Stevie Nicks names “the great rock and roll moment of her life”
There’s always a danger that comes with rock stars trying to meet their heroes. For every rock star who might be grateful for anyone who listens to their music, there are always a few known to be standoff-ish, wanting nothing more than to be left alone when they finish painting their masterpieces. While Stevie Nicks may have been compassionate to every fan she has, she thought one of her career highlights came when one rock legend confirmed her credentials as a frontwoman.
Throughout her career, though, Nicks had always been on the softer side of rock and roll in Fleetwood Mac. For all of the great blues rock the band had made before Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham came into the picture, Nicks was known for penning some of the biggest ballads the band ever had, usually playing to her strengths as a lyricist and world-builder on songs like ‘Dreams’ and ‘Rhiannon’.
While Rumours gave every songwriter in the band an outlet to vent their frustrations at their former lovers, Nicks would get to showcase her intensity on songs like ‘Gold Dust Woman’ creating a mystical atmosphere across the track before wailing like a white witch towards the end of the track. Then again, that was just a small taste of what she could do on her own.
Breaking free from the shackles of The Mac in the early 1980s, Nicks’ first album, Bella Donna, saw her taking on the role of a rock and roll superstar, featuring her iconic duet with Tom Petty on ‘Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around’ and finding time to make her own classics like ‘The Edge of Seventeen’. Even when working with Prince later, Nicks would have to defend herself as a rocker, especially at the expense of her contemporaries like Petty.
By the time she went out on the road in the 2000s, many songs on her setlist saw her taking on many rock covers in her setlist. Outside of the Petty-penned ‘I Need To Know’, Nicks would try to play the Led Zeppelin classic ‘Rock and Roll’, bringing the house down at every show for the rest of the tour.
While Zeppelin’s classic rock and roll shuffle is one of the most covered songs in garage band history, Nicks got the ultimate compliment when she got the chance to perform the song with Robert Plant waiting in the wings. Compared to the other versions that he has played and heard over the years, Nicks felt validated when Plant finally gave her recognition by telling her how fierce her take on the song was.
In her biography Gold Dust Woman, Nicks remembered Plant’s compliment as one of the best moments of her musical career, saying, “Robert Plant was there on the side of the stage, and he congratulated me after our performance. He told me I did a great job. That meant the world to me–one of the great rock and roll moments of my life. I think Robert Plant and I are kindred spirits”.
Beyond her performance that night, Nicks would continue to put that signature rock bombast into every song she sang, often sounding like a blend between Joni Mitchell and Janis Joplin when working through songs like ‘Stand Back’ or ‘The Chain’. Nicks may have sung plenty of ballads in her life, but she has always felt most at home with a heavy backbeat behind her.
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