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Stevie Nicks’ name has become almost synonymous with Fleetwood Mac, and she may have keyboardist Christine McVie to thank. Here’s how Nicks came to join the classic rock supergroup and how McVie is responsible for her joining the band.

Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood Mac bandmates and best friends.
(L-R) Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks | Rick Diamond/Getty Images

Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham joined Fleetwood Mac together

Although Christine McVie might be the real reason Stevie Nicks joined Fleetwood Mac, Lindsey Buckingham is often credited with helping the singer become part of the iconic band.

Nicks and Buckingham were high school sweethearts and musical collaborators long before they joined Fleetwood Mac. They were members of the band Fritz before forming their own duo called Buckingham Nicks.

Fleetwood Mac drummer and founding member Mick Fleetwood was looking for a new guitarist when he heard the Buckingham Nicks song “Frozen Love.” He was so impressed by the guitar playing on the track that he invited Buckingham to join his crew. The guitarist agreed on one condition: his then-girlfriend Nicks also had to join the band.

Fleetwood Mac catapulted to new heights of fame after Nicks and Buckingham joined the group, but their romance didn’t survive. They broke up but continued to work together, often writing and performing songs about their split, for decades.

Christine McVie had the final say in whether or not Stevie Nicks got to join Fleetwood Mac

Lindsey Buckingham deserves some credit for introducing Stevie Nicks to Fleetwood Mac, but it was ultimately Christine McVie who was responsible for the singer joining the band.

Fleetwood invited Buckingham and Nicks out to dinner to meet the rest of the group. Nicks didn’t know it at the time, but it was crucial that she impress McVie. The dinner was really a job interview, and the keyboardist got to cast the deciding vote on whether or not to allow Nicks into the group.

“We went for Mexican food with them,” Nicks told The Guardian in 2013. “And we laughed and laughed, because you English people have a very strange sense of humor. Even Lindsey had fun – he didn’t want to, but he couldn’t help it.”

“It was critical that I got on with her,” McVie revealed in the same interview. “Because I’d never played with another girl. But I liked her instantly. She was funny and nice but also there was no competition. We were completely different on the stage to each other and we wrote differently too.”

McVie agreed that the singer could join Fleetwood Mac, and the next day, the group called Buckingham and Nicks to formally invite them into the band.

Christine McVie and the ‘Gypsy’ singer became best friends

Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie became fast friends, so the “Gypsy” singer was devastated when McVie dropped out of Fleetwood Mac in 1998. The keyboardist has cited panic attacks and her flying phobia as the main reasons she left the group.

She returned after a 15-year hiatus, and Nicks was ecstatic to have her best friend back.

“When we went on the road, I realized what an amazing friend she’d been of mine that I had lost and didn’t realize the whole consequences of it till now,” Nicks told the Star Tribune in 2015.

“She brings the funny back into Fleetwood Mac. Before, it was just a boys’ club. With her back, there’s more of a feminine touch to the whole thing,” she said. “I never want her to ever go out of my life again, and that has nothing to do with music and everything to do with her and I as friends.”

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