This was supposed to be published in the Jan. 3 issue. The editor apologizes for the delay.
On January 1, 1975, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined Fleetwood Mac and changed music history forever. The duo produced an album, Buckingham and Nicks in September 1973, which was a commercial failure noteworthy only for the album cover that features a nude image of Stevie and Lindsey. The album has yet to be commercially remastered or re-released digitally. It was Lindsey who first joined Fleetwood Mac, replacing guitarist Bob Welch, the only guitar player in the band. Lindsey quickly convinced the band to recruit his musical partner (and girlfriend) Stevie Nicks, who played guitar and piano. Oh, and she sang a little too.
Mick Fleetwood extended the invitation to Buckingham on New Year’s Eve 1974. On New Year’s Day, Fleetwood, Christine and John McVie met Buckingham at the El Carmen Mexican restaurant located at 8138 W 3rd St. in Los Angeles. Opened in 1929, El Carmen still stands. It has a colorful history and counted among its regulars D.W. Griffith, Cecil B. DeMille, Boris Karloff, Ricardo Montalban, Nat King Cole, Loretta Young, Diego Rivera, Busby Berkeley, Mario Lanza, Vincent Price, Gary Cooper and John Wayne. During that formative meeting, Buckingham was joined by Stevie Nicks, who arrived still wearing her flapper costume after her waitress shift ended at Clementine’s restaurant in nearby Beverly Hills.
Evocative as that last sentence appears, the pre-Fleetwood Mac story of Stevie and Lindsey is equally dreamy. Lindsey Adams Buckingham was born on October 3, 1949, in Palo Alto, California where he attended Menlo-Atherton High School. Lindsey and his two older brothers, Jeffrey and Gregory, were encouraged to swim competitively by their parents from an early age. Though Lindsey dropped out to pursue music, his brother Gregory would win a silver medal at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, setting two world records along the way. Buckingham learned to play guitar on a toy Mickey Mouse guitar, strumming along to his brother Jeff’s extensive collection of 45s. Recognizing his talent, Lindsey’s parents bought him a $35 Harmony guitar for Christmas. Produced between 1945 and 1975, the Harmony guitar was nicknamed the “People’s Guitar.” Many musicians began their careers playing Harmony guitars: Elvis Presley, Keith Richards, Jimmy Page, Howlin’ Wolf, Big Joe Williams, Ritchie Valens, and the Kinks’ Dave Davies among them.
Lindsey never took guitar lessons, does not read music, and famously plays with no pick. Instead, he plays fingerstyle almost exclusively strumming with his middle and ring fingers. After joining Fleetwood Mac, Buckingham stepped up his game and began using a Gibson Les Paul Custom. From 1966 to 1971, Buckingham performed as a bassist and vocalist with a psychedelic folk rock band originally named the Fritz Rabyne Memorial Band. In 1967 as the band’s lineup changed, they shortened their name to Fritz.
Stephanie Lynn Nicks was born in Phoenix, Arizona on May 26, 1948. As a toddler, she could only pronounce her name as “tee-dee,” which led to the nickname “Stevie”. Always a musical child, by the age of four, Stevie was strumming a toy guitar and singing duets with her grandfather. Her father’s frequent relocation as a vice president of Greyhound had the family living in Phoenix, Albuquerque, El Paso, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. On her 16th birthday, her parents bought her a Goya guitar, a favorite of folksingers best remembered as the guitar played by folksinger Melanie and by movie star Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music.
While attending Arcadia High School in Arcadia, CA., she joined her first band, the Changing Times, a folk rock band whose most famous song was “The Pied Piper”, released in 1965, which focused on vocal harmonies. Stevie met Lindsey during her senior year at Menlo-Atherton High School in Atherton, California. Stevie saw Buckingham playing “California Dreamin’” at the Young Life club and joined him in harmony. As it happened at the time, Lindsey’s rock band Fritz was breaking apart as two band members were leaving for college. In mid-1967, Lindsey asked Stevie to replace the band’s lead singer. Fritz started to take off after Stevie joined, opening for major acts like Santana, Moody Blues, Chicago Transit Authority, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Ike & Tina Turner, War, Chuck Berry, Poco, Leon Russell, Dr. Hook, and others from 1968 until 1970. Nicks and Buckingham attended San José State University but both dropped out to pursue music. After Fritz disbanded for good in 1972, the duo continued to write songs and record demo tapes at night in Daly City, CA.
