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Mourning the loss of Christine McVie and at loggerheads with Lindsey Buckingham, in June 2024 MOJO encountered Stevie Nicks soldiering on alone, a looming headline show at Hyde Park a testament to the power of her personality \u2013 and extraordinary music. Here, nearly 50 years since she breathed new life into Fleetwood Mac, she casts her mind back over a career that began as a West Coast schoolgirl in love with dancing, singing and turning eyes in a crowd\u2026<\/p>\n
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Words: Stevie Nicks and Bob Mehr <\/strong><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/06\/1-1.jpg” title_text=”1″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n IN 1959, WHEN STEVIE NICKS WAS 11 YEARS OLD, her mother bought her a gift \u2013 a new doll introduced by toymaker Mattel, designed to be the very embodiment of glamorous American womanhood.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n \u201cMy mom gave me the first Barbie,\u201d recalls Nicks, \u201cand she was a tall, beautiful girl in a bathing suit with blonde hair, black eyeliner and heels. And I looked at Barbie and I looked at myself, tiny little thing that I was, and I thought, God, I\u2019ll never be her.\u201d<\/p>\n Sixty-five years later, Barbie has become Stevie Nicks \u2013 quite literally. In fall 2023, Mattel rolled out a new version of the iconic toy modelled after the singer, down to her signature black chiffon clothing, tambourine and feathered coif.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/06\/2-1.jpg” title_text=”2″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n \u201cI love her,\u201d says Nicks of her mini-me. \u201cI\u2019m always taking pictures of her. I talk to her. I think she\u2019s real.\u201d she laughs: \u201cPeople are like, \u2018Stevie, we\u2019re getting a little worried about you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s a late spring night in Los Angeles and Nicks is in an expansive mood as she considers the cosmology of her remarkable life and career. In a sense, the Barbie story perfectly encapsulates the way in which the world has bent to her will for nearly 50 years.<\/p>\n As a member of Fleetwood Mac \u2013 which she joined at the end of 1974 \u2013 she\u2019s come to define and, in many ways, dominate the group. At the height of their multiplatinum peak, she would venture off into a solo career with an equally success- ful debut, Bella Donna<\/i>, eventually earning distinction as one of the only women elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice.<\/p>\n These days, multiple generations of stars \u2013 including the biggest contemporary pop acts, from Taylor Swift to Beyonc\u00e9 to Lana Del Rey \u2013 all pay homage to Nicks. At 76, she\u2019s arguably at the height of her cultural relevance and popularity, playing massive shows through-out the world.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/06\/2_1.jpg” title_text=”2_1″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n \u201cLook at the power and joy she brings to people,\u201d says her bandmate Mick Fleetwood. \u201cShe\u2019s like Edith Piaf. They love her. They feel her. And for good reason. Her story \u2013 and how she has sustained it over all these years \u2013 is monumental.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s a force,\u201d notes Nicks\u2019 longtime collaborator, Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers keyboardist Benmont Tench. \u201cAnd it\u2019s not just some iconic pop star thing, or about the way she looks or her style. Artist after artist \u2013 mostly women \u2013 talk about her as a creative influence, as an example of someone who just shone through in the midst of all the men in this business. She\u2019s had a huge impact on things in a way that people don\u2019t even realise.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/06\/3-1.jpg” title_text=”3″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n Fellow Heartbreaker Mike Campbell \u2013 who\u2019s also written and produced projects for Nicks over the years \u2013 says it\u2019s her total commitment that makes her so compelling.<\/p>\n \u201cStevie doesn\u2019t have a family. Her career, her audience, that\u2019s her life,\u201d says Campbell. \u201cShe has a way of connecting with people in this very passionate, real way. And I think that\u2019s why she\u2019s so beloved. She\u2019s really unlike any other rock star I can think of.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/06\/4-1.jpg” title_text=”4″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n Fine vintage: (from left) John McVie, Lindsey Buckingham, Christine McVie, Stevie Nicks, Mick Fleetwood, October 1975.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n IN KEEPING WITH AN ARTIST WHOSE signature song, Rhiannon, bubbles with connotations of witchcraft, Nicks sets her interview with MOJO for midnight \u2013 but reconsiders at the last minute, moving up the schedule a couple of hours. She\u2019s ensconced in one of two residences she keeps between LA\u2019s westside beach communities of Santa Monica and Pacific Palisades. She describes her big house as a \u201cgothic\u201d manor, built in 1938. \u201cI came here for the pandemic,\u201d she says. \u201cI left my modern one-bedroom condo and came to this house to feel safer.