COUNTRY OF BIRTH

United States

INDUSTRY

Entertainment/Music

TOP ACHIEVEMENTS

Talented singer and songwriter Stevie Nicks, known for her distinctive voice, mystical image, and poetic lyrics, enjoyed phenomenal success both as a key member of multi-platinum band Fleetwood Mac and as a solo artist.

EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION

Stephanie Lynn Nicks was born on May 26, 1948 in Phoenix, Arizona. Her music-loving paternal grandfather taught her to sing and play the guitar. She received her first guitar for her 16th birthday and wrote her first song that same day. While at high school, she joined her first band and also met classmate Lindsey Buckingham, a guitarist and fellow songwriter with whom she forged a strong musical partnership. After high school, Nicks enrolled at San Jose State College but dropped out in 1968 to pursue a music career.

EARLY CAREER

Along with Buckingham, she joined the local band, Fritz, which had some success and opened for bigger acts, such as Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, before disbanding in 1971. Nicks and Buckingham continued to collaborate and soon landed a contract with Polydor Records. In 1972, they released Buckingham-Nicks, an album that went largely unnoticed. At the same time, veteran UK rock group Fleetwood Mac was struggling with lineup changes, and in 1974, Buckingham and Nicks joined the band.

ACHIEVEMENTS

The new lineup’s first album, Fleetwood Mac, went straight to number one on the charts and sold three million copies. Nicks became an overnight sensation. The 1977 album, Rumours, sold over 17 million copies, went platinum in both the US and the UK, and won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. In the 1980s, Nicks ventured out as a solo artist, producing numerous hit singles and albums including Bella Donna, which reached number one on the Billboard chart in 1981. Through the better part of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, Nicks developed addictions to alcohol, cocaine, and the tranquilizer Klonopin. In 1993, Nicks definitively left Fleetwood Mac and fully detoxed. In 1997, she rejoined the band on the album The Dance and for a related tour, which earned them $36 million. In the course of her work with Fleetwood Mac and her extensive solo career to date, Nicks has produced over forty Top 50 hits, sold over 140 million albums, and received 14 Grammy nominations.

RECOGNITION

In 1998, Fleetwood Mac was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and in 2019, Nicks was inducted as a solo artist, making her the first woman ever to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame twice.

ADDITIONAL FACTS

• Nicks’s best friend, Robin, whom she met in high school, died of leukemia in 1983. In an effort to provide a mother for Robin's baby son, Stevie married her widower. Though the marriage did not last long, she maintained good relations with her former stepson.
• Stevie Nicks’s Band of Soldiers is a charity that works for the benefit of wounded military personnel.
• She is an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church.