“I know it will pay off in the end”: Stevie Nicks shares letter she wrote to her family whilst recording Buckingham Nicks

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By ( Classic Rock, Louder ) published

After years out of print, Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham’s pre-Fleetwood Mac album was finally reissued last week

Stevie Nicks in 1975
(Image credit: Fin Costello/Redferns/Getty Images))

The long-awaited reissue last week of Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham’s pre-Fleetwood Mac record Buckingham Nicks has obviously prompted its creators to dig into the archives, and now Nicks has shared a heartfelt letter written to her family during the recording of the album.

Writing on Instagram, Nicks wrote, “I wanted to share this letter I wrote to my family while Lindsey and I were making Buckingham Nicks. My mom saved it and it’s been in a drawer for over 50 years.”

At the time, the duo were still waiting for their big break and Nicks writes with the excitement and humour of someone who thinks it might just be round the corner. “Here I am,” she begins in the letter, addressed to her parents and brother Chris, “once again at the “famous” Sound City Recording Studio. I am getting very tired of sitting around listening to 12 hours of music per day. Oh well, I know it will pay off in the end, and when I am sitting in my small but tasteful pool that is totally secluded, where I can sun in the nude and tan my entire fat body whilst waiting for my plastic surgery leg left – it will all be worth it.”

After comically debating on how the family should celebrate her impending 25th birthday (“I have decided that we should set aside the entire month of May”), her thoughts to turn to the record and she mentions that the song that would eventually be titled Don’t Treat Me Like A Stranger is coming together particularly well. “By the way – Dad and Chris – that rock and roll tune that you both like (“Baby Baby, don’t treat me so bad”) with the fancy guitar work is almost finished and Lindsey may go down in history as one of “greats” in guitar playing. It really is amazing.”

Signing off, she implores them to “hold good thoughts about this thing”. The album certainly paid off, just not in the way that Nicks imagined at the time. Buckingham Nicks made next to no impact until, on a tour of the studio, Mick Fleetwood heard it playing by accident and the path to the duo joining his band was set. The rest is history – soon enough, Nicks would be one of music’s biggest stars and that luxurious Beverly Hills pad she’d dreamed of could become a reality.

Niall Doherty
Niall Doherty

Niall Doherty is a writer and editor whose work can be found in Classic Rock, The Guardian, Music Week, FourFourTwo, Champions Journal, on Apple Music and more. Formerly the Deputy Editor of Q magazine, he co-runs the music Substack letter The New Cue with fellow former Q colleague Ted Kessler. He is also Reviews Editor at Record Collector. Over the years, he's interviewed some of the world's biggest stars, including Elton John, Coldplay, Radiohead, Liam and Noel Gallagher, Florence + The Machine, Arctic Monkeys, Muse, Pearl Jam, Depeche Mode, Robert Plant and more.

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