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n \u201cWhen Covid happened, I gave in very quickly to the fact that we were screwed,\u201d she continues. \u201cI just watched a lot of mini-series and movies and I didn\u2019t write anything for the first couple years. I didn\u2019t even sing. I figured, This is what the universe has in store for us right now. I\u2019ll accept it. That\u2019s the way that I\u2019ve always been.\u201d<\/p>\n Glance across the career of Stephanie Lynn Nicks and you can see how she might detect the guiding hand of fate. Born in Arizona in 1948 and raised across the western United States \u2013 Texas, Utah, New Mexico, California \u2013 her life seemed to unfold in a series of cinematic set-pieces.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pull-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#111111″ header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pullquote-name” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” header_3_text_align=”center” header_3_text_color=”#111111″ header_3_font_size=”38px” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” theme_builder_area=”post_content” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n The first came when she was nine years old and living in El Paso when her grandfather visited. Aaron Jess \u2018AJ\u2019 Nicks was a country singer, rounder and pool hustler, who married a strictly religious wife, and then promptly disappeared, returning periodically to sire three sons including Nicks\u2019 father. \u201cHe really gave up his family to go on the road,\u201d says Nicks. \u201cMy dad and uncles felt abandoned in a way, because my grandfather chose music.\u201d<\/p>\n One day, AJ showed up with a pick-up truck full of 45s for his granddaughter. \u201cHe sat and played every record for me,\u201d recalls Nicks. \u201cThere was Buddy Holly and The Everly Brothers, and some real hardcore country music too. As I would listen to all this stuff, I would be singing along. It\u2019s not like anybody had ever taught me to sing, \u2019cos nobody had. He said, \u2018Stevie, you can sing! And you can sing harmony.\u2019 I didn\u2019t even know what harmony was. Is that good? But he liked my voice, and he was kind of a badass, so I just thought, I can do this.\u201d<\/p>\n While music came through her grand- father, a sense of drive was provided by her father. Jess Nicks was a smart, hard-working sort, who went from bar owner to beer distributor, eventually rising to Vice-President of transport giant Greyhound and later President of pharmaceutical conglomerate Armour\/Dial.<\/p>\n As her future boyfriend and bandmate Lindsey Buckingham would tell MOJO in 2015, \u201cHer dad was ambitious and willing to uproot his family over and over in order to keep moving up the corporate ladder. I think that affected her on some level \u2013 it taught her how to make a splash.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pull-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#111111″ header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” theme_builder_area=”post_content” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n Even before she became a star, Nicks recalls making a splash as a student at San Jose State University in the late 1960s.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d managed to get to San Francisco, to the store where Janis Joplin got her clothes and picked up two fantastic outfits,\u201d says Nicks. \u201cI would put those on and funk them up with heels and just walk through the campus with my Goya guitar, and it was like the Red Sea parted. It was just my attitude. People would be like, \u2018Who\u2019s that?\u2019 I loved that feeling. \u2018You don\u2019t know who I am now, but you\u2019ll know soon. The day will come.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Nicks\u2019 entry into the music business came when she joined Buckingham\u2019s band Fritz in 1968. The two had first met at a youth gathering in high school, when Nicks began spontaneously harmonising on a version of The Mamas And The Papas\u2019 California Dreaming that Buckingham was playing. Fritz was a hardworking band that got a glimpse of the big time opening Bay Area shows for Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, even as Nicks continued with her studies as a speech communication major.<\/p>\n \u201cI always told myself, if it comes down to it, I can be a teacher and somehow work my music on the side,\u201d she says. \u201cBut I never really believed that. I knew I\u2019d found my passion. I was on a mission.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/06\/6-1.jpg” title_text=”6″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n FRITZ WERE GOOD ENOUGH TO attract the attention of record producer Keith Olsen. \u201cHe liked the group and wanted us to come down to LA and do a showcase for some record companies,\u201d recalls Nicks. \u201cWe set up in a room and played for some label people. Afterward, the word from Keith was: \u2018They loved you and Lindsey, but don\u2019t love the rest of the band.