Christine McVie - Early Life

Early Life

Christine was born in the small village of Bouth in the Lake District of England and grew up in the Bearwood area of Smethwick near Birmingham, where her father, Cyril P.A.Perfect, was a concert violinist and music lecturer at St Peter's College of Education, Saltley, Birmingham. Christine's mother Beatrice E.M.(called Tee) née Reece, was a medium, psychic, and faith healer. Her grandfather had been an organist at Westminster Abbey. Although Christine was introduced to the piano at the age of four, it was not until age eleven that she studied music seriously, when she was re-introduced to the instrument by Philip Fisher, a local musician and school friend of her older brother John. Continuing her classical training until the age of fifteen, her musical focus made a radical shift to rock & roll when John brought home a Fats Domino songbook. Other early influences included The Everly Brothers.