Category Archives: Stevie Nicks

Stevie Nicks, Tour Info

Stevie Puts Vacation On Hold, Aug 2005

She’ll bring her hits and those of Fleetwood Mac for Reno show

by Neil Baron
7/28/2005
RGJ.com

Stevie Nicks returns to Reno July 31.

When Stevie Nicks performs July 31 at the Reno Events Center, she’ll do it with a show that shouldn’t exist and an opening act that makes her cry.

“This tour wasn’t even supposed to happen,” Nicks said by phone during a tour stop in Laguna Beach, Calif. “I was supposed to have this whole year off.”

So much for rest. When Eagles frontman Don Henley invited Nicks on a co-headline tour, she accepted (Henley is not performing in Reno). Nicks then was offered four dates to perform in Las Vegas at the Celine Dion Theater in Caesars Palace.

“I would like to be able to play Vegas a couple times a year because then I don’t have to travel,” said Nicks, who lives in Los Angeles. “So I said, `OK, I’ll put my summer off. Let’s go do this.’ But this is a show that we would never have put together had it not been for going into Celine’s theater that is like 110 feet wide with 300-foot IMAX screens. You just can’t take your band in there and play. You have to build a world, and we did. We spent two months doing it and it’s an amazing world. So we came out of Vegas with an outrageous show that we never would have had otherwise.”

Without giving away too much, Nicks’ concert features lots of film and video from the vaults of the past. She also got permission to use the art and paintings of her favorite painter, the late Sulamith Wulfing.

“This has touches and moments of, say, Fillmore West or Winterland or the Avalon Ballroom,” Nicks said. “It reminds me of an amazing show from 1971.”Nicks would know. In 1971, she was a 23-year-old musical neophyte. Now, she is arguably one of the most influential and recognizable female artists in rock `n’ roll history.

With her sultry good looks and gypsy-like appearance, Nicks helped Fleetwood Mac in 1977 create, “Rumours,” one of the best-selling rock albums of all time at more than 17 million copies.When she branched out to release her debut solo album, “Bella Donna,” in 1981, it was an instant hit. Buoyed by the top 20 hits “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” “Leather and Lace,” and “Edge of Seventeen,” the album reached No. 1 on the Billboard charts.

After 35 years of entertaining audiences, some might say that Nicks owes her fans little more than to show up, sing her hits and go home. But the 57-year-old chanteuse couldn’t disagree more. During every show, Nicks takes 10 minutes to walk slowly across the stage to shake as many fans’ hands as possible while her band continues to play. For some artists, such a gesture would seem staged and bogus.But not for Nicks.

“It’s physically very hard on my back,” she said by phone during a tour stop in Laguna Beach, Calif. “But it’s something that I’ve always felt was important to do. And I love it because then I have that emotional connection every night with the people that come to see me.

“We also do meet-and-greets every night except for when we have to leave right away. It’s something Fleetwood Mac has always done and I’ve done it in my solo career. It’s a thing that’s good to do. It gives you a minute to have some personal time with your fans. And I have the greatest fans in the world.”

If record sales are any indication, she’s right. Every album Nicks has released has gone platinum, she said. The only exception is her 2001 release, “Trouble in Shangri-La,” which is soon to go platinum, she said. That album, Nicks first studio release since 1994’s “Street Angel,” is one of her favorites. She spent nearly four years pouring her emotions into her words at a time when she was having doubts about her songwriting skills.

When it came time to record, Nicks recruited the vocal talents of Macy Gray, Sarah McLachlan and Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks, each of whom performed on one song. Nicks’ main collaborator was Sheryl Crow, who credits Nicks as one of her main musical inspirations.

“I really felt that was my masterpiece,” Nicks said. “But considering what happened, I can’t be too upset.”Like many albums released in the summer of 2001, “Trouble in Shangri-La” got lost in the madness that was the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Nicks said she is unsure if she’ll release another solo record.

“I really don’t know what to do,” she said. “I’m totally writing. I could go into the studio tomorrow and start a solo record. I think I get better as a writer every day because I work on it constantly. So it’s not like I couldn’t do it, but …”Her voice trails off. Why bother when it has little chance of playing on the radio, which means fewer people have a chance to hear the record?

