The musicians Stevie Nicks believed were too famous for her: “We were so different”
Anyone would find the idea of stepping up to the big leagues in rock and roll intimidating. Most artists start off playing music in their bedroom for no one but themselves, but the minute that people start latching onto their personal stories, it can almost be like looking through their own personal diaries of their lives. Although Stevie Nicks had many musicians to bounce off of during her career, she wasn’t afraid of getting more than a little bit starstruck when she was working with the right person.
Then again, Nicks never seemed to show any of her fear whenever she performed. As far back as working with Lindsey Buckingham, she was already sprinkling in some of her best material like it was nothing. Even for a band that had made their first record, a song like ‘Crying In the Night’ showed everyone the first look at the ‘Gold Dust Woman’ that Nicks was going to become later on in life.
And whenever she worked on her music in Fleetwood Mac, she seemed to respond with emotion first and chords second. A tune like ‘Dreams’ might only have two chords throughout most of the arrangement, but it’s impossible not to get sucked into the song the minute that her voice comes in and meshes with Buckingham’s on the chorus as they sing about the rain washing her clean.
But there’s a good chance that the world would have kept turning for Fleetwood Mac had Bob Welch decided to stick it out with them. He had already made tunes like ‘Sentimental Lady’ and had brought them out of their pure blues mode on albums like Bare Trees, but since they had gone through a lot of transitionary albums like Heroes are Hard to Find, he knew that it was time for him to look for something else.
While Buckingham getting discovered by Mick Fleetwood by chance in the studio sounds like a strange miracle that happened by accident, Nicks knew that joining an established band was a bit of a risk as well. They might not get as much of a say in how their songs would be played, but when she saw the rap sheet that came along with Fleetwood and Christine McVie, she thought that she wasn’t nearly good enough to play with them.
Compared to their humble beginnings, Nicks thought that she and Buckingham weren’t nearly ready to work with the other members of ‘The Mac,’ saying, “We were just so different. Christine McVie had Stevie Winwood carrying her books home from school, and Eric Clapton was best friends with Mick Fleetwood when they were sixteen, and I could not even relate to that. It was like, ‘You guys are too famous for me. And I’m getting really nervous.’”
Once they let the music do the talking for them, everything started to fall into place. Even when they weren’t playing their own material, Christine remembered a certain energy being captured in the room when they played ‘Say You Love Me’ that nothing else could have compared to with Welch in the group.
While no one could have expected that the band were going to hit a brick wall when they started making Rumours, Nicks should have never been concerned with Fleetwood Mac being “too famous” for her. They may have had more road miles under their belt and hung out with famous people, but if you have those rockstar tendencies inside of you before even hitting a note, you’re halfway there.
