CNN
–
Amid the various personal entanglements that the members of Fleetwood Mac are known for, one relationship fueled the band for decades: the friendship between its two frontwomen, Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks.
McVeigh joined the band during one of its early lineup changes in 1970 and was its only female member for years. When Nick was added to the lineup in 1975, the two became fast friends.
They didn’t have a competitive relationship, but a sisterly one – both women were gifted songwriters who were responsible for crafting many of the band’s best-known tunes. Although the two split up in the 1980s amid Nicks’ worsening drug addiction and the band’s growing internal tensions, they got back together when McVeigh returned to Fleetwood Mac in 2014.
At a concert in London, shortly before McVeigh officially rejoined the band, Nicks dedicated The song “Landslide” is for his “mentor. Big sister True friends.” And at the end of the show, McVeigh was there, along with his bandmates for “Don’t Stop.”
nick told Minneapolis Star-Tribune in 2015.
On Wednesday, McVeigh, of the band “song bird“Died after a brief illness at age 79. Below, revisit McVeigh and Nicks’ years-long relationship as bandmates, best friends and “sisters.”
The story of Nicks joining Fleetwood Mac is now legend: the band’s founder and drummer Mick wanted to recruit Fleetwood guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, who stipulated that he would only join if his girlfriend and musician Nick could join as well. are McVeigh cast the deciding vote, and the rest is history.
“It was critical that I got with her because I had never played with another girl,” McVeigh said told The Guardian in 2013. “But I liked him immediately. She was funny and nice but also no competition. We were completely different on stage and we wrote differently too.”
During the band’s many personal complications – McVie married and divorced Fleetwood Mac bassist John McVie and had an affair with the band’s lighting director, while Nicks had a rollercoaster romance with Buckingham and Fleetwood – they were at each other’s heart. .
“Being in a band with another girl who was this amazing musician — (McVie) instantly became my best friend,” Nicks said. told The New Yorker earlier this year. “Christine was a whole other ballgame. He loved hanging out with boys. She was more comfortable with men than I was.
The two protected each other, Nicks said, in a male-dominated industry: “We made a pact, early on, that we would never be disrespected by all the male musicians in the community.
“I would say to him, ‘Together, we are a formidable force of nature, and this will give us the power to steer the waters ahead of us,'” Nicks told The New Yorker.
The band’s biggest hit to date was “Rumours”, released in 1977. But except for the one between McVeigh and Nicks, the band’s relationship with each other was deteriorating. While the couple was enduring a breakup with their significant others, Nicks and McVie spent their time offstage.
The Guardian asked McVeigh if she was trying to play off the band’s turmoil with her songs on “Rumours”, including the light-hearted “You Make Lovin’ Fun” and the optimistic “Don’t Stop”. He said he probably was.
As several members’ drug use escalated, the band’s dynamic became strained. McVeigh distanced himself from the group in 1984 due to his bandmate’s addiction, telling the Guardian that he was “just sick of it.” Nicks, meanwhile, was becoming addicted to cocaine.
McVeigh told Rolling Stone the year she split from Nicks: “She seems to have developed her own fantasy world, somehow, that I’m not a part of. We don’t socialize much. ”
In 1986, Nicks checked into the Betty Ford Center to treat her addiction, though she later became addicted to Klonopin, which she took. said Claimed years of his life. He gave up prescription medicine in the 1990s.
After recording some solo work, McVeigh returned to Fleetwood Mac for her 1987 album Tango in the Night, and two of her songs on that record – “Little Lies” and “Everywhere” – became huge hits. happened But Nick soon left the band, and the band’s most famous lineup didn’t officially reunite until 1997 for “The Dance” tour and subsequent live album.
The reunion was short-lived: after the band included In 1998, McVeigh officially left Fleetwood Mac at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Referring to Fear of flying on the road and fatigue of life.
In the 2010s, more than a decade after retirement, McVeigh toyed with a return to performing. She officially rejoins Fleetwood Mac after she calls Fleetwood herself and discovers what her return will mean for the group.
Luckily Stevie was there to die For me to come back, like the rest of the band,” he said told Arts desk.
In 2015, a year after he rejoined Fleetwood Mac, McVeigh hit the road with his bandmates. Touring with the group was exhausting but fun, as they performed together for the first time in years.
“I’m only here for Stevie,” he said told The New Yorker that year.
Nick agreed: “When we went on the road, I realized what a wonderful friend she was that I had lost and didn’t realize the full ramifications of until now,” he told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune in 2015. Told to .
During that tour, McVie wore a silver chain that Nicks had given him—a “metaphor,” McVie told The New Yorker, “that the band’s chain would never break. Not by me, anyway. By me again.” No.”
McVeigh told Arts Desk in 2016 that he and Nicks were “better friends now than (they) were 16 years ago.”
Touring with Buckingham and Fleetwood could quickly become awkward for the Knicks, McVie said, because of their shared history. “But with me there, it gave Stevie a chance to catch her breath and not have this constant talk with Lindsay: her sister was back,” he said.
Their mutual admiration continued: In 2019, McVeigh said Nicks was “simply incredible” on stage: “The more I see her perform on stage, the better I think she is. She’s held down the fort.”
When their 2018-2019 tour ended, though – without Buckingham, who was it? firing – The band “kind of broke,” McVeigh told Rolling Stone earlier this year. He added that he doesn’t talk to Nicks as often as he did when they toured together.
As for the reunion, McVeigh told Rolling Stone that while it wasn’t off the table, she didn’t feel “physically ready for it.”
“I’m getting a little long in the tooth here,” he said. “I am very happy at home. I don’t know if I ever want to visit again. It’s bloody hard work. ”
The news of McVeigh’s death upsets Nick, who wrote that he had only known a few days earlier that McVeigh was ill. He called McVeigh “the best friend in the whole world since day one in 1975”.
on that social media account, Nicks shared a handwritten note containing the lyrics to the Ham song “Hallelujah,” Some of which discuss grief and the loss of a best friend.
“See you on the other side, my love,” Nicks wrote. “Don’t forget me – always, Stevie.”
