Stevie Nicks

Stevie Nicks served as a mysterious and distant foil to Fleetwood Mac’s sugary, restless pop sound and foundational blues base, weaving threads of spirituality and eeriness into the band’s softest passages. Her departure after Tusk intensified existing strains inside an ensemble still bruised by the Rumours era. On Bella Donna she projected a harder edge through pairings with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers on “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” and Don Henley on “Leather and Lace,” while delivering a tough coming-of-age rallying cry in “Edge of Seventeen.” These hits lifted her profile beyond the group and supported a thriving solo run across the 1980s marked by “Stand Back” and “Talk to Me.” Nicks stepped away from Fleetwood Mac at the start of the 1990s and, like the band itself, spent much of the ensuing decade outside the spotlight until the Rumours-era members regrouped in 1997; the reunion remained a steady concert draw despite continuing backstage friction. Over the following years she issued solo albums at intervals—the complete body of her individual work gathered in a 2023 box set—and gradually assumed a central position inside the group, becoming its primary attraction on the 50th-anniversary tour in 2018.

Born Stephanie Lynn Nicks in Phoenix, Arizona, on May 26, 1948, she acquired the nickname Stevie after struggling to say her given name as a small child, and the shortened form endured. Drawn to dance from an early age, she also developed a deep attachment to music, performing country songs alongside her grandfather. As the daughter of a Greyhound vice president, Nicks relocated frequently across the Southwest during childhood, yet music stayed a steady presence. On her sixteenth birthday she received a guitar and quickly composed her first song, “I’ve Loved and Lost.” Soon afterward she joined the Changing Times, a folk-rock ensemble in Arcadia, California, before leaving when her family relocated to Palo Alto in 1966.

That same year Nicks encountered Lindsey Buckingham at a church social while adding harmonies to his rendition of the Mamas & the Papas’ “California Dreamin’.” Impressed by her voice, Buckingham later recruited her into Fritz, a psychedelic outfit in which he played guitar. Although she had recently signed with 20th Century Fox to cut country material, Nicks accepted the offer, voided the prior agreement, and remained with Fritz through Bay Area bills that included Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix.

Fritz disbanded in 1970, yet Nicks and Buckingham stayed together, first as songwriting partners and then as romantic companions. After moving to Los Angeles they used inheritance funds Buckingham had received to record demos that secured a Polydor contract. Working with producer Keith Olsen at Sound City Studios, they completed Buckingham Nicks, a melodic, gentle, folk-oriented album that appeared without impact in 1973; the label soon released them. While supporting themselves—Nicks cleaned house for Olsen and Buckingham toured with the Everly Brothers—they kept writing new songs. Their breakthrough arrived when Keith Olsen played “Frozen Love” for Mick Fleetwood, who was simply scouting studios at the time. After Bob Welch exited Fleetwood Mac that year, Fleetwood invited Buckingham to join; Buckingham agreed only on the condition that Nicks be included as well, and Fleetwood accepted.

Nicks and Buckingham debuted with the self-titled Fleetwood Mac album in 1975. After years on the periphery of rock, the band’s fortunes shifted abruptly: Christine McVie’s “Over My Head” supplied the first Top 40 single, yet Nicks’ eerie “Rhiannon” climbed close to the Top Ten while her reflective “Landslide” earned heavy AOR airplay. Flush with sudden success, the group entered the studio for a follow-up and succumbed to excess. Buckingham and Nicks parted during those sessions, and the resulting personal turmoil shaped much of Rumours, the 1977 album that elevated the band to superstar status.

A commercial landmark, Rumours held the top Billboard position for 31 weeks and reached number one in numerous other countries. Four tracks entered the Billboard Top Ten, among them Nicks’ luminous “Dreams,” the group’s sole chart-topping single. A defining late-1970s phenomenon, Rumours has continued to sell, surpassing 40 million copies worldwide.