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n It would soon spell the end of Fritz. \u201cIt was tough\u2026 but it was fate,\u201d says Nicks. \u201cIt was not going to happen for those five people. But what that did for Lindsey and I was prepare us in a way, to be on-stage in front of huge audiences standing next to each other.\u201d<\/p>\n Buckingham and Nicks moved to Los Angeles together and began a romantic relationship that would last another seven years. While Buckingham worked on songs and demos at home, Nicks made ends meet working a series of waitressing jobs.<\/p>\n \u201cOh god, I was a terrible waitress,\u201d she says. \u201cI lied my way into all my waitress jobs. I had never worked anywhere. I didn\u2019t even know how to open a bottle of wine. I just talked somebody else into doing it for me.\u201d<\/p>\n In between shifts, Nicks was pouring out songs. \u201cGoing into my bedroom, lighting a candle or some incense, making it my sanctuary, and sitting on the floor, writing \u2013 that was my idea of a good time,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019d take a poem, I wrote lot of formal poetry then, and get the guitar or eventually we got an old piano for free, and I\u2019d put the songs together.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/06\/7-1.jpg” title_text=”7″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n In the red: Nicks on-stage at the Alpine Valley Music Theatre, East Troy, Wisconsin, July 19, 1978<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n After a year or so, Buckingham and Nicks secured a record deal with Polydor, and began work on their debut album with producer Olsen and a crew of top West Coast session players including guitarist Waddy Wachtel.<\/p>\n Wachtel: \u201cKeith said to me, \u2018I got a couple down from Northern California, you\u2019re gonna love them. They\u2019re great singers, really great writers, but the guitar player does everything by himself. He doesn\u2019t know how to work with anyone else. I need you to play with him and get him used to playing with someone else.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Wachtel recalls Nicks as \u201ca great singer, you could tell that right away. She was a lot more innocent then, perhaps. I guess we all were. But Stevie didn\u2019t drink, she didn\u2019t smoke, she hadn\u2019t taken any of the drugs that almost ruined her life. All that came later.\u201d<\/p>\n By the time the Buckingham Nicks album was ready for release in 1973, all involved were convinced the record would be a hit. When it flopped, and Polydor lost faith in the act, everyone was dumbstruck. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t understand it,\u201d says Nicks. \u201cWe felt we\u2019d made the best album we could ever make.\u201d<\/p>\n Unbeknownst to the band, the record was actually building a buzz in several southern markets, but the label didn\u2019t see a future for the duo and dropped them. The pair began working on demos with Olsen for a second record that would never come to pass. Nicks still sees this as the \u2018what if?\u2019 moment in their lives.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we\u2019d had a three-record deal, like everyone else did at the time, and had a chance to make another album, it would\u2019ve been spectacular, and probably would\u2019ve been a success,\u201d she says. \u201cIf I was really the witch everyone thinks I am, I would\u2019ve waved my wand and made that happen. That would have changed everything for us. That\u2019s the only thing that could have really gotten in the way of Fleetwood Mac\u2019s destiny.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/06\/8-1.jpg” title_text=”8″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n Taking a bow: Nicks at New Haven, Coliseum, October 20, 1975.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n THE STEVIE NICKS STORY MIGHT have turned out quite differently if Mick Fleetwood hadn\u2019t gone out for a carton of milk. \u201cDivine intervention,\u201d says the drummer of the series of events that would change the course of his band, and Nicks\u2019 life.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n By late 1974, the latest incarnation of Fleetwood Mac \u2013 Fleetwood and his longtime bassist partner John McVie, the latter\u2019s wife, keyboardist\/singer Christine McVie, and American guitarist Bob Welch \u2013 had relocated from the UK to Southern California to be closer to their label, Warner Bros, and were coming off a reasonably successful album, Heroes Are Hard To Find<\/i>, which had just made the lower rungs of the US Top 40.<\/p>\n The rest is rock history boilerplate. Fleetwood bumped into Olsen, who turned him on to Buckingham Nicks. Welch bailed and Fleetwood offered Buckingham his berth in the band. Buckingham agreed, on the condition that Nicks came too.<\/p>\n \u201cOf course, I accepted those terms,\u201d says Fleetwood, laughing, \u201cand Stevie\u2019s never forgiven me. All joking aside, it became very evident to Christine, John, and myself that the songwriting, the musicality of these two people, they came as one into Fleetwood Mac.