Showing posts with label Christine McVie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christine McVie. Show all posts

Saturday, February 20, 2021

Last week, Christine McVie stunned Fleetwood Mac fans


Last week, Christine McVie stunned Fleetwood Mac fans when she told the BBC she didn’t know if the band would ever tour again. “If we do, it will be without John [McVie] and without Stevie [Nicks], I think,” she said. “I think I’m getting a bit too old for it now, especially having had a year off. I don’t know if I can get myself back into it again.”

“[John] is feeling a little bit frail,” she continued. “You know he was ill. He’s fine, but he just hasn’t got the heart for it any more. He wants to get on his boat. You reach a certain age where you go: ‘Hey, I’m not going to bust a gut doing this anymore.'”

She concluded by saying that only drummer Mick Fleetwood would definitely be down for another tour. “[He] would do it in a lightning strike,” she said. “But I couldn’t possibly say. We’re certainly not touring this year either.”

The comments generated headlines around the world. But now, McVie has clarified to Rolling Stone where the group stands with regard to future touring.

“First and foremost, I’m thrilled to see that everyone still cares so much about Fleetwood Mac, how humbling to know what a lasting impact this band has had,” she said. “To clarify my recent comments, I was specifically asked if Fleetwood Mac would tour again. I gave a cheeky answer indicating that the band might be ‘done with that’ or ‘you just never know.’ I always intended to convey that, particularly after the last year, we just don’t know what the future holds.

“In no way are any members of Fleetwood Mac ‘done’ with being part of the band,” she continues. “If anyone took that from my statement, that was a misperception and not intended. Fleetwood Mac is part of the DNA of who I am, and I know the same is true for Stevie, Mick and John. As for future touring………Who knows. We continue to hope for the best.”

The band has been on hiatus since the conclusion of their An Evening With Fleetwood Mac tour in November 2019. It was their first tour since parting ways with singer-guitarist Lindsey Buckingham and bringing Crowded House’s Neil Finn and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell into the fold.

In February 2020, Mick Fleetwood staged a tribute concert to Fleetwood Mac co-founder Peter Green at the London Palladium featuring Pete Townshend, David Gilmour, Steven Tyler, Billy Gibbons, Neil Finn, John Mayall, Kirk Hammett and Christine McVie. It’s coming to movie theaters on March 23rd and March 28th and will be released as a live album and DVD on April 30th.

Rollingstone

By ANDY GREENE


Saturday, October 17, 2020

Eddy Quintela, second husband to Christine McVie has passed away

Eddy Quintela, second husband of Christine McVie and co-writer on a number of her songs from 1987 through 1997 has passed away.

Song writer, keyboardist and composer of Portuguese origin, Eddy Quintela was also the second husband of Christine McVie, a fundamental element in the formation of Fleetwood Mac. For the North American band, Quintela composed with McVie numerous songs between the years 1987 and 1997 Among them is the hit, "Little Lies" from the album Tango in the Night, published in 1987. The hit helped this LP to become the second best seller in the entire Fleetwood Mac career.

They divorced in 2003 but continued to collaborate on Christine McVie's solo album published the following year. One of Eddy Quintela's themes for the American band, "Nights in Estoril", alludes to the time spent by the couple in Portugal, where the musician established several connections, namely in the Cascais line, with Marita Leon (with whom he maintained a musical project in the 1990s) and Fernando Cunha dos Delfins. The song would be published on Fleetwood Mac's Time album, which came out in 1995. In an interview with the British newspaper Guardian, McVie would say however "he was not happy in love".

Eduardo Quintela de Mendonça, of his full name, will also have collaborated with Adelaide Ferreira, at the time of "Baby Suicida" and Portuguese rock. In a post on his Facebook page, Manuel Falcão, founder of BLITZ, says he met Eddy Quintela through a mutual friend, Pedro Baltazar. "He lived a large part of his life in the United States and Great Britain and returned to Portugal some twenty years ago. He was a creative man, he was engaged in a musical project that he loved, a rock opera about John Kennedy, which he left almost ready, now that's left".

- Blitz Expresso

Stevie Nicks talks Harry Styles, Christine McVie and the Pandemic

Stevie Nicks talks Harry Styles, pandemic fears and her Fleetwood Mac pact

Bree Player, Stellar Magazine
The Daily Telegraph (Australia)

Rock’n’roll royalty Stevie Nicks talks to Stellar about her fear of the pandemic, her close friendship with Harry Styles and the pact she made with bandmate Christine McVie at the beginning of their run with Fleetwood Mac.

How are you going in Los Angeles?

I’m as good as you can be in these circumstances. I really have been locked down because I truly believe that should I contract this disease it would kill me, or it would at the very least knock me down so bad I wouldn’t have a career anymore.

And at 72 years old, I may have my freedom but I don’t have much time, as Mick Jagger would say. So, even if this takes another year-and-a-half I’m going to get through this without getting it because I want to go back to work. I want to go back on tour. I want to come back to Australia, for god’s sake!

Your natural space is the stage. How are you handling not performing live for such an extended period of time?

Well, this was meant to be a year off for me, but I was still performing six shows and we probably would have added six more. I do miss it – I don’t feel like myself.

I look at these next six or so years as my last youthful years, when I’m going to feel like putting on six-inch heels and dancing across a stage for the world. Because, really, at some point you have to go, “OK, you’ll be 80 – just exactly how long can you cartwheel across the world?” I don’t have that much time left to be a rock star.

