Stevie Nicks discusses her one “great musical love”
Fleetwood Mac was initially a British blues rock group founded in the late 1960s, driven by the innovative guitar work of Peter Green. Some fans maintain that this was the band at its very best. Still, a greater majority applaud the group’s most commercially successful run through the late 1970s, which heard a complete sonic overhaul thanks to the induction of Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham.
Famously, Rumours, the band’s second album with the American duo, was fraught with relationship struggles and cocaine abuse. Buckingham and Nicks were still nursing a tired husk of a relationship while pursuing other romantic interests, including Nicks’ 1977 fling with Don Henley of the Eagles and later an affair with drummer Mick Fleetwood.
Throughout Rumours, the tension between the band members revealed itself in a beautifully profitable fashion. It soon became apparent that Nicks and Buckingham only maintained a relationship for the sake of the band. Their onstage chemistry reflected a love that existed on some long-forgotten level, which, ultimately, both found far too difficult to maintain.
No matter how heated things got amid various disagreements and infidelities, Nicks and Buckingham maintained a musical understanding and a friendship. Speaking on Oprah’s Master Class, Nicks remembered Buckingham as her “great musical love” and maintained that that never changed since the moment she first laid eyes on him.
Nicks first met Buckingham during her senior year at Menlo-Atherton High School in Atherton, California. She spent much of her time frequenting the live music venues and was awestruck one night after arriving at the Young Life Club. Here, Nicks found Buckingham covering Barry McGuire’s ‘California Dreamin” and, after a little Dutch courage, decided to join him in harmony.
Nicks and Buckingham left home to study at San José State University, but both dropped out after a short while to pursue their musical aspirations with humble beginnings in the psychedelic rock band Fritz. When Fritz disbanded in early 1972, they decided to continue as a duo, eventually releasing the underappreciated 1973 album Buckingham Nicks.
During this early period of their relationship, Nicks and Buckingham were deeply in love, but even then, they experienced bumps in the road. Nicks revealed to Oprah’s Master Class that she and Buckingham were on the ropes in 1974, just before joining Fleetwood Mac. “Lindsey really was my great musical love, but Lindsey was very controlling, and Lindsey was prone to be jealous, and when our relationship started to not go well, then I looked elsewhere because I was so unhappy,” Nicks said of this period. “So we’re together at this point because of our music, and we’re trying to keep this music thing together.”
Towards the end of 1974, Buckingham fell under Mick Fleetwood’s radar as a potential new guitarist for Fleetwood Mac. After offering Buckingham the position, he dutifully hesitated, saying that he wouldn’t join unless his partner, Nicks, could come with him as a singer and songwriter. Fleetwood accepted the offer, and the American couple officially joined Fleetwood Mac on New Year’s Eve.
In 1975, Fleetwood Mac debuted their new Anglo-American configuration in the popular self-titled album, which finally granted Nicks and Buckingham global stardom. “We joined Fleetwood Mac, and of course, then we were definitely doing better because we were certainly more happy because we had we were making money and we both got nice places and everything came way up, so we were happier, and we were so excited you know about everything that was happening that the relationship got better for a little while,” she said.
As the double-edged sword of fame began to leave its mark on the pair, they became increasingly distant. However, against the odds, Fleetwood Mac remained together, understanding the importance of the band and valuing each others’ talents. “It was a very romantic time,” Nicks reflected conclusively. “And that doesn’t necessarily mean that it was so terribly romantic between me and Lindsey, but the whole thing was romantic.”
