Stevie Nicks said a contract clause she signed as a teenager ended up opening the door to the career she would later build with Fleetwood Mac. The singer recalled that after Jackie Mills left 20th Century Fox, a so-called main man clause made her agreement null and void.
“That meant I was now released from it,” Nicks said, describing the turn that followed a five-year contract she signed through Mills. She added, “I wasn’t upset. Even at that age, I was smart enough to realize that I didn’t want to be stuck on a label with people that I don’t know.”
The memory reaches back to a fast-moving stretch in her youth. In 2011, Nicks recalled spending a whole summer singing along to the 1969 album Crosby, Stills & Nash, then flying to Los Angeles during her senior year of high school to meet with a record producer. After that meeting, she returned to Atherton, California, with a record deal.
At 17 or 18, she was still playing in Fritz, the psychedelic rock band she shared with Lindsey Buckingham. Before long, the pair formed Buckingham Nicks, a folk-rock duo that pushed her further toward the sound and partnership that would define her next chapter.
The contrast matters because Nicks’ early label experience was not the end of the story. It was the bridge to a place where she would find more artistic freedom and camaraderie. She and Buckingham joined Fleetwood Mac on New Year’s Eve 1974 or New Year’s Day 1975, turning a legal escape into a permanent home.
What looked like a binding contract became the break that kept her moving. For Nicks, the clause that freed her from 20th Century Fox was not a setback at all. It was the opening she needed before Fleetwood Mac.