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pull-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#111111″ header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” theme_builder_area=”post_content” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n For Nicks, joining the band brought the immediate benefit of a new best friend in Christine McVie. \u201cI had a girlfriend who was five years older than me and fabulous,\u201d Stevie says. \u201cI loved her instantly. I had so much fun with Christine from the first moment and that never ended while we were together.\u201d<\/p>\n In 1975, Buckingham and Nicks hit the ground running in Fleetwood Mac\u2019s new line-up. \u201cIt was great,\u201d says Nicks, \u201cespecially for Lindsey and I \u2013 we\u2019d been flying by the seat of our pants for so long, barely scraping by. What happened was we immediately started getting paid. We got $250 a week, then $500 a week, then $800 \u2013 there was money everywhere in our place. I could actually walk down Ventura Boulevard and see a dress in a shop window and buy it. I had trained myself never to even look. So joining Fleetwood Mac, the whole thing was a like a huge dream come true.\u201d<\/p>\n The dream of Fleetwood Mac would quickly grow beyond Nicks\u2019 ability to buy some nice frocks. Propelled by relentless touring and hit singles in Nicks\u2019 Rhiannon and Christine McVie\u2019s Say You Love Me, their self-titled 1975 album climbed slowly, over 15 months, to Billboard Number 1. That would set the stage for the release in 1977 of Rumours<\/i>, a record that would turn Fleetwood Mac into the biggest band in the world \u2013 selling 13 million copies at the time, on its way to the 40 million mark.<\/p>\n But the making of the album was accompanied by constant drama \u2013 as Buckingham and Nicks and the McVies broke up, and Nicks and Fleetwood later had a brief affair. \u201cWhat we had to do during the making of Rumours<\/i> was live in denial,\u201d observed Buckingham in 2015. \u201cWe had to take all these emotions and conceal them all and get on with what needed to be done. There was no closure.\u201d<\/p>\n Rumours<\/i>\u2019 songs famously mapped the topography of their writers\u2019 relationships with exquisite, deceptively streamlined ache \u2013 and the songs kept those stories alive long after the protagonists wished them left behind. Nicks\u2019 Dreams \u2013 with its instruction to an ex-lover to \u201clisten carefully \/ To the sound of your loneliness\u201d over a gently relentless groove \u2013 remains arguably the most exquisite of them all. It\u2019s certainly, with over one and a half billion plays on Spotify, the most regularly revisited.<\/p>\n Today, reflecting on the much-dissected tumult of the era, Nicks is silent for a long moment. She sighs and offers simply that, \u201cit was a lot to experience \u2013 and it all happened very fast. In a way, it still seems sort of unreal.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/06\/9-1.jpg” title_text=”9″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n STEVIE NICKS WAS 15 WHEN SHE came up with her first song \u2013 the rather dramatically titled I\u2019ve Loved And I\u2019ve Lost \u2013 a moment that opened the floodgates for her writing. By the late \u201970s, as Fleetwood Mac\u2019s fame hit new heights, Nicks found herself at a prolific peak, and yet increasingly frustrated.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n \u201cEvery time we made a Fleetwood Mac record I\u2019d have 20 songs left over,\u201d Nicks told MOJO in 2013. \u201cI\u2019d be sitting at the piano and Christine would walk through and go, \u2018Oh my God \u2013 she\u2019s writing another song!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Yet it was Buckingham who took the creative lead on the Mac\u2019s ambitious follow-up to Rumours<\/I>.<\/p>\n Tusk<\/i> was a huge statement spawned from Lindsey, and I sensed he needed to make it,\u201d says Fleetwood today. \u201cI knew that if I or the band suffocated his need to expand into different ideas, most likely he would\u2019ve departed. So we made Tusk<\/i>, and actually it\u2019s one of my favourite albums to this day.\u201d<\/p>\n But Buckingham\u2019s control of Tusk<\/i> would \u2013 in a sense \u2013 push Nicks towards a solo career, as she saw her own material pile up, unused.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you\u2019re in a band with three writers and you do a record every two or three years\u2026 that\u2019s not much for somebody that writes as much as me,\u201d Nicks told MOJO\u2019s Sylvie Simmons. \u201cI think that Fleetwood Mac was terrified at first that I was going to go and just do the solo career.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/06\/11-1.jpg” title_text=”11″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n Today, Mick Fleetwood downplays any fears he may have had about Nicks\u2019 other projects.