Nicks or McVie.....

I saw/heard Buckingham & Nicks live in their local San Jose garage band---Fritz---in the summer of ’68 (the opening act at The Santa Clara County Folk/Rock Festival, the headliner the doors. The Electric Flag preceded the doors, and were a tough---impossible---act to follow). Just another local band, no better or worse than many others.

I didn’t hear of their 1973 debut album, but even if I did I wouldn’t have known they came out of Fritz. For some reason, very few San Jose bands had enough professional aspiration/ambition to make the move to L.A. (or perhaps self-confidence). Lindsey and Stevie did. I’m not certain, but I believe The Doobie Brothers got their Warner Brothers deal without making the move from SJ to LA.

By the way: Many years later Keltner, Tutt, and Scheff also appear on Elvis Costello's King Of America album, to my taste his best.

Just today I learned the musicians who appear on the 1973 Buckingham Nicks album include Jim Keltner and Ron Tutt on drums and Jerry Scheff on bass. Damn it, another album I must now acquire.

By the way:

There is a pic somewhere on the 'net of Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham on stage at Mother Butler High School in San Jose, California, when the two were members of local group "Fritz". The pic was taken in 1967, I believe, and Stevie has a "flip" hairdo (you old geezers know what I mean) and is wearing a formal gown! Mother Butler was a Catholic girls school, with a strict dress code. I had performed there the year before, and was required to wear a dress shirt and tie. ;-) 

Ha! I have for years associated Nicks' singing with not a billy goat, but rather sheep. Baaah.

There is a female singer I was in a band with in the late-70's who now does a Stevie Nicks tribute act. Corporate-type gigs, which pay well. I've never understood Nicks' appeal, but I am obviously in the minority. As the old saying goes, there's no arguing with success.