Tusk, a Fleetwood Mac tribute band, will honor the late Christine McVie during a sold-out show Saturday at Penn’s Peak, located on Maury Road, Jim Thorpe.

“Since she passed, we’re trying to find ways to honor her, acknowledge the profoundness of her passing, and still keep it a Fleetwood Mac show,” said Kim Williams, a keyboardist/vocalist who fills Christine’s role in Tusk. “We’re trying to find a balance.”

Aside from Williams, Tusk - originating in Hunterdon County, New Jersey - features: Scott McDonald as Lindsey Buckingham, guitar and vocals; Kathy Phillips as Stevie Nicks, vocals; Randy Artiglere as John McVie, bass; and Tom Nelson as Mick Fleetwood, drums.

For Tusk’s latest shows, a photo montage accompanies Williams’ performance of the Christine-penned “Songbird.” In addition, “Got a Hold on Me,” Christine’s 1984 solo hit, joined the setlist. “We do a couple of Stevie solo songs,” Williams noted, but that’s the only one else we do.”

Passing of an idol

Upon learning of Christine’s passing last November, “we were shocked,” Williams said. “I heard it on the radio. All the texts started flying. Everybody was flipping out.”

Williams views Christine as “quite a chameleon. She was classically trained when she was younger. She turned to blues when she was 11 or 12. When she played with Chicken Shack in the ’60s, it was a blues outfit.

“When she joined Fleetwood Mac, they were still a blues band,” she continued, adding that Christine was “very adaptable. Once Stevie and Lindsey came into the band, she was able to shift her songwriting sound to fit the new sound, California pop, those two brought in.”

Williams believes Christine’s contribution to the British-American rock band - writing and singing lead on hits such as “Say You Love Me,” “Don’t Stop,” “You Make Loving Fun” and “Everywhere” - cemented her legacy.

“She is the unsung hero, almost, of Fleetwood Mac. Not to everybody. There are always people who come up to me at a show, almost whisper, like it’s a secret, ‘Christine was my favorite.’ It’s almost taboo for them to say it’s not Stevie who’s my favorite, it’s Christine.”

Gaining experience

Williams gained an affinity for piano-driven music while growing up in the 1970s and 1980s. The keyboardist, whose musician father performed in nightclubs, would, at 4 years old, “climb up on the piano bench and try to play what he was playing. Because I showed an aptitude for music, they decided to start me on lessons.”

Before Tusk’s formation in 2008, Williams and Phillips played in an acoustic act. Williams credits her then-husband with the idea for Tusk.

“It was supposed to be a one-time thing,” Williams said. “After the first show, we were booked for a second one right away. We ended up sold out, and said, ‘let’s keep doing this.’ We started as Meetwood Flack. Once we got an agent, he said, ‘places aren’t going to take you seriously.’”

With other Fleetwood Mac tribute acts using “The Chain” or “Rumours” in their names, Williams and company took the name of a Mac album and song from 1979.

“We didn’t want the same old name everybody else was choosing,” she said. “We changed the name to Tusk. It’s short and punchy. Easily memorable.”

A fork in the road

When forming Tusk, Williams noted, “although we were fans of Fleetwood Mac, this wasn’t born out of an obsession with their music.” The band found “the more we played their music, the more we fell in love with it. Fifteen years later, we still love it.”

Though faithful to Fleetwood Mac’s music - which also includes hits such as “Rhiannon,” “Dreams” and “Big Love” - Tusk has avoided the sudsy drama often associated with the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer’s career. Thus, no intra-band romances and conflicts, which, in particular, fueled the making of 1977’s mega-selling “Rumours” album.

“We’re all pretty mellow,” Williams said. “That’s good in most ways, sometimes not. We might not be as forthcoming as we should be, about something that might be bothering us. We always find a way to work everything out, even little petty things.”

While Tusk - which released an original, self-produced album under the name Stockton Bridge in 2013 - never experienced Fleetwood Mac-like drama, the band still faced challenges. Particularly testing was balancing the band with families and then-full-time jobs.

“We were getting busier,” Williams said. “Two of us were teachers at the time. During the school year was tricky. I can’t believe none of us got fired. There were times I might sneak out of work half an hour early without telling anybody.”

Post pandemic

Scheduling remains a challenge, with the band, until recently, still making up COVID-impacted shows. “Now that that’s chilling out, our schedule is getting good,” Williams said.

Looking ahead, Williams sees Tusk “going until we can’t go any more. None of us have any plans of not continuing. We just keep getting more, bigger shows every year,” including the band’s debut at Penn’s Peak, once considered a pipe dream.

Tusk’s concert schedule keeps the songwriter-heavy band busy, though a second studio album may materialize. However, “there’s nothing in the works,” said Williams, who, having written two songs, calls herself a songwriter “with a grain of salt.” She added that McDonald’s completing an album of his own, with aid from a couple Tusk bandmates.

When she’s not playing with Tusk, Williams likes “to work in my garden, do home projects. I’m a DIY kind of person. That’s where my head is when I’m not doing this.”

In addition, “I have a job on the side, a couple hours, two days a week, delivering to customers who subscribe to produce boxes. We bring the farm to you. My grandparents had a farm when I was growing up. I’m very much of the land. I like to dig in the dirt. If I was not doing this, I would probably be working on a farm.”