The Story Behind “Where Was I,” the Song Stevie Nicks Wrote for Fritz, Her First Band With Lindsey Buckingham

In 1966, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks met during their senior year at Menlo-Atherton High School in Atherton, California, and started making music together soon after. I was a senior in high school and Lindsey was a junior,” said Nicks in a 1981 interview. “And we went to a Young Life meeting, which was a religious meeting that simply got you out of the house on Wednesday nights, and he was there and I was there and we sat down and played ‘California Dreamin.’ I thought he was a darling.” 

A year later, the two were both playing in the Fritz Rabyne Memorial Band (later shortened to Fritz), along with keyboardist and vocalist Javier Pacheco and drummer Bob Aguirre with Buckingham on bass and vocals and Nicks on lead vocals and percussion. The band had originally formed in 1966 to play a high school talent show and would later rehearse at Buckingham’s house in Atherton.

“He [Buckingham] called me up and asked if I wanted to be in a band,” recalled Nicks, “and so, I was in this band with him for three and a half years – a band called Fritz.”

The band’s first gig was at their high school freshman dance. Then they played a frat party gig at Stanford University which Buckingham’s brother Greg was attending before they started playing bigger venues, opening for Janis Joplin and Big Brother, Jimi Hendrix, Ike and Tina Turner, Santana, Steve Miller Band, Chicago, War, Chuck Berry, and more.

[RELATED: The Country Ballad Stevie Nicks Wrote for Dolly Parton, Later Covered by Glen Campbell, “After the Glitter Fades”]

“Every Friday and Saturday we opened almost every big rock show that came through the area,” said Nicks. “The chance to watch Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix at close range would have a marked impact on her own performance style. “I saw him play once, and I remember thinking, ‘I want to wear white fringe. I want to tie a beautiful scarf in my hair.’”

Though the band never released an album, Fritz did record several songs spanning psychedelic rock including “Take Advantage of Me,” “Empty Shell,” “Eulogy,” “Existentialist” and “Crying Time” and more predominantly written by Pacheco. Nicks also contributed a few original songs including “Funny Kind of Love,” which they performed at Fremont High School, Sunnyvale in 1968, along with guitarist Brian Kane, and “Where Was I.”

The latter was a song Nicks wrote about miscommunication, letting someone down, and the repercussions of cheating.

Where was I when you needed
Where was I when you cried desperately
I didn’t know you needed me
You didn’t call or even tell me
Where was I

How was I to know that you cried all night
You never told me of your plight
If I had known I might have come to you
You know I’d do anything for you

In 1971, Buckingham and Nicks moved to Los Angeles and released their one and only album Buckingham Nicks in 1973. The album didn’t have much movement and after they were dropped from their label, Nicks contemplated quitting music and returning to school before getting the call to join Fleetwood Mac in 1974.

Pacheco had the band’s earlier recordings archived away and released Fritz Tribute – Vol. 1, a collection of Fritz’s songs (1966-1971) in 2021.

Photo: Fin Costello/Redferns