Christine McVie, thank you!

Thank you for all the great songs…and for inspiring us to make music ourselves.

“The singer, songwriter and keyboardist Christine McVie, who died on Wednesday at 79, was the serene eye of the storm in Fleetwood Mac, one of rock history’s most tumultuous and beloved bands. She was also the glue that held the group together across drastically different eras, joining in 1970 shortly after the departure of its founding member, the blues guitarist Peter Green, and anchoring the band in its more commercially successful second phase, after Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks came aboard.

Sonically, the edgy Buckingham turned out to be an enriching counterpoint to McVie’s soft-focused style, and their musical collaboration continued up until the end of her recording career, when they released a collaborative album in 2017. But behind the scenes, the deep bond between McVie and Nicks — a mutually supportive friendship that flew in the face of then-prevalent stereotypes about women in music feeling competitive with other women — was also an integral part of what kept the band going. ‘We felt like, together, we were a force of nature,’ Nicks said in a 2013 interview. ‘And we made a pact, probably in our first rehearsal, that we would never accept being treated as second-class citizens in the music business.’”

You can read more of this New York Times’ tribute to this legendary singer here. Or read their obituary published here.