Although you can’t perform now, you’re releasing your most recent solo tour 24 Karat Gold The Concert in cinemas next week, so you’re still managing to keep busy…

Yes, this film was so lovingly made and I’ve also just released a song called ‘Show Them The Way’. These are projects I’m so proud of and in this time of strife for all of us, I’m hoping that both the film and the song might be something that will make people feel better and give them some hope.

I made a video for this song that’s mostly photographs but I shot a small portion of it in my entryway. I put on my boots for a couple of hours and for those hours I felt like myself again. I feel like Cinderella putting on her glass slippers.

At five-foot-seven, I feel incredibly powerful, at five-foot-one in a pair of bedroom slippers or tennis shoes, I don’t feel so powerful.

Monday, September 09, 2019

NEW Christine McVie 90 Minute Documentary airs in the UK September 20th

If you are in the UK on September 20th, cancel your plans!



Fleetwood Mac's Songbird: Christine McVie
Friday 20, September 2019 21:00 BBC FOUR

Christine McVie is undoubtedly the longest-serving female band member of any of the enduring rock ‘n’ roll acts that emerged from the 1960s. While she has never fronted Fleetwood Mac, preferring to align herself with ‘the boys’ in the rhythm section whom she first joined 50 years ago, Christine is their most successful singer-songwriter. Her hits include ‘Over My Head’, ‘Don’t Stop’ and ‘Everywhere’.

After massive global success in both the late 1970s and mid-1980s, Christine left the band in the late 1990s, quitting California and living in semi-retirement in Kent, only to rejoin the band in 2014. In this 90-minute film, this most English of singers finally gets to take centre-stage and tell both her story and the saga of Fleetwood Mac from her point of view.

Interviewed Guest Christine McVie
Interviewed Guest Stevie Nicks
Interviewed Guest Mick Fleetwood
Interviewed Guest John McVie
Interviewed Guest Neil Finn
Interviewed Guest Mike Campbell
Interviewed Guest Stan Webb
Interviewed Guest Nancy Wilson
Executive Producer Mark Cooper
Director         Matt O'Casey

There are actually two channels in the UK airing shows related to Fleetwood Mac on September 20th 

(Compiled by Fleetwood Mac UK)
UK TV channels BBC Four and Sky Arts have an evening dedicated to Fleetwood Mac on Friday 20 Oct 2019

Saturday, April 27, 2019

INTERVIEW Mick Fleetwood and Christine McVie speak with the UK's Independent

Fleetwood Mac: ‘We’ll burn in hell if we don’t play Glastonbury one day’
Cocaine, fights, love affairs and break-ups. Mick Fleetwood and Christine McVie speak to Chris Harvey about the success, the hardship and the torment of the band as they prepare to play Wembley in June

The Independent






This strange, funny band is complicated,” says Mick Fleetwood. “It’s all about people, it’s not horrific.” I’m talking to the man who has been the only member of Fleetwood Mac to appear in every line-up of the band since they were formed. When they step out on stage at Wembley Stadium in June, that will be coming up to 52 years ago.

We’ve been chatting about the period when Fleetwood Mac moved from stars to superstars with the release of Rumours in 1977. It was during the era of Seventies rock excess, when band mythologies are wreathed in tales of groupies, sexual exploitation, drug addiction and death.

Fleetwood Mac were no strangers to drugs: LSD had cost the group its original leader, Peter Green, at the end of the Sixties, and cocaine was an integral part of the band’s Seventies. Fleetwood wrote in his autobiography that Rumours was written with “white powder peeling off the wall in every room of the studio”.

“I think we were damned lucky that our music never went down the drain because we went down the drain,” the 71-year-old drummer says now, “and I think in truth there are moments where you could have said we got pretty close, you know.

“Cocaine was everywhere, people who worked in banks [used it]. Personally, I had a run on that lifestyle, but fortunately, I didn’t get into any other type of drug that would have been more damaging – I don’t even know why, but I’m very thankful. Brandy and cocaine and beer,” he says, naming his poisons, as he describes the 20 years of “high-powered lunacy” that he put his body through. “That lifestyle became something that had to come to an end… hopefully, you come out of it with your trousers still on, and not taken out in a plastic bag.”

Friday, March 22, 2019

Christine McVie talks Glastonbury, rock 'n' roll and retirement



Christine McVie: inside the world of Fleetwood Mac, then and now
As the band prepares for its UK return in June, Christine McVie talks Glastonbury, rock 'n' roll and retirement

By Ella Alexander | Harpers Bazaar
Mar 21, 2019

June 2019 will be a big month for music fans for two reasons – an under-the-radar, little-known festival called Glastonbury and the return of Fleetwood Mac, the band’s first UK dates in six years. Sadly, this year at least, the two aren’t linked, but lead vocalist and songwriter Christine McVie says any decision to perform at Glastonbury isn’t down to the band itself.

“It isn’t up to me, it’s up to the management,” said McVie. “It’s their decision and down to logistics. I can’t say yes or no to Glastonbury, but I’d like to – so long as I don’t have to wear wellington boots on stage. Or maybe I’d just have to roll with it – wellie boots with mud.”

