It was the largest rock concert in Tucson history at the time, before an estimated 67,000 people at the University of Arizona football stadium.

Fleetwood Mac, then the hottest band in the country — along with Kenny Loggins, the Marshall Tucker Band, and the band Arizona — took the end zone stage on Aug. 27, 1977.

All the musicians performed for free. They raised $267,000 for the Arizona Heart Foundation with $8 tickets and indelibly crafted rock ‘n’ roll history in the Old Pueblo.

The brains behind the show was a sweet-talking, hard-driving international businessman from Phoenix named Jess Nicks. His daughter, Stevie Nicks, was a lead singer in the star-studded band Fleetwood Mac.

Jess Nicks was president of Armour-Dial and executive vice president of Greyhound. He also served on the board of directors of the Heart Foundation for over 30 years and, as chairman of the board, tirelessly raised money to beat heart disease. It was a topic close to his own heart, so to speak: Jess Nicks battled heart disease himself and underwent multiple heart surgeries.

The time was right for a blockbuster show: Fleetwood Mac had released its record-setting album, “Rumors,” earlier in 1977, with the mega-hits, “Go Your Own Way,” “Dreams,” “Don’t Stop,” and “You Make Loving Fun.” The album was No. 1 on the Billboard chart for a whopping 31 weeks and the following year, “Rumors” won the coveted Grammy award for album of the year. In 1998, the band was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and to date it has sold more than 120 million records worldwide.

David Slavin, sales manager at KDRI radio in Tucson, was a University of Arizona student producer of the local Fleetwood Mac concert.

“On the night before the show, I stood at the 50-yard line and was treated to a four-song sound check at 8 p.m. by Fleetwood Mac,” Slavin said. “It was a private show by the band, which had the country’s top-selling album. They sang four of their current hits. How lucky I was to be a part of this performance in my hometown. It was heaven, a dream come true.”

The concert started with a magnificent late-summer sunset cascading down on the packed sports field. It ended at about 11:30 p.m., after more than six hours. An Arizona Daily Star reviewer said Stevie Nicks’ vocals and the guitar of her “part-time lover” Lindsey Buckingham stole the show. The two met in high school and quickly became a star-bound couple in the music industry. There was an aurora and a radiance about them before the relationship years later turned famously tumultuous.

Stephanie Lynn Nicks was born in Phoenix in 1948. As a toddler, she pronounced her name “tee-dee,” leading to the nickname Stevie. Her mother fostered in her daughter a fiercely independent spiritual awareness and a passion for fairy tales, folklore and happy-ending romance stories. Stevie grew up to enjoy an artistic wardrobe, theatrical stage costumes, and showy hats. Her emotionally-charged songs had enchanting “once upon a time” storylines that remain classics. “My fantasy is giving a little bit of the fairy princess to all the people out there,” the fairy godmother of rock once said.

Stevie Nicks turned 75 in May and still performs sellout concerts.

Musicians such as Bob Dylan and Neil Young are cashing in on their catalogues for millions of dollars. Some of the reasons behind these sales include a U.S. tax loophole, pandemic restrictions and streaming fads.

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Jerry Wilkerson is a former press secretary for two members of Congress, a prior CBS Chicago radio correspondent and a correspondent for the Chicago Daily News. He is a former police commissioner and Navy veteran. He lives in SaddleBrooke. franchise@att.net