CHRISTINE McVIE

Fleetwood Mac’s “prodigal daughter” is back for the MOJO Interview: lost on stage with Chicken Shack; “therapy” with the Mac.

‘‘I’m sorry,” shouts Christine mcVie from the kitchen, as she rummages for mugs under the sink, “it’s a rented flat, and everything’s still in storage.” they’re words that conjure up a cheerless one-bedroom studio with wipe-clean beige walls and collapsed sofa bed, but for Christine mcVie, 73-year-old singer-songwriter and on-off veteran of fleetwood mac, one of the biggest-selling bands of all time, the flat is a penthouse in Belgravia, decorated with antique turkish carpets, giant African drums and, hanging in the drawing room, edward reginald frampton’s 1898 Pre-raphaelite masterpiece, saint Cecilia With Angels. “it looks like she’s playing a hammond B3, doesn’t it?” smiles mcVie, pointing at the spinet in the painting, a nod to her own early years, when as art student Christine Perfect she played keyboards in late-’60s Brummie blues outfits sounds of Blue and Chicken shack. today, mcVie’s look is a designer variant on Brumbeat beatnik; grown-out blonde bob, blue jeans, white t-shirt and black leather jacket, and her smethwick drawl is still audible beneath a warm, measured voice with the same low blue tones that have coloured such soulful mac belters down the years as say you Love me, Don’t stop and Little Lies. indeed, mac history is all around us, mcVie’s walls bedecked with early photos of herself with band founder and drummer mick fleetwood, and bassist and one-time husband John mcVie. there’s tour posters from the early-’70s Bob Welch years, and a plethora of platinum record updates on the 30-million-plus sales of the band’s 1977 LP Rumours. recorded with LA conscripts Lindsey Buckingham and stevie nicks, the album set in motion 20 years of intra-band dance, dalliance and excess, and finally ended for mcVie when she walked away from the group in 1998, exhausted and disillusioned, with a dream of living quietly in the Kent countryside. today she positively beams when discussing the band, especially her surprise return to the fold at the o2 Arena in september 2013 that led to the on With the show world tour (“there was nothing bad about that tour. everything was a joy!”) and the resultant reunion sessions with Buckingham, fleetwood and mcVie that have resulted in a buoyant new “duets” album, Lindsey Buckingham Christine McVie, recorded in studio D at Village recorders in Los Angeles, the same custom-designed annex the mac had built, at ludicrous expense, for the recording of Tusk, some 39 years ago. “Lindsey gets me,” says mcVie, happily, “and i love working with him. As with everything in fleetwood mac, it’s chemistry. i feel like i’ve come home. the prodigal daughter returns.”

So, how did Lindsey Buckingham Christine McVie come about?

I’d rejoined the band, after being retired for 16 years, and I had a phone call from Lindsey THE MOJO INTERVIEW