Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie has died. She was 79.

Her family released a statement saying, “She passed away peacefully at hospital this morning, Wednesday, November 30th 2022, following a short illness. She was in the company of her family. We kindly ask that you respect the family’s privacy at this extremely painful time, and we would like everyone to keep Christine in their hearts and remember the life of an incredible human being, and revered musician who was loved universally. RIP Christine McVie.”

Fleetwood Mac also issued a statement, saying, “There are no words to describe our sadness at the passing of Christine McVie. She was truly one-of-a-kind, special and talented beyond measure. She was the best musician anyone could have in their band and the best friend anyone could have in their life. We were so lucky to have a life with her. Individually and together, we cherished Christine deeply and are thankful for the amazing memories we have. She will be so very missed.” 

Born Christine Anne Perfect outside Birmingham, England in on July 14th, 1943, she became Christine McVie after marrying Fleetwood Mac bassist John McVie in 1968. At that time, she played piano and sang in the British blues group Chicken Shack, with whom she’d be voted Best Female Vocalist two years running by the readers of Melody Maker, Britain’s top music weekly at the time.

She’d soon leave Chicken Shack for a solo career, but would abandon it after one album, when the acclaimed guitarist Peter Green, who’d founded her husband’s band, abruptly left it. In 1970, she contributed backing vocals to and painted the cover of Fleetwood Mac’s Kiln House album and joined them on keyboards for the tour behind it.

She was prominently featured on their next album, Future Games, as a singer, pianist and songwriter, as was the band’s first American member, guitarist Bob Welch. For the next few years the band toured regularly and turned out two albums a year without the benefit of a hit single, as Christine moved the group toward more of a soft-rock sound than the blues and early rock ‘n’ roll that had initially earned the group its reputation.

They moved to America in 1973 and a year later, after Welch left, replaced him with two Americans who  were not finding success as a duo at the time, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. With the three now sharing the songwriting, Christine’s “Over My Head” got them off and running, becoming their first Top 20 hit in the U.S. and just their second song to chart here since Green’s “Oh Well” got to number-55 in 1969.

The self-titled 1975 album soon clicked with the public in a big way, topping the charts and producing three other singles, including Christine’s “Say You Love Me,” which, like Nicks’s “Rhiannon” peaked at number-11. During the tour behind the album, cracks began to show in both Christine and John’s marriage and Lindsey and Stevie’s relationship. The songs they wrote for their next album, Rumours, fueled by what they were all going through, struck a chord with the public and propelled the album to a level of success that seemed impossible just a couple of years earlier.

Christine came up with two Top 10s on Rumours – “You Make Loving Fun,” inspired by her affair with the band’s lighting director during the last tour, and “Don’t Stop,” which she sang with Buckingham. She and John McVie were divorced after Rumours, but continued as bandmates. She wrote and sang the hits “Think About Me” on Tusk and “Hold Me” on Mirage, then released a self-titled second solo album in 1984 that produced a Top 10 hit in “Got a Hold on Me.”

After a turbulent relationship with Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson that began in 1979 and ended a year before his death in 1982, Christine met and married Portuguese keyboardist Eddy Quintela. They wrote many songs together, some of which were recorded by Fleetwood Mac, including her next hit with them “Little Lies” from Tango in the Night. She did just two more studio albums with the group, 1990s Behind the Mask, which had two McVie-Quintela compositions, and 1995’s Time, which had five. She and Quintana divorced in 2003.

Two years after Time, McVie participated in what would be her final Fleetwood Mac recording, The Dance. The chart-topping live reunion disc featuring the group’s most popular lineup was followed by a tour. When it was over, McVie decided to stop touring, which she attributed to her fear of flying.

Although she released her third solo album, In the Meantime, in 2004, she didn’t perform for the next 15 years until a one-off show in Hawaii with Mick Fleetwood’s solo band. It led to her returning to Fleetwood Mac in 2014 and doing a tour with the most popular lineup that September.

In 2017, she and Lindsey Buckingham released an album as a duo and the two played over 40 shows together in support of it. Also in 2017, Fleetwood Mac, without Buckingham, but with McVie and later-to-become members Neil Finn and Mike Campbell, played at the Classic West concerts in L.A. and Classic East concerts in New York.

In 2019, McVie was featured in the 90-minute BBC documentary Fleetwood Mac’s Songbird – Christine McVie. This June, Rhino Records issued a Christine McVie solo compilation titled simply Songbird, which contained two previously unreleased songs.

McVie had made public appearances as recently as last month. She’s up for a Grammy for Best Arrangement, Instruments and Vocals for her orchestral version of “Songbird.”