For now, fans will have to make do with two UK gigs at Wembley (the first time that McVie has performed in the UK with the group since officially rejoining), one of which sold out so fast that the band added a further date. Over 50 years after the band were first formed, appetite for Fleetwood Mac shows no signs of waning.

“Maybe people are just wondering when the first one of us is going to pop off because we’re not youngsters anymore,” laughs McVie. “Maybe people want to see us because they think it’s the last chance. We’re a young band at heart; you’d never think we are the age we are. We’re never static. It’s going to be fantastic.”

Wednesday, February 13, 2019

INTERVIEW Christine McVie Attitude Magazine

FLEETWOOD MAC'S CHRISTINE MCVIE ON 'AMERICAN HORROR STORY', PLAYING WEMBLEY, AND POTENTIAL NEW MUSIC
"I don't see any reason why we can't do another tour and make another record."


With a 50-year legacy of friendship, fallouts and iconic folk-rock hits, the Fleetwood Mac story is as epic as they come in music.

Over the years band members Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Christine McVie, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks have married, divorced, made up, fallen out, and continued to release some of the most defining pop hits of the last century - and the drama hasn't waned now most of them are in their seventies.

Disagreements over current world tour 'An Evening with Fleetwood Mac' led to Buckingham's sacking from the group in April last year, with the guitarist and vocalist settling a lawsuit against his former bandmates in December.

Talk of that lawsuit is strictly off-limits as Attitude meets Christine McVie ahead of Fleetwood Mac's two planned dates at Wembley Stadium this June, but the British-born singer is a characteristically open book when it comes to discussing the legacy of a band that has defined her life since 1970.

Despite standing as the (relative) calm at the centre of the Fleetwood Mac storm, McVie has had plenty her own ups and downs during the course of her career, most notably retiring from the group in 1998 for 16 long years after developing a debilitating phobia of flying.

Since rejoining the group onstage at Wembley in 2014 McVie hasn't looked back however, and as the 75-year-old songstrees discusses eveything from Fleetwood Mac's unlikely inclusion in American Horror Story to why the popularity of her signature track 'Songbird' has been both a blessing and a curse, it's clear she's having the time of her life...

You've had a bit of a break from touring over the last few weeks - do you feel fully rested and recuperated?

Monday, June 19, 2017

Lindsey Buckingham & Christine McVie on SiriusXM

SiriusXM’s Volume presented a Town Hall with Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie, hosted by Mark Goodman.   Buckingham and McVie, founding members of Fleetwood Mac, have a new album out together called, Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie.

During this SiriusXM Town Hall, Buckingham and McVie talk about the writing of their new album, Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie, taking a break from Fleetwood Mac, and the joys of working together.

Hear some of this Town Hall below.  The full hour-long SirusXM Volume Town Hall airs on Friday, June 16, at 7 PM ET on SiriusXM Volume channel 106.

BuckinghamMcVie.com




Monday, May 29, 2017

Christine McVie reveals why she returned to the spotlight with new duet album

FLEETWOOD Mac star Christine McVie reveals why she returned to the spotlight with her band... and a new duet album.

By CLAIR WOODWARD
Express


The new album from Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie feels like a big, warm hug.

The great melodies, intimate harmonies and terrific arrangements are instantly recognisable as coming from two of the band’s songwriters yet they’re new and intriguing enough to make it more than just another side project from an iconic group.

And for Christine, 73 – the understated genius behind the keyboards in Fleetwood Mac and writer of some of their most recognisable songs (Don’t Stop, Little Lies, Say You Love Me, Hold Me and Everywhere) – the sensation of reconnecting with old friends was the inspiration behind the new collaboration.

She officially retired from the band in 1998, after stepping away from touring a few years earlier, and it was her return to it for the 2015 reunion tour that sparked the collaboration with Lindsey.

“We’ve always had a particular musical relationship since he first joined the band – it was immediate,” Christine explains in her warm, honeyed tone.

“The whole band was just chemistry abounding but Lindsey and I, me being the piano player and him the guitar player, understand each other musically without saying anything.

“We’ve always worked well together over the years but never thought about doing an album together until recently and now we wonder why we didn’t think about doing it before.

“The moment I knew I was going back into the band I flew over to Santa Monica to start rehearsals but, before that, I’d sent Lindsey a few demos of stuff I’d recorded and he went into his studio to arrange them. He played them back to me and I said, ‘These sound really great.’ So we decided to go and record them properly. (Fittingly, fellow Mac members Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, on drums and bass, also perform on the album.)

“After we finished the world tour, Lindsey got in touch and said, ‘What are we going to do with these songs, they’re too good to just shelve?’ So we decided to go ahead with releasing a duet album.”

Christine’s return to Fleetwood Mac and her new burst of creativity comes at a time when many people thought that, after several years away from the hurly-burly of rock star life, she would never be seen on stage again.

In the intervening years she moved from California where she had lived for the best part of 30 years (she grew up in Birmingham and moved to London after attending art college), and bought a beautiful country home in the village of Wickhambreaux, Kent, which she spent several years restoring.

“I felt very at home in California but the place is prone to earthquakes and the one in 1994 scared the life out of me. For months afterwards I felt that every time I sat down I should have put on a seatbelt. It was really bad and I thought, ‘I’m going to get a house in England.’ I got to a point where I’d been in a band for 40 years and wanted to get back to real life.”

Yet being a lady of leisure eventually proved to be not enough for Christine.