Nicks doesn’t lament the current state of radio as much for herself as she does for those she’ll likely never know.”There’s a lot of amazing talented groups and solo singer-songwriters that are never going to make it because there’s nobody to give them a chance. I know they’re out there, but whether or not we ever get to know they exist is another question.”

Nicks is helping to change that in her own small way by offering Vanessa Carlton the opportunity to open the show.”She is my baby chick,” Nicks said. “I adore her and I think she is one of the best singer-songwriters to come along in a long time. Like many others,
if she has some people behind her that nurture her and let her spend time to develop who she is, I think that she’ll be around in 30 years, like myself. “She kills me every night. Sometimes, I can’t watch her because she makes me cry. She makes me think of me when I was 24 and it chokes me up. It chokes me up so bad I have to leave. I can’t watch her. That’s the biggest compliment I could give to anybody. She’s amazing.”

—

A random thought from Nicks

Usually in interviews, we’ll ask if the artist has anything they want to add. The answer usually is “no.” Stevie Nicks had something to add. She took time from her busy schedule recently to visit extremely injured soldiers returning from war at the Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C. “I spent the whole day with them,” she said. “It opened my eyes to the fact that there’s a lot of kids out there that are so injured their lives will never be the same. If you happen to be in a city with a military hospital, get a plate of cookies together and go visit them because they are so isolated and so lonely. It broke my heart. It was an eye-opening experience for me. It really doesn’t matter how you feel about war. What matters is that these kids are paying a price and they’re alone and they’re lonely. That’s what I would like people to do. Take some candy and spend a little time with them. You’d be amazed what it means to them.”

* Stevie Nicks online:
www.stevienicks.net

If you want to go:
Stevie Nicks performs at 8 p.m. July 31 at the downtown Reno Events Center with opening act Vanessa Carlson. Tickets are $85, $65, $55 and $45 at Ticketmaster outlets and fee-free at the Silver Legacy, Eldorado, Harrah’s Reno and Circus Circus.

Details: 787-8497.

..

Reviews, Stevie Nicks, Tour Info

Stevie Nicks and Vanessa Carlton, Borgato Casino Pre Show, June 2005

Stevie Nicks with Vanessa Carlton

June 24, 2005
By ROBERT DiGIACOMO
For At The Shore, (609) 272-7017

Stevie Nicks’ latest concert is even `more witchy’ than some of her previous tours.

Nicks shows off `dark side’

Nicks’ “Gold Dust Tour,” making a stop at Borgata on June 30 and July 1, will have a touch of Vegas flash, thanks to the unlikely influence of Celine Dion and Elton John.

The Fleetwood Mac frontwoman originally designed her latest solo concert for a four-night stand in May at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace Las Vegas, the 4,100-seat theater where Dion and John each perform on a massive 110-foot-wide stage.

“We watched Celine Dion — we don’t have 50 dancers. We watched Elton John — we don’t have 50 years of film … Elton filmed everything he did,” Nicks recalls of her first visits to the theater. “We said, `What in the world are we going to do?'”

The singer/songwriter and her team developed elaborate visuals, including images from one of her favorite films, Jean Cocteau’s 1946 version of “Beauty and the Beast,” and her favorite artists, Sulamith Wülfing (for whom she named one of her beloved Yorkshire terriers), to create a “dark” show that’s even “more witchy” than previous efforts.

“The show we’ve come out with now is pretty amazing because of all that extra thought that went into putting it all together,” Nicks says. “If we hadn’t had the Vegas show, it would have been good, but it wouldn’t have been like this.”

Having warmed up with the Vegas gig, Nicks moved into a tour with Don Henley, with whom she recorded “Leather and Lace” on her 1981 solo debut, “Bella Donna.” The two played sets of their own material and performed several duets.

“I sang `Hotel California’ (and I thought) I lived through that,” says Nicks, who kicked off the joint tour on June 3 in Philadelphia. “Don and I went out when he was recording `Hotel California’ at the end of the `Rumours’ recording. We lived those words in `Hotel California.’

“I’m up there singing, going, `Oh my God, here’s my life.’ I couldn’t help but be somewhat groupied out. I was a little stunned every night at the amazing gift to be able to sing that song every night with an Eagle.”

