Stevie Nicks
Stevie Nicks is an influential American rock singer-songwriter, renowned for her unique blend of pop sensibility and Bohemian style. Born on May 26, 1948, in Phoenix, Arizona, she began her musical journey at sixteen, inspired by a breakup that prompted her to write her first song. Nicks gained prominence as a member of Fleetwood Mac, contributing significantly to their success starting in 1975 with the album "Fleetwood Mac" and later "Rumours," which became one of the best-selling albums of all time. Known for her emotive songwriting, Nicks's songs often reflect personal experiences and themes of love and loss.
In addition to her work with Fleetwood Mac, Nicks has enjoyed a successful solo career, highlighted by albums like "Bella Donna" and "The Wild Heart." Despite facing challenges including substance abuse, she demonstrated resilience, entering rehabilitation and continuing to produce music. Nicks has been recognized for her impact on women in music, inspiring a generation of artists with her distinctive style and lyrical depth. Inducted twice into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, her legacy encompasses a rich catalog of music and a lasting influence on the rock genre. As of 2023, she remains active in her music career, continuing to tour and release new material.
Stevie Nicks
- Born: May 26, 1948
- Place of Birth: Phoenix, Arizona
American rock singer and songwriter
A singer-songwriter, Nicks perfected a blend of pop sensibility and Bohemian style that propelled Fleetwood Mac to unprecedented success.
Member of Fleetwood Mac
The Life
Stephanie Lynn "Stevie" Nicks was born in Phoenix, Arizona, on May 26, 1948. For her sixteenth birthday, her parents rented her a guitar and arranged for lessons. Also on her birthday, her first boyfriend broke up with her. Nicks, heartbroken, wrote her first song: “I’ve Loved and I’ve Lost, and I’m Sad but Not Blue,” the beginning of her songwriting career. She loved the guitar and took to it so strongly that her parents ultimately bought it, and she kept it for decades.
Nicks met Lindsey Buckingham in high school. After playing music for five years, the two recorded the unsuccessful Buckingham Nicks in 1973. In 1975, they were invited to join Fleetwood Mac, leading to Nicks’s successful career as a group member and solo artist.
After years of cocaine abuse, Nicks was warned by a doctor that continued usage would destroy her nose and end her singing career. In 1986, she entered rehabilitation. Shortly after that, Nicks became addicted to prescribed drugs, and in 1993, she finally stopped using drugs completely.
Although romantically linked with many of her musical partners, Nicks claims that her musical love was Buckingham but that her romantic love was guitar great Joe Walsh. Nicks continued to perform both with and without Fleetwood Mac and, at one time, had an active charity, the Soldier’s Angel Foundation, which provided iPods to American soldiers.
Nicks followed up her first solo album of original songs in ten years, 2011's critically acclaimed In Your Dreams, with 24 Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault (2014), which consists of reworked versions of unreleased demos that she wrote as early as 1969. Additionally, that year, she set out on tour for the first time in years with all the original members of Fleetwood Mac; while she had continued touring with the band over the years, this was the first time that Christine McVie rejoined them. From 2016 to 2017, Nicks toured on her own to promote 24 Karat Gold; a video recording of that show was released in theaters in late 2020.
Nicks reportedly conflicted with Buckingham over scheduling for a fiftieth-anniversary Fleetwood Mac tour, which resulted in his firing from Fleetwood Mac in January 2018. The band embarked on its tour, as originally planned, in October of that year without Buckingham.
In 2019, Nicks was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The occasion marked her second such honor, as she had previously shared in Fleetwood Mac's induction and represented the first time a woman had been twice inducted. At the same time, she released the career-retrospective set Stand Back: 1981–2017.
Tired from many years of touring, Nicks planned a yearlong break for 2020. During this time, she wrote a screenplay about the Welsh goddess Rhiannon, who inspired her famous song, and signed with a television studio to adapt it into a miniseries. She also spent time recovering from the Epstein-Barr virus, which she contracted in January 2020. She was back touring in 2021, although COVID-19 caused her to cancel several dates. In 2023, she was back to regular touring, performing solo dates and multiple shows with Billy Joel. Her tour had planned dates throughout the summer of 2024. Nicks has also added Complete Studio Albums and Rarities (2023) and Bella Donna Live (2023) to her catalog of albums.