“I started to say, ‘OK, now what?’ I had my two dogs there, they were my life. My marriage (to keyboardist Eddy Quintela) fell through, so I was living on my own and felt isolated. Most of my friends were in London or Los Angeles and worked nine-to-five for a living.

“I did have some friends living with me for a while but, eventually, I reached a point where it was time to start changing things.”

The catalyst for this change was Christine’s need to overcome her fear of flying and the intervention of Mick Fleetwood.

“I had a horrible terror that the next plane I got on would crash,” she remembers.

“So I had therapy to get over that, and other issues I’d developed through isolation, and sorted myself out. My therapist and I discussed the idea of me writing songs again and trying to reach out to the rest of the band as well.

“The therapist asked where I wanted most to fly if I could and I said Maui (one of the Hawaiian islands), as Mick lives there and I have a lot of friends there. So I just bought the ticket without knowing if I’d actually go. I’d always stayed in touch with Mick and soon after I bought the ticket he said he was coming to London, so we met up and I flew back to Maui with him. I didn’t even notice the wheels leave the ground. Since then, it’s been great. I’ve even flown in Africa in one of those prop jobs.”

While with Mick in Maui, he persuaded her to get on stage with his local band, gradually coaxing her back into the idea of returning to her musical career.

“Steven Tyler, from Aerosmith, was there. We belted out a few songs and I just thought, ‘This is good...’”

Christine admits that it was performing live that sustained her through her final years before she left Fleetwood Mac.

“When I first left, I didn’t miss it as I was tired of the travelling. The gigs were the only thing that really sustained me.”

And after her long break, being back with her bandmates has given her a new lease of life.

The closing track on the Lindsey Buckingham/ Christine McVie album is called Carnival Begin, written by Christine and with its lyrics of “I want it all... a new merry-go-round” it is clear that she has a strong appetite for change. Fleetwood Mac’s famously colourful previous life, where sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll made for a potent combination, is now a thing of the past and they are enjoying better personal relationships and new respect from audiences.

“Underlying the band now is a great sense of affection,” reflects Christine.

“We bind together my style, Lindsey’s style and Stevie’s (Nicks) style as songwriters, and it’s a democratic band in that we make sure everyone has the same amount of songs to sing both onstage and on record, although I have to say, it’s Lindsey that really directs the band.”

Next month, Christine and Lindsey are touring the States with the new album and she is looking forward to it after Fleetwood Mac’s triumphant world tour in 2015.

“We had such a great range of ages in the audience, from people who bought our albums the first time around to their children and grandchildren.

“I think we’ve become a hip band to the younger generation. After being seen as middle-of-the-road, we are now fashionable again.”

Christine is now living in London and when she gets back from touring in America she will decorate her new house, which is currently “an empty shell filled with cardboard boxes”.

Who looks after her beloved dogs when she’s away, I ask?

“They passed last year. They were very obliging,” she laughs.

“My other house was for sale. They were 16 and had had a good life. It was sad but things came together at the right time. Everything is for the good in the end.”

The single In My World is out now; the album Lindsey Buckingham/Christine McVie is released on June 9 on Rhino Records.


THE MAKING OF BUCKINGHAM MCVIE





From Big Brother to Big Real Estate
Zach Rance has been taking the South Florida real estate market by storm. If you are looking to buy, sell, lease or rent in Palm Beach County, Florida, contact Zach Rance through his website at www.ZachRance.com
Sponsored

Friday, January 13, 2017

Buckingham McVie Duet Album Tentatively Scheduled For May Release

Fleetwood Mac's Christine McVie and Lindsey Buckingham talk about making their first duet album
By Randall Roberts
LATimes


Longtime devotees of the rock band Fleetwood Mac might be forgiven for letting out a gleeful yelp when registering the news that singer-keyboardist Christine McVie shared with The Times in December while sitting next to her band mate -- guitarist, singer and producer Lindsey Buckingham.

“I've been sending Lindsey demos in their very raw form,” she says, sitting in the Village Studio’s storied Studio D in West Los Angeles, “and he's been doing his Lindsey magic on them, which I love.”

The product of that magic is tentatively scheduled to come out in May, and the two are at the Village to work on vocals. Working with them are two familiar names: Mick Fleetwood, whose towering drum kit is in the next room, and bassist John McVie.

The album coming out of these sessions, however, won’t bear the Fleetwood Mac imprimatur.

Rather, the release with the working title “Buckingham McVie” will arrive as the first full-length collaboration between the pair.

For hard-core fans, it’s not news that, save band mate Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood Mac’s members have been holed up at the Village. At various intervals over the past few years, the band has acknowledged working on an unspecified project thought to be a new Fleetwood Mac album. 

In fact, during a studio visit in 2014, The Times’ Randy Lewis sat down with Christine McVie and Buckingham to discuss her return to touring after 16 years away from the band.  

“I thought, I'm really missing out on something — something that's mine, that I’ve just given up,” she said to Lewis. “I'm not paying respect to my own gift."

Nearly three years later, sharing a couch in the same suite where decades earlier Fleetwood Mac recorded its epic album “Tusk,” Buckingham says that after her return, he and McVie generated an entire album’s worth of material during the sessions.

“We got in here, and it made sense to me with what she had given me and what I done with it. But we still didn't know how it was going to play out in the studio,” Buckingham says. 

