Stevie Nicks shares music that helped her heal after injury

Stevie Nicks has been leaning on music more than ever.

The 77-year-old singer-songwriter says that when she was forced to take a break from touring earlier this year to recover from a shoulder fracture, she turned to her favourite coping tool: sound. “The power of music” never left her side, she tells People magazine.

While discussing her new Bella Donna Barbie doll, Nicks opened up about what’s been playing through her speakers recently — and how she finds new artists to love.

“I'm all over the internet. I listen to a lot of current bands,” she says, naming The Midnight, The White Kites and Night Traveler as recent favorites.

She says that throughout her recovery, she kept music on constantly. “That's the one thing that I have done physically through this recovery, is to really listen to all this younger music that I love. And when I wasn't feeling well at all, it just carried me on a cloud through this whole thing.”

That made it especially meaningful when Night Traveler — one of the bands that helped lift her spirits — opened her Phoenix show on October 7, one of her first performances after the injury.

The Texas duo later reflected on Instagram: “We thought opening for [Stevie Nicks] would be the coolest musical moment of our lives. Turns out the kindness and sincerity of her spirit that she shared with us will be the thing we never forget.”

Even with her love for new sounds, Nicks says her listening habits remain old-school. “All my tapes are really curated by me,” she says, adding, “I'm not high-tech at all.”

She uses radio features on Pandora and Spotify, hitting the thumbs-up or thumbs-down before building lists that eventually become the personal mixes she relies on in difficult moments.