After the lukewarm release of their album Buckingham and Nicks, with no money coming in, Stevie began working multiple jobs. She waited tables and cleaned houses to make ends meet. Recruited by keyboard player Warren Zevon, Buckingham joined the Everly Brothers for their 1972 tour. Lindsey played bass for the band alongside legendary guitarist Waddy Wachtel, who continues to play with Stevie Nicks to this day. While Lindsey toured, Stevie remained behind writing songs including “Rhiannon” and “Landslide” as her relationship with Buckingham slowly deteriorated. On December 31, 1974, Mick Fleetwood called on Buckingham, changing Fleetwood Mac from a British band (whom Beatle John Lennon once cited as an influence) into an Anglo-American one.
But what about those years with the Fritz Rabyne Memorial Band (a.k.a. Fritz)? The official audiophile community identifies Fritz as a diverse high school rock band formed in San Jose in the fall of 1966. The band performed early rock and roll covers mixed with sixties Bay area psychedelic instrumentals. The band’s name was derived from a fellow high school student at the time, and like Lynyrd Skynyrd, was created as an inside joke. The band was born when Bob Aguirre, drummer of The Castiles (Bruce Springsteen’s early band) invited keyboard player Javier Pacheco to perform at a high school talent show alongside Cal Roper (bass), Lindsey Buckingham (guitar), and Jody Moreing (vocals & guitar). Pacheco wrote the majority of the band’s songs. By 1968, Cal left the group to go off to college and Jody joined another band. Fritz’s tight, three-part harmonies quickly gained a loyal Bay-area following. When vocalist Jody Moreing left the band in 1968, Stevie Nicks was invited to join the band. She quickly developed a mesmeric stage persona. By the summer of 1968, the band was comprised of Brian Kane (lead guitar, vocals), Aguirre (drums), Pacheco (keyboards, vocals), Stevie Nicks (percussion, vocals), and Lindsey Buckingham (bass, vocals).
Like many sixities Bay-area bands, records are sketchy. Most of the gigs were performed in and around Santa Clara County. The band played a few Stanford frat parties (where Lindsey’s brother Greg attended) and dances at Westmont High School from 1966 to 1968 and Mango Jr High in Sunnyvale in 1970. Fritz performed regularly at Ricardo’s Pizza, a popular teen hangout in a traditionally Italian neighborhood known as “Goosetown” in San Jose. It was a working-class neighborhood where many shopkeepers lived upstairs inside of or near their businesses. Ricardo’s Pizza, located at 218 Willow St., featured red-and-white checkerboard tablecloths, wooden chairs, and Italian accents. Extra seating existed upstairs above the kitchen, and a small stage occupied one of the walls. Ricardo’s featured a banjo player for the weeknight crowd and spotlighted up-and-coming bands on the weekends. In 1970-71, the Doobie Brothers were the house band at Ricardo’s, gigging there on a regular basis. Innovative jazz trumpet player Chet Baker and The Tubes were also regulars. Fritz appeared on a number of occasions at the Santa Clara Fair Grounds, opening for Steve Miller and Deep Purple and appearing with Iron Butterfly at the Expo-69 Teenage Fair. Fritz was the headliner for the Youngbloods, Country Weather, and Stained Glass, also at the fairgrounds.
The band initially practiced at Lindsey’s house in Atherton, but after 1968, the band rehearsed in the banquet room at the Italian Gardens Restaurant in San Jose. For approximately three and a half years, Fritz was one of the major local acts on the San Francisco Bay music scene. The band’s songs spoke to the human condition: “Yellow” (about the media), “Product of the Times” (conformity), “Empty Shell” (the ego), “Bold Narcissis” (more ego), “Sharpy” (about slick-talking agents), “The Power” (about finding God), “Eulogy” (about rebirth), “Existentialist” (about intellectual self-gratification), and “Crying Time” (about the death of innocence). Edgy content notwithstanding, today Fritz’s songs are mostly forgotten novelties consigned to the darkest corners of the internet.
However, Fritz was Stevie’s first rock band and the first pairing of what would become Rock and Roll’s most tempestuous couple. Fritz served as a sort of music school for Stevie, laying the foundations for her era-defining pop career. After Fritz’s disbandment, Stevie and Lindsey became prominent members of Fleetwood Mac during its most commercially successful period, highlighted by the multi-platinum studio album Rumours (1977), which sold over 40 million copies worldwide. The rest, as they say, is history. And it all started fifty years ago this week.
Al Hunter is the author of the “Haunted Indianapolis” and co-author of the “Haunted Irvington” and “Indiana National Road” book series. His newest books are “Bumps in the Night. Stories from the Weekly View,” “Irvington Haunts. The Tour Guide,” and “The Mystery of the H.H. Holmes Collection.” Contact Al directly at Huntvault@aol.com or become a friend on Facebook.