He quickly realized that he’d had a pent-up enthusiasm for this kind of collaboration. “I loved doing it, because it's something that I haven't had a chance to do for Stevie as much as I did in the past,” he says, stressing that he continues to compose for solo projects.

“Those are a little more esoteric and off to the side,” he says, “but that's not the same as doing it for somebody else.”

McVie says she reconnected with Mick Fleetwood prior to joining the 2014 Fleetwood Mac “On With the Show” tour. She’d been living a solitary life in rural England when the drummer traveled to London in order to escort her to Hawaii, the destination she chose to help her overcome her fear of flying.

“I'd been virtually doing nothing in the country in 16 years of being a retired lady. Being busy walking my dogs — actually not doing anything very constructive,” she says. “I made one little solo album in my garage.” (2004’s “In the Meantime.”)

Buckingham remembers Fleetwood calling him soon thereafter. “He said, Christine's been over here and, you know, she would like to maybe rejoin the band." For Buckingham, it was a no-brainer.

McVie lets out a big laugh. “It’s unprecedented!”

“Yeah, but a lot of things about Fleetwood Mac are unprecedented,” says Buckingham. “I left for a long time and you guys got two guitar players and went ahead and did that for a while. Then I came back.”

“Weird times,” McVie says.

“Yeah,” Buckingham agrees. “I mean it's a band like no other.”

McVie, who is best known for writing and singing Mac gems including “Don’t Stop,” “Over My Head” and “Think About Me,” acknowledges that, early on in the Buckingham-McVie project, she doubted her ability to reconnect with her muse.

“I suppose I wondered if I believed in myself,” she says. “But I was like, 'Go for it, Chris. Go for it.' And, you know, a better thing's never happened to me. I've reconnected with the band and found a fantastic person to write with.” 

Looking at Buckingham, she adds, “We've always written well together, Lindsey and I, and this has just spiraled into something really amazing that we've done between us.”

For his part, Buckingham’s initial songwriting contributions were the product of sessions with Fleetwood and John McVie, which Buckingham invited Christine McVie to augment. 

“It was just pieces with no wording,” she says. “ so I put melody and lyrics on some of his material.”

“That was a first,” says Buckingham. “She would write lyrics and maybe paraphrase the melody — and come up with something far better than what I would have done if I'd taken it down the road myself.”

Those up on the history of Fleetwood Mac might note in the Buckingham McVie moniker the echo of an earlier duet album, “Buckingham Nicks.” Released in 1973 by the two future Fleetwood Mac members when they were a romantic and musical partnership, the Nicks and Buckingham release led Fleetwood a year later to invite the couple to join his band. 

Nicks hasn’t contributed to the forthcoming Buckingham McVie project. She’s been on her own trip. In 2016, Nicks embarked on her “Rockin’ 24 Karat Gold Tour” with the Pretenders as openers. That tour will continue with a few dozen more dates across early 2017.

Her schedule, however, had little bearing on what Buckingham and McVie were creating, says Buckingham.

“All these years we've had this rapport, but we'd never really thought about doing a duet album before,” Buckingham says. “There is that album that I did with Stevie back before we joined the band, but other than that, it's all been Fleetwood Mac or solo.”

Interrupting with a tone of bafflement, McVie says, “And why on Earth? It seems absurd after 45 years.”

“Sometimes,” Buckingham says, “it takes, oh, about 40 years of perspective to figure it out.”


Monday, October 10, 2016

Christine McVie on Fleetwood Mac: ‘Without one of us, we’re incomplete’

The singer on the band’s half-finished album, the visitation she had when writing Songbird, and growing up with a psychic mum.

by: Peter Robinson
The Guardian

Hi, Christine. What was it like growing up with the surname Perfect (1)?

It was difficult. Teachers would say: “I hope you live up to your name, Christine.” So, yes, it was tough. I used to joke that I was perfect until I married John.

Fleetwood Mac’s Mirage is being reissued as a box set for £50 (2). Does that seem like a fair price?

It’s a really nice item! It’s quality, isn’t it? It’s good value for money – you’ve got a lot of outtakes, a lot of previously unheard demo versions of songs, you’ve got the vinyl ... a CD, I believe, is in there? I mean it’s a nice package! I haven’t had a good look at it, but the label has given me one to take home. I get a free one!

Have you listened to the demos and outtakes?

No. I’m not a big fan of those things. I know people are interested but for my own personal enjoyment I prefer not to listen to them. My songwriting, when I’m writing, is nothing like it is in its finished form – but you have to start somewhere.

Is the new album finished?

Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Christine McVie Interview on Mirage, Fleetwood Mac's new album and touring future

Christine McVie on Fleetwood Mac's 'Peculiar' 'Mirage' Sessions, New LP
Singer-songwriter looks back on heady days at Château d'Hérouville, discusses band's future plans
By Richard Bienstock
Rollingstone


Christine McVie has a confession to make. The 73-year-old singer, songwriter and keyboardist is on the phone with Rolling Stone to discuss the new deluxe reissue of Fleetwood Mac's 1982 effort, Mirage; but, she admits, she hasn't actually listened to it yet. "I just now got my copy of the remastered edition in my hands," McVie says, calling from her home in the U.K. "But I just moved to a flat where I don't have my DVD or CD player yet. So I'm unable to play it. And there's all these outtakes and demos and things in there that I certainly haven't heard since we made them. So I'm most curious to listen."