<\/p>\n \u201cThe only reason it would\u2019ve been a threat to the band is if we\u2019d have said, \u2018Stevie, you can\u2019t do it,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cWe were all so lucky to be doing what we were from the mothership known as Fleetwood Mac. I felt if the mothership couldn\u2019t handle someone going solo, we\u2019re done anyhow.\u201d<\/p>\n In 1980, Nicks began working with (and later dating) producer Jimmy Iovine. Hanging around sessions he was producing for Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers, she often joked that she wanted to become the sixth Heartbreaker. \u201cOh, she wasn\u2019t kidding about that,\u201d chuckles Benmont Tench. \u201cShe really did want to be in the Heartbreakers. But the band was complete.\u201d<\/p>\n Instead, Nicks began working with Tench and various Heartbreakers \u2013 as well as members of the Eagles and Bruce Springsteen\u2019s E Street band \u2013 on a solo record.<\/p>\n \u201cFleetwood Mac was perfect for her,\u201d says Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell. \u201cBut I think sometimes even with a band you love, you get to thinking, Maybe I could do something else outside of the group, maybe I could grow in the process.\u201d<\/p>\n Tench worked with Nicks closely in assessing and arranging her songs. \u201cI would go to Stevie\u2019s condo in Marina del Rey,\u201d he recalls. \u201cWe spent months going through these cassette tapes she had with song after song that Fleetwood Mac hadn\u2019t cut. And I would sit at the piano with Stevie and [backing vocalists] Sharon Celani and Lori Perry, all singing, working them out. I was in heaven.\u201d <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/06\/12-1.jpg” title_text=”12″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n With producer Jimmy Iovine at a Heart show at the Whisky A Go-Go, October 23, 1981.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n The sessions would also reunite Nicks with Waddy Wachtel. \u201cI got a call outta nowhere: \u2018Jimmy Iovine wants you at Studio 55 to do a Stevie Nicks solo album,\u2019\u201d says the guitarist. \u201cStevie and I hadn\u2019t seen each other in a couple years. They\u2019d been working for months with Benmont and the girls. And she started laying out the songs, and it was really impressive. It was deep. When Edge Of Seventeen was presented to me it was like, Wow. Damn, Stevie.\u201d<\/p>\n A feat of quintessential Nicks alchemy, Edge Of Seventeen combined a mystical meditation on the deaths of her uncle Bill and John Lennon, a story told by Tom Petty\u2019s wife Jane Benyo about when the couple first met, and an ornithological snippet about the cactus-dwelling \u2018white-winged dove\u2019 that Nicks read on a flight from Phoenix to LA. To a copper-bottomed melody, it remains a testament to her craft and to her tenacity.<\/p>\n \u201cI was scared, terrified, my solo record would be a failure,\u201d she confides today. \u201cSo we worked on those [songs], practised with Benmont and the girls every night. By the time we got into the studio, I was well prepared. I was totally focused.\u201d<\/p>\n Released in the summer of 1981, Bella Donna<\/i> would go on to sell four million copies, spawn four hit singles (including duets with Petty on Stop Draggin\u2019 My Heart Around and Don Henley with Leather And Lace) and hit Number 1 on the Billboard albums chart. The album represented a total triumph for Nicks \u2013 and, significantly, one outside of Fleetwood Mac and without Lindsey Buckingham.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/06\/13-1.jpg” title_text=”13″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n WHILE HER CAREER REACHED new heights in the \u201980s \u2013 she released a further pair of platinum solo efforts with 1983\u2019s The Wild Heart<\/i> and 1985\u2019s Rock A Little<\/i> \u2013 Nicks also had to reckon with a variety of personal struggles. By the middle of the decade, she entered rehab to overcome a crippling cocaine addiction, before developing an even more devastating, near-decade-long reliance on the prescription medication Klonopin, which required a 47-day hospital stay to detox.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n \u201cI lost a lot of productive years,\u201d says Nicks today. \u201cI could have turned out several more solo records, done more with Fleetwood Mac. There\u2019s so much I can never get back from that whole time.\u201d<\/p>\n A string of high-profile rock\u2019n\u2019roll romances \u2013 with J.D. Souther, Don Henley and Joe Walsh \u2013 also came and went, while her only marriage was a brief, grief-stricken union with Kim Anderson, the widower of her childhood best friend Robin, who\u2019d died of leukaemia soon after giving birth to a son, Matthew. (Nicks would later put her one-time stepson through college and become \u201cGrandma Stevie\u201d to his children.)<\/p>\n But Nicks would never remarry or have children of her own. \u201cIn a way, I\u2019m surprised I didn\u2019t have a baby,\u201d she says, adding that she ultimately chose her career, \u201cand my music, and what I do.