EXCLUSIVE: Secrets of Stevie Nicks' and Lindsay Buckingham's 'Lost Album' As It Gets Re-Release After 50 Years
Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham will give fans a chance to listen to their 'lost album.'
Sept. 22 2025, Published 6:00 p.m. ET
Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham’s first and only duo record, Buckingham Nicks, has finally been remastered and reissued more than half a century after its commercial failure turned it into one of rock’s great cult mysteries, and RadarOnline.com has the inside story of its making – and the pair's infamously fractured relationship.
The album – originally released in September 1973, just 16 months before the pair joined Fleetwood Mac – was a flop at the time, quickly going out of print and never being made available on CD or legal streaming services.
Why Did The Original Album Disappear?
Nicks and Buckingham released an album before joining Fleetwood Mac.
But the gauzy, 10-track folk-rock set became legendary as the opening chapter of the couple's creative partnership, showcasing the vocal harmonies and emotional interplay that would soon reshape Fleetwood Mac.
"It's like sharing ownership of an old car," Nicks, now 77, once said of the tangled rights to the album, which were split between herself, Buckingham, and producer Keith Olsen. "The stars never seemed to exactly align."
For Buckingham, 76 next month, the reasons for its disappearance were less clear. "One of Stevie's managers has the masters in her house," he said in an interview years later. Why? Well, because somebody's got to have them somewhere. The politics of Fleetwood Mac are strange."
He added: "Better hurry up! That's all I can say."
Those delays have finally ended. Teased in cryptic social media posts earlier this summer, the record is now available on vinyl, CD, and digital formats, sourced from the original analog tapes.
The duo is re-releasing the album, which originally flopped.
"We knew what we had as a duo," Nicks writes in new sleeve notes. "It stands up in a way you hope it would."
Buckingham echoed that, saying: "By these two kids who were pretty young to be doing that work." The "two kids" first met at Menlo-Atherton High School in California's Bay Area in 1966, where Buckingham was a champion swimmer and budding guitarist, while Nicks had recently relocated from Arizona.
They moved to Los Angeles in 1971 to pursue music, surviving on her waitressing jobs while he honed his songwriting.
"I believed Lindsey didn't have to work, that he should just lay on the floor and practice his guitar and become more brilliant every day," Nicks once said.
'Rumours' Is Born
The original album was never available on CD or legal streaming services.
The duo recorded Buckingham Nicks at Sound City Studios with Olsen, but despite strong material – including Crystal and Frozen Love – Polydor's promotion faltered.
Sales were dismal, and plans for a follow-up collapsed. One demo from those sessions, Without You, was later resurrected on Fleetwood Mac’s 2013 EP Extended Play.
Fate intervened on New Year's Eve 1974, when Mick Fleetwood visited Sound City to audition for the studio. Olsen played him Frozen Love, and Fleetwood was captivated by Buckingham's guitar solo.
Buckingham agreed to join Fleetwood Mac only if Nicks came too. Within three months, the new line-up had recorded Fleetwood Mac, featuring Nicks' Rhiannon and Landslide.
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The group's album, 'Rumours,' is one of the most iconic in music history.
The rest is history.
Rumours (1977), written amid the couple’s breakup, sold more than 40 million copies and defined an era. But the volatility never vanished. Nicks has said she gave Buckingham "more than 300 million chances."
He has admitted their relationship was "like a marriage without the marriage papers." Yet half a century later, they have set aside old conflicts to resurrect the album that started it all.
"If we had stayed in San Francisco, we would have still been famous," Nicks reflected in an earlier interview. "But Fleetwood Mac was our destiny."