Indeed, the new package is a treasure trove for Mac completists (and, apparently, band members). In addition to presenting the original 12-track album – which spent five weeks at Number One and spawned two of the group's biggest and enduring hits in McVie's "Hold Me" and Stevie Nicks' "Gypsy" – in remastered form, the three-CD and DVD set offers up a disc of B sides, titled "Outtakes and Sessions," as well as a live collection culled from two nights at the L.A. Forum in October 1982 on the Mirage tour. The whole thing is rounded out by a vinyl copy of the album and a DVD in 5.1 surround sound, as well as a booklet with extensive liner notes and photos from the era.

An impressive package, to be sure, and one that is perhaps necessary for an album that, for all its multi-platinum success, never quite gets its due, having been overshadowed in the band's canon by the career-defining trio of records that preceded it – 1975's Fleetwood Mac, 1977's mega-smash Rumours and 1979's sonically adventurous double album Tusk. In an earlier interview with Rolling Stone, drummer Mick Fleetwood acknowledged that, in such imposing company, Mirage often gets overlooked – a notion that McVie seems to agree with. "It does, and I don't know why," she says. But, she adds, "As it stands today, a lot of people know every track on it. Which is quite unbelievable. So I just take it for what it is."

McVie spent some time reminiscing about the album with RS, from the "unusual" experience of recording at the Château d'Hérouville outside of Paris, to the "nightmare" of filming the video for her song "Hold Me" in the Mojave Desert outside of Palm Springs. But she wasn't only looking backward. McVie also discussed Fleetwood Mac's plans for the future, which may include a new album and another world tour. "We're just gonna keep on doing what we do best," she said, then laughed. "Which, I'm not really sure what that is!"

What was the state of Fleetwood Mac going into the making of Mirage?

Friday, September 23, 2016

LISTEN New Interview with Christine McVie on BBC Radio 2


Steve Wright in the Afternoon
BBC Radio 2

Steve and the team are joined by Christine McVie to talk about the deluxe reissue of the classic Fleetwood Mac album Mirage that was originally released in 1982.

BBC Radio2

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

10 Questions for Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac

The peacemaker of Fleetwood Mac on Mirage, Maui and missing the buzz
by Ralph Moore
The Arts Desk

theartsdesk meets Christine McVie on a sunny Friday afternoon in September; the Warner Brothers boardroom (with generous hospitality spread) is suitably palatial. We’re the first media interview of the day, so she’s bright and attentive. McVie was always the member of Fleetwood Mac who you’d want to adopt: the most approachably human member of a band constantly at war with itself. Readily admitting that she’s the “peacekeeper’ in the band, the singer/songwriter behind such Mac classics as “Everywhere” and “You Make Loving Fun” is as sweet and serene as you’d hope she would be.

She’s here to promote the new deluxe remaster of 1982 album Mirage – the follow-up to the somewhat deranged 1979 Tusk, which was recorded and released as Christine and John McVie, the band's bassist, were divorcing. She quit the band in 1998 after the hugely successful live album The Dance, after which she started a fairly solitary life of her own in the English countryside for the best part of 16 years. The first four of those, she says, were simply spent working on the house. It was only therapy and the canny, persuasive hand of Mick Fleetwood that coaxed her into returning after a trip to Maui, Hawaii, where Mick lives close to John McVie, his lifelong partner-in-crime.

The former Christine Perfect had a severe fear of flying that she’s now completely beaten, and as we speak, it’s clear that she’s fairly perplexed about having left the fray for so long in the first place. So what was she doing in all that time exactly? “A lot of people ask me that question!” With a brand new album (their first since 2001’s Say You Will) and a new world tour in the planning stages, it’s clear that the Fleetwood Mac story still has several enthralling chapters ahead. Somewhere near Fleetwood's on Front Street – Mick's fancy restaurant in Maui – the drummer must be feeling pretty smug that the ragged band of brothers and sisters he founded are finally back together.

RALPH MOORE: What was the mood of the band post-Tusk?

CHRISTINE McVIE: I remember we did two huge world tours after Tusk. We drove ourselves into the ground physically, and obviously there was a lot of drinking and a lot of drugs, and that just about killed us all, so we took a lot of time off. There was a long time between Tusk and Mirage. Mick went to Ghana to make an album called The Visitor and Stevie [Nicks] made Bella Donna, which was a huge hit for her.

But I think maybe we were under contract so had to make a record at that time, so Mick tried to recreate a similar bubble to Rumours where we were away from our homes, and that’s how that started. The mood? I was quite looking forward to it. We recorded at Honky Château [the infamous Chateau d'Herouville, located 20 miles north of Paris in the Val d'Oise]. There was a big piano there that Elton John had left there, so that was great. I seem to remember we did a lot of mucking around, playing table tennis. The guys from the French Open came down to visit us and John McEnroe also came down – I think I actually beat him at table tennis one night! It was a funny time. I don’t remember any particular animosity. I'm sure we were under contract to do another record so that was the basis of it. And from that, from little acorns the oak tree grew and it turned into a much nicer experience with some really good songs on it.

You returned to the band in 2014: had the dynamic changed?

