Stevie Nicks’ Attempt to Help Her Mom Financially Was a ‘Dud Gift’
Stevie Nicks and her mom, Barbara Nicks, were very close. Nicks explained that she learned some of the most important lessons of her life from her mother. As a way to give back to her mom, Nicks wanted to help her financially. She knew her mom would never directly take money from her, so she gave her all the royalties from her song “Silver Springs.” For years, the move didn’t provide much payoff for her mom, however.
Stevie Nicks was close with her mom
Nicks and her mother had a close relationship. She explained that while she was growing up, her mom gave her important advice, a rule she still lives by.
“You will go to school, and you will be independent, and you will never be dependent on a man,” Nicks recalled her mother saying, as told to Rolling Stone. “And you will have a really good education, and you will be able to stand in a room with a bunch of very smart men and keep up with them and never feel like a second-class citizen.”
Even after her mother’s death, Nicks says she still feels her presence. She’ll even help her locate lost items.
“It’s so real and creepy, and I always just go ‘Thank you, Barbara,'” she told the LA Times. “I sometimes feel I have more of a relationship with my mom since she’s been dead than I did before she died.”
Stevie Nicks wanted to indirectly give her mom money
After Nicks became a successful musician, she wanted to help her mother financially. She decided that she would gift her mother the song “Silver Springs,” but her plan didn’t work out well.
“First of all, when I first recorded it I gave it to my mother as a present,” she told Mix 96.9, per The Nicks Fix. “My mother would never take a penny from me, so I figured the only way I could actually give her some money would be to give her a song. ‘Silver Springs’ was her favorite song; she named her antique store The Silver Springs Emporium. Then they took it off the record, so it was very much of a dud gift.”
Even though the song wasn’t included on Rumours because of its length and subject matter, her mother kept it.
“[I gave her] the whole thing. Writer’s [royalties] and publishing — everything,” Nicks explained. “So then it was like, ‘Well, mom, guess what? It’s not going on the record and I’m really sorry.’ But she continued to own it.”
Her mother had her own fan club
Nicks’ mother may not have been as famous as her daughter, but she was well-loved by Fleetwood Mac fans.
“Stevie always says that Mom has her own fan club,” Barbara told the Arizona Republic in 1997, per The Nicks Fix. “It’s the funniest thing for me to see.”
Nicks’ fans even wrote letters directly to Barbara.
“I think a lot of people write letters to her and never hear anything, so they write to me,” she said. “They’re so nice to me and they write such wonderful letters.”