The triumph of Rumours amplified tensions inside an already volatile lineup and produced the turbulent double album Tusk. Largely directed by Buckingham, Tusk scored its strongest singles with the anxious title track and Nicks’ wistful “Sara.” With Nicks contributing so many of the band’s major songs, the moment seemed right for a solo venture. With Danny Goldberg and Paul Fishkin she formed the Modern Records imprint in 1980 and released her Jimmy Iovine-produced debut Bella Donna in July 1981. Emphasizing a tougher persona aimed at AOR radio, Bella Donna topped the U.S. charts, propelled by three major singles: “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” which cast Nicks alongside Tom Petty as co-frontperson of the Heartbreakers; the Don Henley duet “Leather and Lace”; and “Edge of Seventeen.” The album secured Nicks’ place among rock’s leading figures and subtly altered the internal dynamics of Fleetwood Mac. When the band reassembled for the leaner Mirage in 1982, they trimmed Tusk’s excesses while Nicks supplied just three originals, including the hit “Gypsy.”

An uncredited synthesizer contribution from Prince powered “Stand Back” to another Top Ten placement in 1983. Its parent album, The Wild Heart, reached number five and yielded the further Top 20 single “If Anyone Falls” along with rock-radio favorites “Enchanted” and “Nothing Ever Changes.” Nicks returned to the Top Ten with “Talk to Me,” the lead single from 1985’s Rock a Little, which also contained “I Can’t Wait.” After the supporting tour she entered rehab and spent the next year achieving sobriety, a period that overlapped with Fleetwood Mac’s reunion to record Tango in the Night.

That album included three Nicks compositions, among them the single “Seven Wonders.” On the eve of the accompanying tour Buckingham departed and was succeeded by Rick Vito and Billy Burnette. Despite emerging health issues, including a growing reliance on prescription medication, Nicks completed the tour and then focused on 1989’s The Other Side of the Mirror, produced by Rupert Hine. She participated in the 1990 Fleetwood Mac album Behind the Mask, which featured Vito and Burnette, yet left soon afterward after Fleetwood rejected her request to include the Rumours-era B-side “Silver Springs” on her 1991 compilation Timespace: The Best of Stevie Nicks.

Nicks spent the early 1990s overcoming her prescription-medication dependence while finishing the 1994 album Street Angel. Following its release she and Buckingham reconciled, recording a song for the 1996 film Twister; that collaboration expanded into a full reunion of the Rumours lineup for the 1997 tour titled The Dance, which generated a live album of the same name. In 1998 Fleetwood Mac entered the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and Nicks issued the three-disc retrospective Enchanted.

She returned in 2001 with Trouble in Shangri-La, featuring guest appearances by Sheryl Crow, Macy Gray, Sarah McLachlan, and Natalie Maines; the album debuted at number five and earned a Grammy nomination for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance for “Planets of the Universe.” Fleetwood Mac reconvened without Christine McVie for the 2003 album Say You Will, supported by a worldwide tour. Nicks backed the 2007 compilation Crystal Visions: The Very Best of Stevie Nicks with her own tour and released her first solo live album, The Soundstage Sessions, in 2009, which included a cover of Dave Matthews’ “Crash into Me” as a single. Another Fleetwood Mac tour without Christine McVie followed in 2009; Nicks completed In Your Dreams—her first studio album in a decade—in 2011. Produced by Dave Stewart and Glen Ballard, the record blended Bob Dylan-inspired folk songs, Italian love ballads, and rock anthems, debuted at number six on the Billboard Top 200, and produced an adult-contemporary hit with “Secret Love.”

Nicks rejoined Fleetwood Mac in 2013 for the Extended Play release and a tour that led to a complete reunion including Christine McVie. In 2014 she issued 24 Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault, newly recorded versions of older material that entered the Billboard chart at number seven. She continued touring with the reunited Fleetwood Mac in 2015, and the following year her first two solo albums, Bella Donna and The Wild Heart, received deluxe reissues.

During 2016 and 2017 Nicks toured with the Pretenders. As Fleetwood Mac prepared its 50th-anniversary tour in 2018, the band parted ways with Lindsey Buckingham and replaced him with Neil Finn and Mike Campbell. Nicks entered the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist in 2019, becoming the first woman inducted twice; Rhino/WMG marked the occasion with the anthology Stand Back: 1981-2017. In October 2020 she released “Show Them the Way,” featuring contributions from Dave Grohl and Dave Stewart. Three years later she issued Complete Studio Albums & Rarities, a ten-CD box set containing remastered versions of all her albums plus two discs of non-LP rarities. Her 2024 track “The Lighthouse” served as a protest anthem advocating women’s reproductive rights.