Me & Stevie Nicks

Chatting with An Icon, Learning to Fingerpick Her Tunes at 60

“Who’s the most famous person you’ve met?”

That question keeps popping up in my feed. If I’m inclined to answer, I post: “Stevie Nicks. She was very sweet.”

Also, if someone asks, “What’s a perfect album, no filler?” I am likely to post Rumours, Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 forty-minute masterpiece. (Give it a listen for some Album Therapy™. You will agree.)

Such goofy threads offer low-cost diversion, if only for a few seemingly wasteful minutes. While I try to limit the dopamine-depleting socials, I confess to indulging like, say, a nicotine addict engages in a cigarette break, a sugar addict, Oreos.

I’ve been thinking a lot more about Stevie because, after playing for forty-five years, I recently finally learned guitarist Lindsey Buckingham’s parts for “Landslide,” which Stevie wrote, and “The Chain,” which she co-wrote with all of Fleetwood Mac. As I’ve written on this platform, learning a song often makes me feel closer to the artist(s) who created it. Especially if the process takes many hours. Thanks to Lindsey, the aforementioned songs did. Technically, if you look at those tunes on paper, the chords are rudimentary, the melodies breezy, the bass parts absurdly easy. The beguiling simplicity therein is part of the power. But Lindsey’s playing, integral to those particular Fleetwood Mac songs, takes serious chops. It’s hard.

In ways I understand now more than ever, those tunes showcase not only Stevie’s artistry, but her and Lindsey’s dazzling collaborative relationship, the ways they elevated each other’s work, made magic. Their kind of synthesis fascinates me, an unquantifiable, lighting-in-a-bottle, celestial event. That sounds like hyperbole, but in my world, it’s not.

I’d been putting off tackling Lindsey’s guitar parts since I first learned some chords at age fifteen. (I’d started on bass at thirteen. It took most of my time and remains my forte.) Mr. Buckingham, as we say on the bandstand, is a monster. (When he quit the Mac in 1987, and was fired in 2018, they had to hire two players to replace him.) He never uses a pick, for starters. His fingerstyle is called Travis Picking, and, while my skill-set is broad, I’d not taken that on. (Also shredding. I can’t teach you to shred. At least not yet.)

But as the saying goes, the best way to learn something is to teach it. Coincidentally, or perhaps not, two of my guitar students – an adult and a kid – recently asked me to teach them songs featuring Lindsey’s distinctive picking: “The Chain” and “Landslide.” In part because I pride myself on teaching adult beginners, I was loath to say, “I can’t do that because I didn’t learn it when I was young.” My pitch to adults is: “It’s never too late.” So I had to walk the walk.

For the first time in longer than I care to admit, I needed to woodshed. The process evoked some deep muscle memory. Throughout, I kept recalling my odd, wonderful conversation with Stevie.

THE CHAIN

LANDSLIDE

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I interviewed Stevie for New York / Vulture in 2011. It was a phoner, about thirty minutes long. Hard to wrap my head around the fact that this was sixteen years ago, but according to my math, it was. The half hour was both unusual and totally normal, conducted via landline, recorded on cassette in the cluttered attic of my home. Some of the stuff I’ll share didn’t make the final edit.

Was I nervous? Yeah. Sweaty palms, heart racing, inner critic saying I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. (Anxiety, maybe you’ve heard of it.) But weirdly, as soon as Stevie’s grosgrain voice came on the line, I was fine. Truly, it felt like we were friends. Within minutes, in a conspiratorial tone, she was sharing how inviting Lindsey Buckingham to guest on her solo album In Your Dreams had brought the two of them back together after yet another falling out.

“Lindsey and I are more Buckingham-Nicks than we have been since 1973,” she said. “[This album] has caused a bridge to be made between us. He flat-out said to me, ‘This is the closest I’ve felt to you in thirty years and I would never do anything to endanger this.’”

I said, “Music can build a bridge where nothing else can.”

“In many ways, it’s the only way you can get to somebody,” Stevie replied. “If I didn’t make it in the music business I would’ve been a teacher; I would have taken my music into the classroom somehow, and I would have figured out a way to use my writing and my music as a way to teach kids.”

I told her I was teacher. She asked me where. I replied I’d just started leading a songwriting workshop at the Woodstock Day School. (I was not yet offering individual lessons.)

“That sounds like Glee!” Stevie said, her raspy voice genuinely excited.

I’d not seen the massive hit Glee, but I knew about it. I said, “Kind of.” [But not really.]

“You teach in Woodstock?” she said. “I’d love to come and teach a class with you.”

Dear reader, even as she said this, I somehow intuited it would not come to pass. But of course I said, “How do we make that happen?”

“I’m sure I’ll be touring near there [she wouldn’t] and I’ll have my team work out the details. I really want to do this, Robert. I’ll have somebody call you when we’re done to work out the details.”

The interview continued for a few more minutes, during which we talked about how much fun she had making In Your Dreams with producer Dave Stewart of Eurythmics, who documented everything with Flip cameras. How she refused to ever make another album if it wasn’t fun like that. After we’d checked the boxes my editor had requested, I reluctantly farewelled my new pal. While saying our goodbyes, she brought up visiting Woodstock Day School again.

“I’m sure I can get the bus to take a little detour,” she said. “It’ll be fun. I can’t wait.”

Sure enough, within about ten minutes of hanging up, the phone rang.

“Is this Robert speaking?” a woman said. Flat voice, all business, everything Stevie was not. Probably very good at her job. Bad Cop.

“Look, Robert, I understand Stevie discussed visiting a school where you work?”

“Yeah. To help me teach a songwriting class.”

“Well, I just need to tell you we’ve got a packed schedule, and the likelihood of us being able to do that isn’t great. We’ll try, but don’t get your hopes up.”

“I understand. Thanks for calling me.”

You know the rest of the story. I’m fine with all of it. I must say, prior to talking to Stevie I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have thought I could learn her ex’s guitar parts in (what I hope is) midlife. But just as this iconic rock duo brought things out of each other they couldn’t have imagined possible, they did the same with me.

Badass Stevie