Music Video Of the Week - July 11, 2025

"Rhiannon" by Fleetwood Mac (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

Songbird

Christine McVie, who died last week at 79, was possibly the most underappreciated of the three singer-songwriters who fronted Fleetwood Mac from 1975 to 1987 (and again, sporadically, thereafter).  Neither a sex symbol like Stevie Nicks nor an offbeat experimentalist like Lindsey Buckingham, McVie provided the solid, conventional basis for Fleetwood Mac's more soulful ballads and light rockers with her accomplished keyboard playing, as well as some of the warmest, most tender songs in seventies and eighties rock that featured her distinctive, R&B-based vocal style.      

When Christine McVie joined Fleetwood Mac in 1971, she had already gained a reputation for being a fine blue-eyed-soul singer in the blues-rock band Chicken Shack.  Her talents were evident almost as soon as she joined Fleetwood Mac, named for the rhythm section of drummer Mick Fleetwood and Christine's husband, bassist John McVie.  Early songs such as "Spare Me a Little of Your Love" revealed a sense of intimacy in Christine's writing, and her comforting singing style was in sharp contrast to the more haunting vocals of her then-bandmate Bob Welch.  While she could be self-assured in songs like "You Make Lovin' Fun," she was just as adept at display her vulnerable side in songs such as "Say You Love Me," "Songbird," and "Hold Me," providing a respite from the musical dialogue between Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks.    

Ironically, her most assertive song ended up being used as a balm for supporters of politicians promising a better future.   Christine divorced John McVie as the band began recording 1977's Rumours LP, and her determination to get through the misery of a marital split inspired "Don't Stop."  It's a song about hope for the future, yes, but it also acknowledges the unfairness of a bitter past - she's pretty much saying that you can't have rainbows with the rain.  But beginning with Bill Clinton in 1992, just about every politician in the 1990s used "Don't Stop" to offer an agenda with nothing but rainbows, with a few unicorns thrown in for good measure.  "Don't Stop" proved that Christine McVie could be a tough cookie as well as a sweetheart, and her complex personality - which she channeled into her music - sustained her to the very end.  RIP.  

Then Play On

Many American fans of Fleetwood Mac don't know the history of the band before Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined it in 1975, though some might remember the band's first American member, guitarist Bob Welch, whom the duo replaced.  But the man who put Fleetwood Mac together in the first place, Peter Green, was a giant in his own right.

Green, who died Saturday at 73, was an accomplished guitarist and an impeccable singer, and he founded the band that would once characterize seamlessly crafted Los Angeles rock as a British blues band after a tutelage with John Mayall.  He influenced numerous guitarists with his clean, crisp style, but unless you listen to Sirius XM's Deep Tracks channel, you're not likely to hear much of his work, given the emphasis by terrestrial radio on the band's pop period.  However, you may not know that you already have heard his work, in a way.  Santana's "Black Magic Woman?"  That's actually a cover of a Fleetwood Mac song written by Green. The Beatles' "Sun King?"  Not a cover of a Fleetwood Mac song, but the gentle guitar solo that precedes the vocals was an attempt by the Beatles to copy Fleetwood Mac's style on the Mac instrumental "Albatross."  Green must have been modest in presenting his own melodic and vocal gifts as Fleetwood Mac's original frontman - what else can you say about a man who names his band after its rhythm section (in this case, drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie)? - but he was the catalyst for the band even getting off the ground.

Sadly, Green left his own band in 1970 after being diagnosed as a schizophrenic.  He spent much of the seventies dealing with his illness, re-emerging at the end of of the decade doing session work - including, ironically, an uncredited appearance on Fleetwood Mac's Tusk album - and eventually forming in 1997 the Peter Green Splinter Group, a blues -rock band that lasted for seven years.  He remained active, to some extent, after that band broke up. But Fleetwood Mac remains his greatest legacy, and it's one that will always define his influence on rock and roll. RIP.