Why Stevie Nicks was too intimidated by Fleetwood Mac
When Fleetwood Mac first began, nothing about them seemed to signal that Stevie Nicks was going to be their musical champion.
The band were the epitome of blues tastiness in the late 1960s, and even when Peter Green left, people like Danny Kirwan and Bob Welch had some of the greatest early hits that the band could have asked for. But even when making some of the most celebrated albums of all time, ‘The Gold Dust Woman’ was already wondering whether they were making the right choice by joining.
You have to remember where she and Lindsey Buckingham had been since working together. Buckingham Nicks had been where everything began for them, and as much as they liked the idea of getting their songs out there, joining a new band would mean having to start back from zero again and start working with people that could have easily pushed some of their musical masterpieces to the side if they didn’t like them.
Then again, a lot of stars needed to align to even get them in front of Mick Fleetwood in the first place. Fleetwood was already contemplating where the band was going to go after Welch abruptly left the band, and when listening to the song ‘Frozen Love’, the drummer felt that Buckingham would be a perfect replacement for him. Before Buckingham even accepted or told Fleetwood that Nicks needed to join with him, Nicks figured that they should look at what the band had been doing.
They had both been aware of Fleetwood Mac but were by no means devotees of their work, but after listening to all of their albums from back to front, Nicks was convinced that they could bring something to the band. The blues may have had a decent place in the band’s heart, but their rootsy approach was bound to be what separated them from all the other would-be musicians trying to make their way into the band.
It’s one thing to have a good idea for what the band was going to be, but when Nicks showed up at rehearsals, she was in for a bit of a reality check. What she and Buckingham had done was very organic, but when put up next to musicians that really knew how to play, Nicks felt like she wasn’t good enough to join the band.
Even though they were still figuring things out, Nicks felt that they may have been in over their heads when coming aboard, saying, “In Fleetwood Mac, I was pretty much told to be quiet at all times. I was so intimidated because I didn’t feel like anybody really wanted me to be in that band and that they only wanted Lindsey and me along for the ride.” But finding their own voice in the group didn’t come without a few shortcomings along the way as well.
Buckingham always had a good idea of what he wanted out of his songs, and if the rest of the band didn’t agree, he was more than happy to bulldoze on top of everyone until he got his way. Nicks was far more easygoing behind the scenes, and despite not being the most technical musician that the world had ever seen, there was a certain atmosphere that she created on songs like ‘Dreams’ and ‘Landslide’ that could have never been matched no matter how many times Buckingham layered guitar parts on top of each other.
The idea of going with two no-name artists would have felt like one of the most boneheaded moves back in the day, but sometimes the best decisions ever made come out of desperation. ‘The Mac’ needed to keep their career afloat however they could, and by having two magical people walk into their lives, they made the kind of music that most people could never have imagined.
