Essential Rock Stories: Stevie Nicks' Muse

For scores of rock musicians that climb the slippery slopes of fame as part of a group, their own personalities and names as individuals are often overshadowed by their group's combined image. Sometimes, however, certain artists are able to break through as solo artists and figures after they have gained fame within a group. Very occasionally, their status as an individual garners new fans long after their biggest hits have topped the charts and they become the most elusive star of all: a cultural icon.

For so many fans, Stevie Nicks is all of that and more. New generations of fans have continued to discover the singer's music and style, which has served to reinvigorate an interest in Fleetwood Mac for the Millenial and Gen Z generation. Thanks to her appearance on American Horror Story: Coven in 2014 as the White Witch, a renewed interest in the artist's supernatural connections was sparked. These days, the popular video app TikTok is swimming with young girls lip-synching to "Rhiannon" or "Dreams," songs that were likely released in a different century from the one in which they were born.

Because of her enormous singular presence as a visual and musical representation of the 1970's, many new fans might assume that her work as part of Fleetwood Mac was a collaborative anomaly for the artist. In fact, the opposite is true. Since the very beginning of her career Nicks has been associated with collaborators, the most notorious of those partnerships with her longtime bandmate and romantic partner Lindsey Buckingham. From the late 60's until the early 80's, Nicks wrote and recorded as part of a duo with Buckingham and later with Fleetwood Mac. It wasn't until 1981 and the release of her solo album Bella Donna that Nicks released music as a solo artist for the first time, proving to critics and fans that she was truly a superstar in her own right.

After the tumultuous interpersonal relationships within Fleetwood Mac broke down over the years, nobody would have blamed Nicks for wanting to go her own way and make Bella Donna a truly solo project. In defying that expectation though, she ultimately created some of the most popular duets of the 1980's. "Leather and Lace," her collaboration with onetime romantic partner Don Henley, reached #6 on the Billboard charts. The most successful single from the album was "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around," a duet with friend and album co-producer Tom Petty that reached #3 on the Billboard charts. What many fans might not know is that he also had a hand in the inspiration for two successful singles on the album.

In the midst of recording and touring for Tusk with Fleetwood Mac, Nicks began writing material for Bella Donna. During this time, she was at a party that Tom Petty and his first wife Jane were also attending. When Nicks asked Jane how the two first met, Jane responded in a southern accent "around the age of seventeen." Nicks heard this as "the edge of seventeen," and vowed to write a song using the phrase. She has even admitted that portions of the lyrics reference her conversation with Jane, especially the line "He was no more than a baby then/Well he seemed broken hearted/Something within him." This references Petty's tumultuous relationship with his wife, to whom he was married for over two decades.

While the title and sections from the song reference the couple, the rest of the inspiration and lyrics for "Edge of Seventeen" can be attributed to two deaths: Jimmy Iovine, who co-produced the album with Petty, was close friends with John Lennon and was devastated after the singer's murder in December 1980. The same week as Lennon's death, Nicks was at her uncle's bedside as he lost his battle with cancer. With the loss of the two Johns, Nicks set to work to pour out her emotions through song. The recording that came about as a result reached #11 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and has become her most popular completely solo recording.

As for her friendship with Petty, he continued to be a supportive friend during her most difficult times. In the mid-90's after Nicks had been going through a creative rut, he encouraged his friend to get back to songwriting after she asked to collaborate with him again. The release of her solo album Trouble in Shangri-La in 2001 proved that Petty's support continued to be a huge influence on Nicks' creative life. They sang "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" one last time in front of a live audience just months before Petty's death in 2017, where Nicks proclaimed to the audience "you know that Tom Petty is my favorite rock star!"