Well, I just couldn’t believe that 16 years had actually passed. I mean, quite literally, from the moment I stepped on stage in Dublin to rehearse “Don’t Stop” I knew: the eye contact with all the band members, it was like going home. Truthfully. And they felt the same about me. The circle was complete. Had anything changed? Only technically. Vibe wise, I had Mick looking at me through his cymbals, but there was always that gap there on the stage when I left – they hadn’t filled it up with anyone else. That gap when they were touring without me was there every night. It was such a great feeling.

Is it fair to say that you’re the peacekeeper in the band?

I know Stevie always calls me Mother Earth, so possibly! How do I put this…. I have always been the most sane one of the lot, more down to earth, but I think John’s probably even more down to earth now. Peacekeeper? Yeah, I like that title. I do tend to meander around in the cracks! And do I have to be a peacekeeper now? Only occasionally. You always get moments with Stevie and Lindsey [Buckingham], that’s part of their make-up – they are each other’s muses and they have not been together for years, but they have this love/hate thing that they’ll always have and someone has to gently insinuate in the middle.

But Stevie and I are really good friends, in fact I think we’re better friends now than we were 16 years ago. And it’s a fact, when it's the Buckingham/Nicks show backed by John and Mick, that’s going to cause a lot of tension and stress. But with me in there, it gave Stevie the chance to get her breath back and not have this constant thing going on with Lindsey: her sister was back.

Is it fair to say that Fleetwood Mac is a democracy, but driven for the most part by Mick?

Yes, but you’ve got to have a degree of flexibility. We’re very democratic. If one person is outvoted, you go with it. Mick always says, I’m a drummer, I can’t just sit in a room and play drums, I need a band. So in Maui, he has his own little band and when Fleetwood Mac’s not touring, he plays with them. It keeps him busy.

In the 16 years interim, what were you doing and did you see the band much?

I didn’t see them very much. First of all, I never flew anywhere. I saw them at Earl's Court a few years back and sat at the sound board and that was a weird feeling. But I had no sense at that time of wanting to rejoin and at that time it was a relief – but I didn’t realise what pleasure I was missing until more recent days when I made the phone call to Mick and asked, "What would be it be like if I came back?" Fortunately Stevie was dying for me to come back, as were the rest of the band. Lindsey didn’t believe it would ever happen, but when I walked back onstage he did and they were delirious.

But when I first left, I was married at that point and spent four years restoring the house, a big rambling place with gardens – it was quite a project. But I didn’t write very much and the marriage didn’t work out, and I started to find I was twiddling my thumbs in this huge place, bouncing off the walls. So I thought that I’d do a little solo project. I got together with my nephew who’s a good musician and quite handy with ProTools and I thought, I’ll do a little record because I can’t fly, and I don’t want to tour, so we did that in my garage. And that took a couple of years, because we didn’t have a pressing need to finish it.

And then I sunk into isolation and got in a bit of trouble and sought help, and that was when I called Mick. It was healing and cathartic going back into the band. I missed all that buzz. I was also deluded about some idea of being the country lady with dogs, a Range Rover and Hunter boots, going for long walks, all that. Baking cakes in my Aga. It was not what I wanted in the end.

How did you overcome the fear of flying?

I was starting to realise that I was trapped in England unless I went by train or boat – and that I will never be able to see the world. So I went to a therapist and said, "I have to be able to get on a plane." And he said, "Where would you most like to go?" And I said, "Maui!" And he said, "Buy a first-class ticket. Don’t get on – you have the ticket, that’s the starting point." And as serendipity would have it Mick said, “I am coming to London” and I said, “I have a ticket to Maui!” So he said “Stay there! And we’ll go back together.”

So I went back with Mick to Maui and didn’t even feel the plane taking off, that’s how unafraid I was. I had some pretty good therapy, and I love flying now! And I did some songs with his little band there, and that was the start of it all. It’s the best thing we could have ever done. In many ways, I think we sound better and the audience reaction is better than even it was before. It’s unprecedented in rock ‘n’ roll that someone should leave and rejoin 16 years on and all five of us are still alive and healthy – touch wood and whistle.

Let’s talk about the new album.

I love every single track we’ve done, bar none. This's something to me that is really special. Stevie hasn’t come in on it yet because she’s been busy doing something else. Last year, I was in there with Mick and Lindsey and John – John’s healing very nicely now – and nearly completed seven tracks and they’re magic. Seriously, no padding! I’m going to go over again in October to work on it. Stevie’s on tour but we’ve got until next year to finish it because we’re planning a world tour again, for the summer of '17. I don’t know if I’m privy to give song titles yet, but Lindsey and I have practically co-written everything. Getting the band all together is like herding sheep: to get all five of us in a room is nigh-on impossible. And then somebody will wander out. But it does happen.

And what’s great is Fleetwood Mac is now a genuine, cross-generational experience.

The generation gap is phenomenal! Kids are going, "We’d better see them before one of them dies!" The songs endure. I have lots of friends with growing children, even 12- and 11-year-olds and some of them are avid listeners, they carry Rumours on their iPods! Tango is a favourite and Tusk is a favourite of some the weird 14-year-old boys. The demographic is remarkable.

And you still have the potential to play Glastonbury again.

Yes. I think we have been asked but for whatever reason it hasn’t happened, I don’t know for what reason. Would I love to do it? Love’s a strong word! I wouldn’t mind – so long as we could helicopter in and helicopter out!

