Expert: McVie’s Talents Often Overlooked

12/01/2022

Media contacts: Emily Gowdey-Backus, director of media relations, Emily_GowdeyBackus@uml.edu and Nancy Cicco, assistant director of media relations, Nancy_Cicco@uml.edu

Christine McVie, the singer-songwriter who helped rocket Fleetwood Mac to rock ‘n’ roll immortality was an “understated, modest powerhouse,” according to UMass Lowell music business expert Alan Williams, who is available for interviews.

McVie passed away Wednesday, according to a statement posted on the musician’s verified Instagram account. She was 79.

“McVie was the often-overlooked center of Fleetwood Mac’s transition into massive pop stature. It’s telling that her voice and songwriting resulted in more hits than her more well-known bandmates Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham,” said Williams, a UMass Lowell music professor who has worked in the business for more than 30 years. 

A keyboardist, McVie joined Fleetwood Mac early in the band’s evolution kin Britain after she married the group’s bassist, John McVie, who had signed on alongside founding member and drummer Mick Fleetwood. After landing in Los Angeles in the early 1970s, the band welcomed singer-songwriter Stevie Nicks and her then-boyfriend guitarist Lindsay Buckingham. The quintet produced infectious, sun-soaked California-rock never more potent than in 1977’s “Rumours,” which has sold more than 40 million copies and was named the Recording Academy’s “Album of the Year.” McVie either wrote or co-wrote five of the album’s hits.

Williams is available to discuss:

• McVie’s impact and legacy
• The pop-rock sound that became Fleetwood Mac’s signature
• How the band’s music influences artists today. 

Williams leads UMass Lowell’s music business program, where he shares his talents and knowledge as a songwriter, bandleader, sound engineer and record producer with students, many of whom will become the profession’s next generation of leaders. 

To arrange an interview with him, contact Emily Gowdey-Backus or Nancy Cicco.