Songbird is a biography of Christine McVie. 

I am a big Fleetwood Mac fan, so I knew I had to read this. It was so good! If you are a Fleetwood Mac fan I would highly suggest this one. 

Thank you so much Hachette Books for the ARC of this book.

"In this revealing portrait of keyboardist, lyricist, and vocalist Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac, readers will get an exclusive glimpse of the band's "mother figure"."

I love Fleetwood Mac and Christine McVie has one of my favorite voices ever. This book is packed with information about her life but it was a bit boring. I struggled to get into it. It covers so much but it is not very engaging. That said, it is very well-researched, with every detail carefully sourced. The author does a great job of connecting historical context and adding interesting facts from Christine's life.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book!

Songbird by Lesley-Ann Jones is a beautifully detailed and richly researched biography that truly does justice to the incredible life and legacy of Christine McVie. As a huge fan of Christine and Fleetwood Mac, I was thrilled to dive into this book, and it did not disappoint. Jones captures Christine’s career and personal journey with great depth, giving readers a fresh perspective on one of the most iconic figures in music. While it might feel a bit niche for the general population, I’d recommend it in a heartbeat to any Fleetwood Mac fan. It’s a must-read for those who admire Christine’s contributions to music history!

I have been a Fleetwood Mac fan since I was in high school (the Rumours album was the soundtrack to my graduation summer), so I was eager to read an ARC copy of Lesley-Anne Jones’ Songbird: An Intimate Biography of Christine McVie, to be released in mid-November 2024.

This book is well-researched and quite detailed. Although the book blurb indicates that the author was a friend of Christine McVie, it sounds like their relationship was actually a more loose acquaintance-ship rather than a friendship, so the book reads less like a tell-all biography of a well-known friend and more like a research-based, interview-heavy biography of a subject your admired (a plus in my mind).

It’s also much more than the story of Christine McVie, as it maps out the complex history of Fleetwood Mac in detail, along with a timeline of “Mac-history” and “Mac-music.”

I found the book to be a bit stodgy in parts (especially the early sections, which seemed very research-heavy and rather dry), although things do pick up significantly when the book shifts to the Fleetwood Mac part of Christine’s story. I found that many of the detailed side stories (the one about Dennis Wilson, for example) pulled the focus away from Christine a bit too much.

Overall, an interesting read. Compelling in spots; a bit of a slog in others. I recommend having Spotify (or your album collection) nearby as you read . . . because you'll definitely want to hear these songs again.

Thank you to Hachette and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on November 19, 2024.

3.5 stars, rounded up to 4.

I’m a huge Christine McVie fan so I was excited to read this book! It shows a side of her that is missed in the hubbub about Stevie. I appreciated the author’s familiarity with her subject. Sometimes, she tended to ramble so it wasn’t the best in terms of writing skill. Still, any Christine is better than none.

I loved this book about a rock icon.
I loved learning about her life and her journey and how her creative talents made Fleetwood Mac the iconic endurin group group they are .
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for letting me review this book

My thanks to Net Galley and Hatchette for allowing me this arc.

3.5 stars. I DID enjoy this book but it did not pick up for me till the making of the first album with the Rumours 5. Very well researched, but heavy with too many details. I didn't need to read about what the buildings in her town looked like or the background of Dennis Wilson and the rest of the Mac members. I was reading this for the focus on Christine. Do recommend though for any MAC fan.

Hachette Books provided an early galley for review.

As a kid of the 70's and teen of the 80's, McVie's music (much via Fleetwood Mac) was part of the soundtrack of my growing up. Her passing in November 2022 at age 79 marked the loss of another music legend. Not knowing much about her life, this was one I wanted to check out.

The author makes note at the end of Chapter 2 that McVie did not talk much about where she grew up, preferring to keep it to herself or to share only with her loved ones. This kind of guardedness is important for someone in a public eye, to allow them to have things that aren't up for public mass consumption. But then it does require a biographer to be someone close to the subject like Jones indicates she was in order to give the readers more details (especially when the subject has passed and cannot be consulted further). Interestingly enough, in chapter 6, Jones indicates that her line was the intrusion of private lives; her story is focused on McVie's career and fame.

Jones certainly has done her research as shown by the copious amounts of facts and details throughout, presented in an almost documentary-style narrative. But, for me, the first quarter of the book comes across as a bit of a distance from the subject herself. We learn a lot about the world through which McVie walked but not through her eyes or her thoughts and feelings. It all came across as "arm's length" for me. Only when she starts performing music with bands in the 60's does the narrative start to spark. Even then, I felt like I got a lot of everyone else's business and not as much of Christine's. If one were to cut the parts about all the other lives in her orbit, this would be a much much smaller book.

I liked this book. As a fan of Fleetwood Mac, I was interested in reading this book and I found it interesting.

