“I thought that’s me!”: Stevie Nicks on how Buffalo Springfield showed her the future
Stevie Nicks is one of the foremost names in rock and roll history. Not only through her solo career, but her unstoppable efforts within Fleetwood Mac would showcase Nicks as one of the best in her class. With her sincere songwriting skills and unique viewpoint on the world, Nicks would not only lead the group into realms of success that they had only previously dreamed of but also become a stunning solo artist in her own right.
However, just like many successful songwriters and singers, Nicks wasn’t always destined to become a star. She would be granted a hefty dose of luck along the way to achieve her dreams while slumming around Los Angeles, hoping to become a rock hero. Before she became an icon, there was one band that showed her the pathway to becoming rock and roll’s hottest ticket.
One of the greatest songwriters of the 20th century, the work of Stevie Nicks often falls behind one interesting, somewhat problematic facet of her creative life — it’s extremely easy to fall in love with Stevie Nicks. It is this alluring prospect that has left much of her career rendered in a rosy palette, seemingly so unfathomably perfumed that to try and find the grit and gravel of her work is to eventually see any grain of sand to pass Nicks’ life will ultimately become a pearl.
The ethereal image of Nick is forever ingrained in the rock community’s consciousness. But while we spend most of our time falling in love with Nicks, she spent her formative years in love with two things: Lindsey Buckingham and music.
Before Fleetwood Mac, Buckingham Nicks was an imposing duo on the 1970s rock scene. The pair had met while the two were in high school and had forged a fearsome relationship between the fine singer-songwriters—a match made in heaven? Well, not quite. Eventually, the pair would break up during the height of Fleetwood Mac’s commercial success, and the two ex-lovers were forced to not only perform and record with one another but perform and record songs that said ex had written directly about them. However, for a time, the duo were simply inseparable.
Studying at Menlo-Atherton High School, the older Stevie Nicks saw Buckingham jamming to the Mamas and the Papas’ classic song ‘California Dreamin’ and “brazenly burst into harmony with him.” Though there was indeed a spark of connection between the two, they went their separate ways and pursued their musical careers in their way. But before that moment happened, Nicks fell in love with the entity to which she would devote herself: music.
Like all of us, Nicks’ love affair can be traced back to one singular moment and one band too. Buffalo Springfield, featuring Neil Young and Stephen Stills, would shape a whole generation of fans into music lovers. Built out of folk authenticity but doused with the fuel of rock and roll, the group would define an era of explosive emergence with a classic record, ‘Rock and Roll Woman’. The single would find its way into the hands of Nicks, and her future was unfurled in front of her. “Hearing this for the first time was like seeing the future. [Sings] ‘And she’s coming, singing soft and low…'” she told The Guardian.
“When I heard the lyrics, I thought: that’s me!” continued Nicks, exploring the songs that shaped her life forever. While the track wasn’t the band’s most progressive outing, the tune connected with Nicks and showed her a path to glory. “They probably wrote it about Janis Joplin or someone like that, but I was convinced it was about me.” That conviction would see Nicks become the only female double Rock and Roll Hall of Famer.
It also started a love affair with the band for Nicks: “I saw Buffalo Springfield at the Winterland Ballroom at the time, and it could not have been better. They were a very Californian band, and it was the height of the Haight-Ashbury scene. My parents had moved to San Francisco in my final year of high school, so I was new and didn’t know anyone. But music was everywhere; everyone was listening to the radio all the time – I was living in the middle of a music revolution.”
Shortly after the song’s release, Nicks would get to begin the journey to her dream when she met Buckingham: “By 1968, I was in a band with Lindsey. His family lived in the same gated community as us, and we would practise at his house. My mum and dad liked him, and everybody in the band. We practised Monday to Thursday, then played gigs on Friday and Saturday. So we were serious about it from the beginning, and my parents understood that.”
Nicks has remained serious about rock and roll ever since and has achieved more than most artists can ever hope to. While talent, luck and the look all helped Nicks become a giant, there can be no doubt that part of the credit can be shared between the members of Buffalo Springfield, as they clearly set a fire beneath Nicks that has rarely cooled.