The Music
High school was important to Nicks’s career. That was when she joined her first band, the Changing Times, and, as a senior, she met her future partner, Buckingham. The two became acquainted at a school group meeting and sang together. In 1968, looking for a front singer for his band Fritz, Buckingham remembered Nicks and invited her to join. Fritz performed as an opening act for Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, one of Nicks’s idols, and many others. Fritz broke up in 1972, but Buckingham and Nicks stayed together, and they began writing music. Her style was pop-influenced rock and romantic, often autobiographical about her personal relationships. Nicks went on to write and sing as one of the members of Fleetwood Mac. When she discovered that she had more material than the band could handle, she began a solo career. By 2024, Nicks was part of a dozen Fleetwood Mac albums, produced eight solo studio albums, as well as multiple live and compilation albums, and sang duets with many other singers. Nicks's song catalog was purchased in a $100 million deal in 2020. She was featured in the song Oil on Gorillaz 2022 album and released a cover of For What its Worth (2022), offering a woman's perspective on the classic song.
Early Works. In 1973, she and Buckingham produced Buckingham Nicks. Although the album was a commercial failure, Mick Fleetwood heard it and asked Buckingham to become Fleetwood Mac’s lead guitarist. Buckingham agreed on the condition that Nicks join the band. Fleetwood agreed, and Nicks became a member of Fleetwood Mac in 1975.
Fleetwood Mac. In 1975, Fleetwood Mac was released and became a number-one seller in America, selling 4.5 million copies. The album was a departure for the folk-rock band, largely because of the influence of Buckingham and Nicks. The songs became pop-rock-inspired and autobiographical. Two of the three most popular songs were written and sung by Nicks, making her world-famous. These songs, “Rhiannon” and “Landslide,” were Nicks’s own, written earlier while Buckingham was on tour, and she was living alone. “Landslide” won awards in 1998 and again in 2003 for a cover version by the country music group the Chicks. It went on to win BMI’s Million-Air status for being played more than a million times on the radio.
Rumours. Fleetwood Mac’s follow-up album was even more successful, selling over thirty million copies. Nicks supplied several songs for the album, including “Gold Dust Woman,” about her cocaine addiction; “Dreams,” which was the band’s only number-one Billboard hit; and “I Don’t Want to Know.” Because of its length, “Silver Spring” was kept off the album; however, a 2003 reissue included it, and all editions now include this song. The album sold an initial nineteen million copies in the United States, and in 2018, it was eighth on a list of the fifty best-selling albums compiled by Business Insider. By the mid-2020s, 40 million copies of the album had been sold worldwide.
Bella Donna. Nicks’s first solo album, released in 1981, was written by Nicks, except for one song by Tom Petty. The album hit number one, and it is among the bestselling of her solo albums. It produced three hits, two of which were duets: one with Petty, “Stop Dragging My Heart Around,” and one with Don Henley, “Leather and Lace.” The immensely popular “Edge of Seventeen” is also on this album. On Bella Donna, Nicks developed her signature style of working with friends. The album features more than twenty-three musicians and singers, many of whom continued to work with Nicks.
The Wild Heart. Her double-platinum 1983 follow-up solo album was recorded live and has a rock-and-roll feel. Once again, Nicks called on the large group of friends who worked on Bella Donna and others, and once again, the album contained duets. All songs were written by Nicks, except for one by Petty. It produced the popular “Stand Back,” “If Anyone Falls,” and “Nightbird.”
Musical Legacy
Nicks enormously impacted female singer-songwriters, many of whom openly acknowledge their debt to her. Belinda Carlisle, Sheryl Crow, the Chicks, Vanessa Carlton, Michelle Branch, Tori Amos, Courtney Love, and Laura Branigan cite her work as inspirational. Destiny’s Child sampled “Edge of Seventeen” on “Bootylicious,” and many artists, including Hole, the Corrs, and the Chicks have covered Nicks’s work. Her lyrics, which Nicks calls “airy-fairy,” resonate with her audience with their intensely personal and emotional quality and timeless, universal themes, especially about women, romantic love, and friendship.