\u201d<\/p>\n Through it all, Nicks continued to navigate the ongoing soap opera of Fleetwood Mac. She quit the group in 1991, four years after Buckingham had done the same. Yet it was as if the band\u2019s gravity, and history, was irresistible, and a one-off performance at Bill Clinton\u2019s Presidential inauguration in 1993 presaged a full re-formation of the Rumours<\/i> line-up in 1997, followed by 2003\u2019s Say You Will<\/i> and lucrative tours (with Christine McVie flitting in and out of the band) over the next two decades.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pull-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#111111″ header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pullquote-name” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” header_3_text_align=”center” header_3_text_color=”#111111″ header_3_font_size=”38px” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n The last great twist in the Fleetwood Mac story would prove fittingly dramatic. In 2018, the group was set to tour, essentially starting what looked to be a long, celebratory farewell run. But that January, during a high-profile Grammy\/MusiCares event honouring the group, something went wrong between Buckingham and Nicks, who\u2019d maintained an uneasy working relationship during the reunion years.<\/p>\n Reportedly, Buckingham groused that the band\u2019s on-stage entrance was soundtracked by Nicks\u2019 Rhiannon, while Nicks was apparently aggrieved that Buckingham was smirking during her speech. (Other versions put the schism down to conflicts over touring plans, with Buckingham wanting to delay the band\u2019s dates so he could support a solo project.) Regardless, it soon became clear that Nicks was no longer willing to share a stage or a band with Buckingham. A few months later he was fired. Buckingham filed a lawsuit against the group, which was quickly settled \u2013 though recriminations in the press would continue for several years.<\/p>\n Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell, still reeling from the death of his longtime collaborator\/bandleader Tom Petty the previous year, was asked to take Buckingham\u2019s place on guitar. \u201cIt was a strange vortex of circumstances,\u201d says Campbell today. \u201cMy band had ended tragically the way it did, and Lindsey and Stevie had a falling out where they weren\u2019t comfortable being on-stage.\u201d<\/p>\n Campbell says it was Fleetwood who called with the offer to join the band, along with Crowded House\u2019s Neil Finn, as part of an expanded touring version of the Mac. \u201cI was still going through my grief and wasn\u2019t sure,\u201d says Campbell. \u201cBut I decided I\u2019d do it and we had a beautiful two years touring the world. It helped me through my grief, and it helped get them through their issues with Lindsey. And it was a great band.\u201d<\/p>\n Nicks says she\u2019s especially proud of both Buckingham-free iterations of Fleetwood Mac. \u201cWhen Lindsey left around [1987\u2019s] Tango In The Night<\/i>, we replaced him with Billy Burnette and Rick Vito, two great musicians and singers, and it was a really good, fun tour,\u201d she says. \u201cThis last time we brought Mike and Neil and that went very well too. That worked because Christine and John and Mick and me, we threw our hearts into it.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/06\/14-1.jpg” title_text=”14″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n Lipstick traces: getting ready backstage in LA, 1985.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n DESPITE WHAT SHE DESCRIBES AS AN enduring affection for Fleetwood Mac, Nicks\u2019 relationship to the group fundamentally changed following the \u201cdevastating\u201d loss of Christine McVie. Already battling cancer, McVie died following a stroke in the autumn of 2022.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n \u201cIt was all stunningly strange, because there wasn\u2019t any lead up to it,\u201d says Nicks. \u201cWe got a call, and I was going to rent a plane and go see her, but her family said, \u2018Don\u2019t come, because she may not be here tomorrow.\u2019 And the next day, she passed away.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted to go there and sit on her bed and sing to her \u2013 which definitely would have made her pass away faster,\u201d jokes Nicks, through tears. \u201cBut I needed to be with her. And I didn\u2019t get to do that. So that was very hard for me. I didn\u2019t get to say goodbye.\u201d<\/p>\n Since McVie\u2019s death Nicks has been adamant that she no longer considers Fleetwood Mac a going concern. \u201cWithout Christine, no can do,\u201d she says. \u201cThere is no chance of putting Fleetwood Mac back together in any way. Without her, it just couldn\u2019t work.\u201d<\/p>\n Fleetwood Mac operated successfully between 1998 and 2014 largely without McVie, with her absence obliging Nicks and Buckingham to front the band in tandem. But, as Nicks explains, a d\u00e9tente between her and Buckingham \u2013 the two last crossed paths at a memorial service for Christine McVie in early 2023 \u2013 wouldn\u2019t necessarily clear the way to a final tour.