Love in Store,” “Little Lies,” and McVie’s solo hits “Love Will Show Us How” and “Got a Hold on Me” will activate their attendant hooks in the minds of anyone who had an ear to the radio during the Ford, Carter, and Reagan administrations.

And then there’s the airily effervescent “Everywhere,” streams and downloads of which surged last October when it was featured in an ad for Chevrolet’s electric cars, 35 years after its initial chart run.

Between her two marriages, she had a tempestuous affair with the Beach Boys’ Dennis Wilson. And while married to McVie, she had an affair with Fleetwood Mac’s lighting director. Otherwise, she led what was by rock-star standards a fairly retiring life.

She literally retired more than once—from touring, from Fleetwood Mac, from the music business. But she kept coming back. And the world was a brighter place because she did.