Aside from her songs, Nicks has left an aesthetic legacy. Her signature style—platform boots, scarves, gossamer dresses, feathers, and jewelry—conjures images of fantasy, much like her lyrics do.
Principal Recordings
Albums (solo): Bella Donna, 1981; The Wild Heart, 1983; Rock a Little, 1985; The Other Side of the Mirror, 1989; Street Angel, 1994; Trouble in Shangri-La, 2001; The Soundstage Sessions, 2009; In Your Dreams, 2011; 24 Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault, 2014; Stand Back: 1981–2017, 2019; Complete Studio Albums and Rarities, 2023; Bella Donna Live, 2023
Albums (with Fleetwood Mac): Fleetwood Mac, 1975; Rumours, 1977; Tusk, 1979; Mirage, 1982; Tango in the Night, 1987; Behind the Mask, 1990; Time, 1995; The Dance, 1997; Say You Will, 2003; The Dream, 2005; Perfect Days, 2008.
Albums (with Lindsey Buckingham): Buckingham Nicks, 1973.
Bibliography
Brackett, Donald. Fleetwood Mac: Forty Years of Creative Chaos. Praeger, 2007.
Dellatto, Marisa. “Fleetwood Mac's 1977 Album 'Rumors' Is One Of Top-Selling Albums Of 2022 So Far—Here's Why.” Forbes, 14 July 2022, www.forbes.com/sites/marisadellatto/2022/07/14/fleetwood-macs-1977-album-rumors-is-one-of-top-selling-albums-of-2022-so-far-heres-why. Accessed 11 July 2024.
Fleetwood, Mick. My Life and Adventures in Fleetwood Mac. William Morrow, 1990.
Gevinson, Tavi. Stevie Nicks is Still Living Her Dream, 15 Feb. 2022, www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/stevie-nicks-tavi-gevinson-conversation. Accessed 20 Apr. 2023.
Halliburton, Sandra. Read Between My Lines: The Musical and Life Journey of Stevie Nicks. Midpoint, 2006.
Harris, Carol Ann. Storms: My Life with Lindsey Buckingham and Fleetwood Mac. Chicago Review Press, 2009.
Nicks, Stevie. "Stevie Nicks on Twirling, Kicking Drugs and a Lifetime with Lindsey." Interview by Rob Sheffield. Rolling Stone, 2 Oct. 2014, www.rollingstone.com/music/features/stevie-nicks-fleetwood-mac-twirling-drugs-lindsey-buckingham-20141002. Accessed 20 Apr. 2023.
Petrusich, Amanda. "The Resurgent Appeal of Stevie Nicks." The New Yorker, 28 Nov. 2016, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/11/28/the-resurgent-appeal-of-stevie-nicks. Accessed 20 Apr. 2023.
Rapp, Allison. “Stevie Nicks Adds More Dates to Sprawling US Tour.” Ultimate Classic Rock, 5 Feb. 2024, ultimateclassicrock.com/stevie-nicks-added-2024-shows. Accessed 11 July 2024.
Saxon, Jamie. “Author of New Stevie Nicks Book is a Princeton Professor who Loves 'Tusk,' Studies Tchaikovsky.” Princeton University, 4 Oct. 2022, www.princeton.edu/news/2022/10/04/author-new-stevie-nicks-book-princeton-professor-who-loves-tusk-studies-tchaikovsky. Accessed 11 July 2024.
Vare, Ethlie Ann. Stevie Nicks. Ballantine Books, 1985.
Zaleski, Annie. “Leather and Lace: How Stevie Nicks Created a New Musical Language.” The Guardian, 17 Apr. 2019, www.theguardian.com/music/2019/apr/17/leather-and-lace-stevie-nicks-bella-donna-fleetwood-mac-solo-debut. Accessed 20 Apr. 2023.