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pull-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#111111″ header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pullquote-name” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” header_3_text_align=”center” header_3_text_color=”#111111″ header_3_font_size=”38px” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” theme_builder_area=”post_content” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n For Mick Fleetwood, Nicks\u2019 position on the band has left him at somewhat of a loose end (see side panel). As one who\u2019s managed to navigate the politics of the group for nearly 60 years, Fleetwood says, with practised diplomacy, that the Mac deserves a more satisfying ending.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s no secret, it\u2019s no title-tattle that there is a brick wall there emotionally,\u201d says Fleetwood of the impasse between Buckingham and Nicks, both of whom he stays in contact with. \u201cStevie\u2019s able to speak clearly about how she feels and doesn\u2019t feel, as does Lindsey. But I\u2019ll say, personally, I would love to see a healing between them \u2013 and that doesn\u2019t have to take the shape of a tour, necessarily.\u201d<\/p>\n Fleetwood\u2019s feelings echo what Buckingham told the New York Times in 2021. \u201cI\u2019ve known Stevie since I was 16, so I would like to think there\u2019s a better way for us to finish up than we finished up. Not just for Fleetwood Mac and for the legacy, but just for the two of us.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/06\/15-1.jpg” title_text=”15″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n On Saturday Night Live, performing Nightbird with Lori Perry, December 1983.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n NICKS FONDLY REMEMBERS HER very first public performance, age 12, at a grade school talent show. \u201cMe and my friend Colleen, we choreographed a tap dance routine to Buddy Holly\u2019s Everyday,\u201d she says. \u201cWe practised on my porch for weeks till we got it perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n Stepping out in front of audiences remains in her blood and, with Fleetwood Mac\u2019s future unclear at best, Nicks has been performing solo shows with a renewed vigour. Still, with more than two years off due to Covid, Nicks says she had to get into training.<\/p>\n \u201cI went on the treadmill and danced to Halsey for six or seven months. Danced to I Am Not A Woman, I\u2019m A God over and over until I got my mojo back,\u201d she says, laughing. \u201cPardon the pun.\u201d<\/p>\n Over the past year, Nicks has been moving between her own headlining shows and sharing stadium bills with Billy Joel. \u201cI feel like I\u2019m a better performer than I\u2019ve ever been,\u201d she says, \u201cand maybe that\u2019s because of the years we had off and were banished from the road. I certainly appreciate being able to go on-stage now more than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/06\/16-1.jpg” title_text=”16″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n Heartbreaker: Nicks with Tom Petty Philadelphia, 1982.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]<\/p>\n \u201cIT\u2019S A FOREVER STORY<\/b> with those two,\u201d grins Fleetwood. \u201cAs it is with all of us.\u201d He likes forever stories. It\u2019s his \u201cobsession\u201d that\u2019s kept the band going since Peter Green\u2019s departure in 1970. Even when Christine McVie quit after recording the rather sorry Time<\/i> in 1995, Fleetwood and John McVie continued as ever, an ace rhythm section in search of a band.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” theme_builder_area=”post_content” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n These days Nicks\u2019 concerts are less elaborate productions, more deeply felt story sessions. \u201cI just wear one cool outfit for the whole thing and tell a lot of tales,\u201d she says. \u201cI have a really good time putting my stories in and out of the songs. That part has been fun.\u201d<\/p>\n The most dramatic change while touring has been a policy to protect herself from Covid by not socialising outside of her bubble. \u201cI don\u2019t get to see friends or hang out or go to dinner anymore, which used to be a big part of touring for me,\u201d she says. \u201cI don\u2019t get to do anything now \u2013 except go on stage and put it all into the show.\u201d<\/p>\n By her own reckoning, Nicks is also singing better than she ever has. Benmont Tench, who went on the road with Nicks in 2022, says her vocals are \u201castounding. She sings lower now, but it was really amazing to be on that stage and listen to her sing like that night after night.\u201d<\/p>\n Mike Campbell notes that the quality of Nicks\u2019 performance is no accident. \u201cStevie has a really strong work ethic,\u201d he says. \u201cShe takes her voice seriously. She has her voice coach on tour who works with her every day. And she still sings great now because she works at it. She doesn\u2019t just coast along.