“She made the right decision”: The one female artist that turned down Fleetwood Mac
Being asked to become a part of a veteran band is most likely like strapping oneself to a rocket ship. Most people can hope to play music to whomever they want and hope to reach a massive audience, but when they get on that kind of track, there’s both a responsibility to hold up the group’s legacy and somehow be able to add your own personal spin to it. That kind of pressure can normally make or break anyone else, but Stevie Nicks initially thought that one of the biggest names in adult alternative could have easily slotted in next to her and Lindsey Buckingham in Fleetwood Mac.
At the same time, Fleetwood Mac have never been strangers to lineup changes. Most people would need to map out an entire evolution chart on how many times they had switched members throughout their tenure, but when Buckingham and Nicks joined the fold in 1975, everyone’s memories of them as a blues rock band were about to be taken over on the charts by their Americana roots.
Then again, the fact that any of them managed to stay together throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s after the various infighting is at least somewhat commendable. If anything, the fact that the group took nearly a decade before imploding when Buckingham left is quite frankly a miracle considering all of the lyrical venom in ‘Go Your Own Way’.
Even though they limped along for records like Behind the Mask and Time, it’s not like the band were unwelcome to a reunion by the time they made The Dance. Everything seemed to be put in place for a true reunion of the classic lineup, but when they decided to make Say You Will in 2003, one key part was left conspicuously absent.
Despite being one of the group’s biggest creative forces, Christine McVie didn’t participate in any of the tours and didn’t appear on the album due to her fear of flying. While the thought of seeing Fleetwood Mac and not hearing ‘Songbird’ or ‘You Make Loving Fun’ is borderline unthinkable, Nicks had the perfect person in mind to replace her: Sheryl Crow.
Looking at her track record, it’s not exactly a bad pick, either. Crow’s sense of Americana on ‘All I Wanna Do’ fits right in with The Mac’s traditional sound and would have taken over for McVie perfectly. Not everyone was happy with the suggestion, though, with Buckingham thinking that someone as established as Crow shouldn’t have been singing McVie’s material.
But, ultimately, Crow was the one to call things off, with Nicks telling Rolling Stone, “It was absolutely discussed, and she was absolutely invited to join. I missed Christine so much, and I wanted another woman in the band. I explained to Sheryl what it was like to be in the group – that it’s all-encompassing. So Sheryl called me and said, ‘I’ll have to pass.’ As Stevie Nicks, I was disappointed. As her friend, I told her she made the right decision. Sheryl Crow passed on Fleetwood Mac – I want that out there.”
While it’s unthinkable to think of someone leaving that much money and stadium shows on the table, Crow’s pass on the group actually says a lot about her as an artist. She wanted to be the musician who made a legacy of her own, and no matter how much she was friendly with Nicks, she would never be comfortable being looked at as the replacement member of another group.
