Stevie Nicks was fortunate to have gained extensive experience in the music industry before joining Fleetwood Mac. Her time on the periphery was difficult at times. It was also a period of character development for Nick, who learned how to become a better artist and performer by studying others.
While others’ words of advice have changed the course of many careers, Nick preferred to rely on her eyes rather than her ears. Before joining Fleetwood Mac, she was in the high school band Fritz with Lindsey Buckingham. There they made a name for themselves in the San Francisco scene and were allowed to support future hugely successful acts.
Stevie Nicks was invited to join the band in 1967. They remained together for five years before she embarked on a new musical adventure with Buckingham. Nicks had little performing experience before becoming Fritz’s lead singer. Nonetheless, she left the group as a completely different artist, confident in her skills.
Most notably, during her time with Fritz, the band performed as the opening act for Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin concerts. Seeing these artists in person had a significant impact on Nicks. She describes watching Joplin perform in San Francisco as the most climactic lesson she ever learned from another musical act.
During an interview with Q in 2008, Nicks described her first encounter with Joplin. “The first time I saw her here, I didn’t know who she was, because she wasn’t all dressed up. She was yelling at the band that had come on before her, who had passed away. Janis was not a beautiful girl. she was small and appeared insane, telling them to get the **** off her stage. And I thought, ‘Whoa!‘.”
She continued, “Anyway, they wrapped it up, and 30 minutes later, Janis arrived. She was very different, with feathers in her hair, fantastic bell bottoms, and high-heeled shoes. A top with little bell sleeves in silky beautiful material and beads, as well as wild, crazy, curly hair. “She blew me away.”
Joplin appeared to be an ordinary person when Nicks first noticed her. She transformed into something more than a mere mortal once she took the stage. She adopted her larger-than-life persona, which dazzled everyone in the room.
For Nicks, it was a transformative evening that changed her perspective on the art of performance. She noted: “I learned more from her during that hour and a half—watching how she dealt with the crowd, how she paced herself, how she sang—than an hour and a half in my life.”
When Nicks later joined Fleetwood Mac, she was able to incorporate everything she had learned over the previous decade into her performances and was well-prepared to take on the world. Although Fritz never achieved great success in their career, Nicks would have been a much lesser artist without the experience.