Let’s end by returning to Mirage – where does it sit in the Mac canon for you?

If I have to be really truthful, it’s not catalogued as my favourite but on it are some great songs and some really good memories and it harkens in a vague sense not to the soul of Rumours but to more commercial roots after Tusk, which was the antithesis of commercial. On Mirage we made an effort to have a few more catchy songs. But it’s still a pretty eccentric record when you listen to it. It’s nuts!

The deluxe edition of Mirage is out on September 23rd on Warner Brothers

Source The Arts Desk

The deluxe edition of Mirage will be released September 23rd
Mirage (Deluxe) (3CD/1LP/1DVD-Audio)

Friday, September 16, 2016

Christine McVie with MixMag Editor Ralph Moore

Christine was interview this morning (Sept 16th) by Ralph Moore, Editor of MixMag, on the re-
release of Mirage. No word yet on when the interview will be released, but it'll likely be in the next issue since Mirage will be released next week.  She looks great!!

Tuesday, July 12, 2016

73 years young, and still a force to be reckoned with! Happy Birthday Christine!

The first lady of Fleetwood Mac... literally... Christine McVie.
Happy 73rd Birthday. Many MANY happy returns!


Wednesday, March 02, 2016

"I think people could do with a new Mac album from the five of us.” - Christine McVie

After 16 years in the Kent wilderness, Christine McVie and Fleetwood Mac are creating magic once again… there’s even a new album in the pipeline. 

By Reyhaan Day
Mayfair Times

Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie offers me tea and a seat on a plush sofa. Among the things on her coffee table is a picture book called Crap Taxidermy. There’s a platinum record on the wall, and a stuffed dog looks out from under a side table next to a flickering fireplace.

“Do you like my dog? I found him in an antique shop – he’s 100 years old and I call him Jarvis.”

McVie is a dog person – she had two until recently. “I had a lovely time with them, but do I miss having dogs? Dogs tie you down. Who’s going to look after them when I go on tour?” she says. “I thought about getting a bird – a parrot perhaps – and teaching it to talk.” But McVie doesn’t want to be held back any longer. “I want my freedom now.”

As one fifth of Fleetwood Mac, Christine McVie has helped define popular music since the late 1960s. With her bandmates, McVie has written songs that are loved across generations. With 1977’s Rumours, Fleetwood Mac became superstars, experiencing both critical acclaim and public adoration. She explains that there is something about the band’s music, and Rumours in particular, that appeals to all ages. “Parents played the album at home, but kids gravitated to the album as well; and now some of their children are turned on to Fleetwood Mac.” It’s something that McVie is still surprised by. “It’s really quite amazing, the dichotomy of people coming to see the shows – it ranges anywhere from 80 to eight. It’s very exciting.”

Thursday, September 24, 2015

Fleetwood Mac's Christine McVie puts her 19-acre Kent home on the market

She's going to go her own way: Fleetwood Mac's Christine McVie puts her 19-acre Grade II listed Kent home on the market for £3.5million

  • Christine McVie, 72, has been spending an increasing amount of time in London since rejoining Fleetwood Mac
  • So now, she has decided to put stunning Grade II-listed country home in Kent village of Wickhambreaux on sale
  • She is selling the mansion - where she wrote some solo material following band's disintegration - for £3.5million
  • It boasts six bedrooms, four reception rooms, a three-bedroom outhouse, two cottages and sprawling gardens

By SOPHIE JANE EVANS
Daily Mail

She has been spending an increasing amount of time in London since rejoining her rock band for a global tour.

So now, Fleetwood Mac singer Christine McVie has decided to put her sprawling Grade II-listed country home in Kent on the market.

The 72-year-old, who penned some of the group's biggest hits including Don't Stop and Little Lies, is selling the mansion for a whopping £3.5million.

She is planning to 'upsize' in the capital - where she has been spending a lot of time with her bandmates - and 'downsize' in the country.

Full story with full size images at Daily Mail

Strutt and Parker Realtor Listing (includes floor plans, property layout and many more photos)


Saturday, June 06, 2015

Christine McVie talks about her return to the fold

Christine McVie: Why I went back to Fleetwood Mac
by Lydia Jenkin
The New Zealand Herald

She wrote some of the band's best known hits but walked away for a quiet life in the country. But now Christine McVie is back with Fleetwood Mac on a tour which is heading to New Zealand. She talks about her return to the fold.

Speaking from London, Christine McVie sounds a bit like a more mellow, less posh Patsy from Absolutely Fabulous.

There's a lovely, light, warm huskiness, and plenty of character in the voice that's been missing from the Fleetwood Mac line-up for the past 17 years - the voice (and pen) behind many of their hits, like Don't Stop, Little Lies, Songbird, and You Make Loving Fun.
Weekend Herald (Australia) June 6, 2015

But now that voice is back.

Rumours swirled after McVie appeared on stage with the band in Dublin and London during their 2013 tour, and in January 2014 it was announced that she was officially back in the band.

And now, more than halfway through their current world tour - entitled On With The Show - the 71-year-old sounds totally convinced she made the right decision, and is thrilled to be touring again.

"We're having a ball. Every night, I look across the stage from where I'm playing piano, stage right, and I can see the rest of them, John, Mick, Stevie, and Lindsey, and it awes me every night. I just think, blimey, you guys are fantastic. I think the difference this time is that we're all smiling."