\u201d<\/p>\n In terms of new music, Nicks released an emotional plea ahead of 2020\u2019s US Presidential election called Show Them The Way (co-written with producer Greg Kurstin and featuring Dave Grohl) and a cover of Buffalo Springfield\u2019s For What It\u2019s Worth in 2022. But it\u2019s been a decade since she last put out a solo album, something that may change soon.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the end of the pandemic, I finally started to write again,\u201d says Nicks. \u201cI\u2019ve got this song about women\u2019s rights that I think is really strong. And I wrote a song called The Vampire\u2019s Wife, which is one of the best things I\u2019ve ever written. It\u2019s a story song, like Gypsy\u2019s a story song, and Rhiannon\u2019s a story song. So maybe that\u2019s the beginning of an album.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/06\/17-1.jpg” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” title_text=”17″ sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n Icon: Nicks at the Grammy nominees press conference, Beverly Hilton Hotel, LA, January 4, 2002.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n NICKS PLANS TO GO INTO THE studio later this summer. Before that, however, she will return to Europe for a run of dates, including her headlining show at Hyde Park in July. Her previous appearance at the open-air venue in central London came in 2017, on a bill with Tom Petty, as the two performed together just months before his passing. \u201cThat\u2019s the last time I saw Tom,\u201d says Nicks. \u201cThat was a really good way to be able to say goodbye to him.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” theme_builder_area=”post_content” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n A big part of Nicks\u2019 sets these days are tributes to fallen friends, including Petty and Christine McVie. \u201cI do [Landslide] and we have beautiful video montage of me and Chris,\u201d says Nicks. \u201cI can never look at it, though, when I\u2019m singing, because I\u2019ll just get hysterical and sob. The world is a little bit of an empty place without her.<\/p>\n Although she\u2019s lost several musical comrades, Nicks continues to find connection in her band, which includes decades-long collaborators Sharon Celani and Waddy Wachtel. \u201cWhen I walk on-stage, I couldn\u2019t be prouder of my band,\u201d says Nicks. \u201cI mean, I would rather not be freed up from Fleetwood Mac, because of Christine. But I\u2019m in a place where I can concentrate on my solo work. I can do anything I want now and not have to worry about stopping and going back to Fleetwood Mac.\u201d <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/06\/022.jpg” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” title_text=”022″ sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” theme_builder_area=”post_content” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n At the same time, Nicks admits that \u201cFleetwood Mac is all over my set. Now that there is no more Fleetwood Mac, that opens the door for me to do other songs, like The Chain, that I\u2019ve never done [in a solo show]. I will keep the music of Fleetwood Mac alive, for as long as I can.\u201d<\/p>\n In the end, Nicks plans on carrying on as she always has. \u201cTo get up and dance and put on outfits and sing and tell stories, that\u2019s what I\u2019ve done since I was a kid, since I was a little girl,\u201d she says. \u201cI was doing that before I met Lindsey, before I joined Fleetwood Mac, and I\u2019m still doing it. I don\u2019t intend to stop.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”]<\/p>\n IMAGES:<\/strong> SHUTTERSTOCK\/GETTY\/ALAMY<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#111111″ module_class=”custom-divider” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][\/et_pb_divider][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mourning the loss of Christine McVie and at loggerheads with Lindsey Buckingham, in June 2024 MOJO encountered Stevie Nicks soldiering on alone<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":2497,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mojo-presents"],"acf":[],"modified_by":"kschwarz","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2481"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2506,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2481\/revisions\/2506"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}“I would walk through the college campus with my Goya guitar and it was like the Red Sea parted. It was just my attitude. People would be like, \u2018Who\u2019s that?\u2019 I loved that feeling.”<\/h2>\n
Stevie Nicks<\/b><\/h3>\n
“While Buckingham worked on songs and demos at home, Nicks made ends meet working a series of waitressing jobs”<\/h2>\n
“We got $250 a week, then $500 a week, then $800 \u2013 there was money everywhere in our place.”<\/h2>\n
“My band had ended tragically the way it did, and Lindsey and Stevie had a falling out where they weren\u2019t comfortable being on-stage.”<\/h2>\n
Mike Campbell<\/b><\/h3>\n
“It\u2019s no secret that there is a brick wall emotionally between Stevie and Lindsey. I would love to see a healing between them and that doesn\u2019t need to take the shape of a tour, necessarily.”<\/h2>\n
Mick Fleetwood<\/b><\/h3>\n