I'm not a huge Fleetwood Mac fan, but remember the throbbing "Dreams" pulsating out of car windows walking home from high school in the late seventies, and watching their excellent live concert "The Dance" in August 1997 the night that Princess Diana died. I even own their iconic CD "Rumors" and some greatest hits compilations. I've read biographies about Stevie Nicks in the past, and she's so prominent and out front while Christine is demure and functional in the background most of the time. However, I love Christine's pure voice and a lot of her tunes that are breezy and easy like her voice. I also remember that she had an intense romance with Beach Boy Dennis Wilson decades ago before he died. She was a subject rife for a biography of her own.

I've read a biography in the past from this author on John Lennon and liked it, so approached this one with positivity. I'm not sure why I felt a bit detached while reading this one. I asked myself, "Is it because Christine was such a private and elusive figure that she was just hard to know?" There was a lot of background at the beginning about where she grew up in England and the end of World War II (that I found a bit boring), her first band "Chicken Shack", the many lineups of Fleetwood Mac that would make your head spin keeping track, homes that she purchased, husbands and boyfriends, etc. This was chock full of information not only on Christine, but Fleetwood Mac the band as a whole. The author moves in these circles and knew Christine, not only encountering her at parties but at one point having lunch with her at one of her beloved mansions in England. I feel a bit guilty saying that I only just enjoyed this book at a "Good" level of reading joy. It might be down to writing style- going off on tangents here and there to psychoanalyze things (I experienced this in her John Lennon bio). However, I'm still glad I read this to learn about a very talented musician who gave most of herself to Fleetwood Mac while the happiness of true love- alas- always eluded the former Anne Christine Perfect.

Thank you to the publisher Hachette Books for providing an advance reader copy via NetGalley.

thank you to netgalley, hatchette books and the author, lesley-ann jones for the ARC epub in exchange for an honest review.
this book is heavy/weighty and reads very dry. there’s a lot of information but the tone is extremely hollow which makes it an excellent choice for those who prioritize information over a more relaxing read. this read like a tome of christine mcvie’s life.
that all being said. it’s incredibly well researched and not a pebble of information left out. everything is sourced and the author does an amazing job of putting together historical points and expands on the story with more facts to paint the picture of christine’s life.

This biography of Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac fame is mostly made of the author's interviews with people "close to the band', Mick Fleetwoood, and her own impressions and research.

McVie grew up with a psychic mother who exploited her intuitions to teach psychic studies to others, with a following. Her father was more humble in his endeavors. The author expounds upon Christine's childhood and tries to tie that in with her choices as an adult. Many of the anecdotes have been told before, but is lesser detail. The main gist of the book is a deeper view of McVie's inner life and desires. She openly searched for men to complete her, to mother them as her mother did not mother her, to search for the 50s Happily Ever After. The main love of her life was Dennis Wilson. Not much is said about Dennis, other than his cheating and drugging which ultimately resulted in his death.

Christine didn't seem to be involved in the animosity within the band- unlike Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. But the bad behaviour turned her away from the band to go live on her own, in her native England.

I get the feeling there is a lot unsaid in this book, and surely there are few reliable people with insight. We do learn some of what propelled her to seek men to complete her, and some spoilers for Stevie Nicks fans.

Songbird, a biography of Christine Perfect McVie by Leslie-Ann Jones chronicles the singer/songwriter’s life, loves, and career in a sometimes rambling, but quite detailed fashion designed to convey what the world/ music scene was like at particular moments of Christine’s life. Being trained in classical music, Christine discovered rock through a her brother’s Fats Domino sheet music and the rest as they say is history. The author paints a portrait of an artist who never wanted to be the spotlight; always feeling she was just one of the guys in which ever band she was playing and partying hard with. I voluntarily reviewed an advance copy of this book from NetGalley. Highly recommend for every blues, rock and Fleetwood Mac fan.

I’ve been a Fleetwood Mac fan for a while and really didn’t know a lot about the rest of the band. So I was excited to read this biography about Christine McVie as she was someone that I really didn’t know about. Lesley-Ann Jones was able to create that intimate biography that worked for me and was glad I got to read this.

Songbird by Lesley-Ann Jones is a heartfelt tribute to Christine McVie, one of Fleetwood Mac's legendary voices. As a long-time fan of both the band and Christine’s work, I am deeply grateful to the author for telling her story in such an honest and raw manner. The spotlight remains firmly on Christine (or Chris, or Chrissie), making her the focus throughout the book, which I truly appreciated.

The Appendix of the book includes a full timeline of Christine’s life, a list of her best songs, and chapter notes that reference the author’s research and elaborate on the story.

Fun fact: “You Make Loving Fun" is my favorite Christine McVie song.

I will be honest: I found the tone of the book somewhat lacking in distinct style. It leaned heavily on recounting quotes and events, which left the writing feeling a bit detached. While Lesley-Ann Jones uses an eloquent vocabulary, there was a certain emotional depth that felt lacking, in my opinion.

That said, perhaps this is thing thing with biographies in general, as I’ve only ever read autobiographies. Regardless, I adored the book and would recommend it to any Fleetwood Mac fan. You'll come across some familiar stories along with a few surprises that you maybe didn’t know happened behind the scenes.

I would rate it 3 stars as I enjoyed my time reading it.

Thank you Netgalley and especially Hachette Books for providing this advanced-read copy (ARC) in exchange for an honest review.