Where Rock Royalty Found Her Voice: The Stevie Nicks El Paso Connection

Photo bystevienicksofficial.com/Brian Wancho-Brian Wancho Photograpy via Wikipedia/mike

Having lived in El Paso for some time now, I’m aware of Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac fame having spent some of her childhood in the Sun City. It’s a tidbit locals like to share with transplants and out-of-towners not acquainted with the fact that rock and roll royalty once walked the same streets as they.

The music legend and icon -- known for favoring flowing dresses and fringe-lined shawls on-stage, and, of course, her enchanting and unmistakable voice -- lived in the West Texas town from 1954 to 1959.

But what I didn’t know until reading an article published in The New Yorker was the lasting influence her short time here had on her and how it led her down the path to what she would eventually become: a global super star, and the first woman to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice.

Stevie Moves to El Paso

Stevie was born May 26, 1948, in Phoenix, Arizona. Her father’s job led to the family moving quite a few times during her school years.

His frequent relocation took the family from Phoenix and then to Albuquerque, before arriving in El Paso in late 1954, according to Wikipedia.

She spent third through seventh grade in El Paso, attending Basset Middle, Loretto Academy, and Crockett Elementary. Her classmates knew her as Stephanie Lynn back then, her given name.

Grade school photoPhoto byvia Loretto Academy Facebook

El Paso’s Lasting Influence

In the New Yorker piece, titled Stevie Nicks Is Still Living Her Dreams, Nicks credits El Paso as the place where she learned how to sing.

The rock goddess tells the publication her grandfather, who was a country singer, exposed her to the genre when she was in the fourth grade.

For a while, Stevie wanted to be a country singer, too.

Stevie Finds Her Voice

But then she fell in love with the sounds of Motown girl groups after hearing their songs, presumably on El Paso radio stations.

So I made a U-turn and walked away from country in the fifth grade. We’d drive around in El Paso, Texas, and I would just be singing away to this R. & B., girl group, because they wrote all the hit songs. It was Motown, full on. And my mom and dad would turn around and look at me and go, ‘Who are you?’ And that’s how I learned to sing. – The New Yorker Interview

Fleetwood Mac group photoPhoto byWarner Bros. Records - Billboard, 25 June 1977, p. 86 via Wikipedia

Fifteen years later, in May of 1975, Stephanie Lynn returned to the city where she found her voice and direction, and performed at the El Paso County Coliseum for the very first time with her then-boyfriend, Lindsey Buckingham, and her new bandmates: Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, and Christine McVie.

And the rest, as they say, is rock and roll history.

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