When Stevie Nicks Was Considering Giving up on Music, This Album Pulled Her Back In

Before former Fleetwood Mac frontwoman Stevie Nicks was living a life full of glamorous jet planes, lavish silks and velvets, all the drugs anyone could ask for, and international rock ‘n’ roll stardom, she was a waitress and house cleaner struggling to make ends meet while she and her partner-slash-bandmate were fighting against getting dropped from their label and their impending breakup. Not exactly the alluring lifestyle with which she’s been associated since the mid-1970s.

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During that not-so-glamorous time in her life, Nicks was understandably wrestling with a lot of self-doubt. The music industry can be an unforgiving business. And Nicks and her partner, Lindsey Buckingham, were getting their fair share of tough medicine. Nicks’ parents were watching closely from afar. They even offered their daughter a free ride to college if she would return home from the West Coast. That would mean giving up on her dream of being a rock star. And for a brief, understandable moment, she seriously considered it.

Of course, history would show she never actually gave up. Instead, she laid on her apartment floor and listened to Joni Mitchell’s then-brand-new album, Court and Spark, for “three days straight,” as she explained in a 2011 interview with The Guardian.

This Joni Mitchell Album Helped Pull Stevie Nicks From the Brink

During her early aughts conversation with The Guardian, Nicks painted a grim picture of her life in California pre-1975. “Lindsey and I were coming to the end of our relationship, and I’d met someone else. So, I latched on to the title track [of Court and Spark], which is about a new relationship that doesn’t last. This was a year after Buckingham Nicks came out, which had gotten critical acclaim. But Polydor dropped us like a rock. We were back to square one. It was the only time I ever felt music might not work out. We were really poor.”

Nicks continued, “At the same time, we were already living in the world that Joni Mitchell was writing about. Our producer, Keith Olsen, had introduced us to a lot of people in the industry. So, I related to a song like ‘The Same Situation’ whenever I’d go to a party and music business sharks were everywhere. They would look at me as the blonde who could sing and might make lots of money for someone. I didn’t like being looked at as a commodity. But by the end of that year, Mick Fleetwood had asked us to join Fleetwood Mac.”

Thanks to her new gig, Nicks no longer had to worry about waiting tables, cleaning houses, supporting her musician soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend, and soothing her parents’ concerns. She was on the fast track to the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle she would come to be known for, thanks to her hit songs like “Dreams” and “Rhiannon”. And if it hadn’t been for Joni Mitchell’s sharply cynical, lonesomely romantic album, Court and Spark, rock history might have never looked—or sounded—the same.

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