Rock group Fleetwood Mac singer dies at 79

Christine Mcvie (pictured on the left), the British-born Fleetwood Mac vocalist, songwriter and keyboard player whose cool, soulful contralto helped define such classics as You Make Loving Fun, Everywhere and Don’t Stop, died Wednesday at age 79.

Her death was announced on the band’s social media accounts. No cause of death or other details were provided, but a family statement said she “passed away peacefully at hospital this morning” with family around her after a “short illness”.

“A few hours ago I was told that my best friend in the whole world since the first day of 1975, had passed away,” bandmate Stevie Nicks said in a handwritten note posted to Instagram.

She added that one song has been “swirling around” in her head since she found out Mcvie was sick, quoting the lyrics to HAIM’S Hallelujah,

“I had a best friend/but she has come to pass.”

Mcvie was a steady presence and personality in a band known for its frequent lineup changes and volatile personalities — notably fellow singer-songwriters Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham.

Her death is the first among Fleetwood Mac’s most famous incarnation of Mcvie, Nicks, Buckingham, drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John Mcvie, Christine’s ex-husband (pictured on the right). In recent years, the band had toured without Buckingham, who was kicked out in 2018 and replaced on stage by Mike Campbell and Neil Finn.

Fleetwood Mac was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998, when at the ceremony they played Mcvie’s Say You Love Me. Mcvie, born Christine Anne Perfect in Bouth, Lancashire, came from a musical family. Her father was a violinist and music teacher and her grandfather played organ at Westminster Abbey.