“Am I in the Band?” The Moment That Made Christine McVie Question Her Role in Fleetwood Mac

Part of what made Fleetwood Mac’s musical legacy so enduring and varied was the distinct creative contributions each member brought to the ensemble, but for one brief moment in the mid-1970s, the late keyboardist Christine McVie wondered if she had unwittingly let herself get pushed into the background or, even worse, out of the band altogether.

Of course, history would prove she didn’t, but hindsight is always 20/20. Moreover, sometimes an artist needs a little fire lit under their rumps to get them out of their comfort zones. It would appear that McVie’s 1974 identity crisis did just that.

Christine McVie Once Questioned Her Place in Fleetwood Mac

From its founding in 1967 to its final active years in 2022, Fleetwood Mac has undergone several different iterations. The only truly original member of the five-piece lineup behind seminal albums like Rumours is, unsurprisingly, the band’s half-namesake, Mick Fleetwood. Even the other namesake, John McVie, came in as a replacement for Bob Brunning after the English rock band’s first concert. Keyboardist Christine McVie officially joined the band in 1970, though she had collaborated with them previously as a session musician.

The following year, Fleetwood Mac added guitarist and vocalist Bob Welch to their roster. That’s when things started to get dicey for Christine. During a 1975 interview with Rolling Stone, journalist Elliot Cahn asked the keyboardist if the introduction of Welch overshadowed her role as a principal songwriter for the group. It clearly struck a nerve.

“You know, you’re the second person today who’s told me he thought Bob Welch was hogging the show. It never struck me that much until the Don Kirshner TV show we did last fall. When I saw that, I said, ‘Hang on a minute. Am I in the band?’”

“I don’t know how it really happened,” she continued. “I guess I let myself get pushed back. Bob Welch was such an energetic, speedy guy. I was happy to let him do all the work. It just boiled down to basic laziness on my part. Anyway, it’s a lot more balanced now.”

When One Door Closes, Another Opens

In the early 1970s, Bob Welch did take a lead role in Fleetwood Mac, both in terms of lead vocals and songwriting contributions. But his tenure in the group didn’t last long. Following personal hardships and a growing disconnect between the McVies, Welch left the group in 1974. Not only did this open the door for Christine McVie to take a more forward-facing role in the band once again. But it also made room for two new members.

Those two members, of course, would be folk-rock duo Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, who officially joined the group in January 1975. This lineup would prove to be the longest-lasting, with Stevie Nicks on vocals, Lindsey Buckingham on guitar and vocals, Christine McVie on keys, John McVie on bass, and Mick Fleetwood on drums. While we certainly can’t diminish Fleetwood Mac’s repertoire to everything post-1975, this era proved particularly advantageous for the group.

With Christine freshly motivated to push herself as a musician and songwriter and two new faces in the group contributing their own sound, Fleetwood Mac would go on to prove just how unstoppable their newly formed lineup would be in the decades to come.

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