When the tour was shortened to 10 dates due to Henley’s commitments with the Eagles, Nicks decided to schedule her own summer outing; originally she planned to take most of this year off after wrapping a two-and-a-half-year, 135-date tour with Fleetwood Mac last fall.

“It’s always interesting to leave the Fleetwood Mac world and come back into my own world,” she says. “`Gold Dust Woman’ is different in my world, and so is `Dreams’ and so is `Rhiannon.’ I always feel with these songs that it’s been a blessing for me to be able to go back and forth.

“We always go back and start from the original version with Fleetwood Mac and my band. But they always come out slightly different.”

In addition to those staples and hits like “Edge of Seventeen,” “The Chain” and “Stand Back,” Nicks has added to her set list some little performed gems, including “Beauty and the Beast” and “Has Anyone Ever Written Anything for You.”

“I’ve taken the French movie `Beauty and the Beast’ from the ’40s, which is the reason I wrote the song — we put (footage) behind me,” Nicks says. “It’s just stunning. I can hardly keep from bursting into tears … it’s so poignant when I’m singing it.”

Joining Nicks for “Circle Dance,” a Bonnie Raitt cover, will be her opening act, up-and-coming singer/songwriter Vanessa Carlton, who’s touring behind her sophomore release, “Harmonium.”

“I’ve been friends with Vanessa for quite a while,” Nicks says. “Really, I think she’s one of the great ones. I want to take her on tour so I can put her in front of a lot of people, so people can see how great she is and remember that amazing first album.

“She’s a new artist … in this age of total chaos in the music business, if you don’t sell 10 million copies of your album, you’re just out of luck. It’s so hard. I want to do what I can to help her. I think she’s great. I think she’s one of those people who will still be around in 30 years when I’m dead. I want some of these women to not give up. We need them.”

Having survived numerous personal and career ups and downs, including drug addiction and sometimes turbulent relations with Fleetwood Mac, Nicks has been embraced by many female artists who followed her.

Her last solo album, 2001’s “Trouble in Shangri-La” featured contributions from Sheryl Crow, who produced some tracks, Macy Gray and Dixie Chick Natalie Maines, who subsequently covered “Landslide,” Nicks’ 1975 Fleetwood Mac hit.

“I’m thrilled that I can be some sort of an influence to these women,” Nicks says. “I hope I’ve been a good influence to them, so they’ll totally keep going.

“I think the music business is in terrible trouble. They don’t nurture artists. If you have a big hit record and a big hit single and you don’t follow it up, you are s–t out of luck.”

Nicks knows of what she speaks. Originally a duo with Lindsay Buckingham, her then-boyfriend, the two were dropped by their label after their 1973 debut didn’t sell well.

“Lindsay and I were dropped like a rock,” she recalls. “If it weren’t that we had a great producer who supported us full on for three years, we never would have made it.”

They joined Fleetwood Mac in 1975 and helped turn the band into one of the most successful groups of the 1970s and ’80s. The group’s Grammy-winning 1977 release, “Rumours,” sold 17 million copies, making it one of the best sellers of all time. Fleetwood Mac was inducted into the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame in 1998.

Today, the group’s best-known line up, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Buckingham and Nicks (minus Christine McVie), is on hiatus, but still together. Nicks says the Mac probably will tour in 2007.

“We get all the rumors that Fleetwood Mac is going to break up,” Nicks says. “Fleetwood Mac is never going to break up. We have our problems. We go away from each other. We spend time with family and and friends and the problems go away, and you get back together and everyone’s excited.”

However, Christine McVie, has left the group, much to Nicks’ disappointment.

“In my wildest dreams, I would hope Christine would change her mind and come back,” she says. “If there’s anything I could do to change her mind, I would be in London to get her back.

“Unless she has a total mind meld and decides she’s ready to rock again, I don’t think she’s every going to come back.”

Once Nicks wraps her solo tour in September, she will come full circle to a favorite project: to make a film based on the books of Rhiannon, the mythical character who inspired one of her best known songs.

“This would be somewhere between `Braveheart’ and `The Lord of the Rings’ and `Star Wars,'” Nicks says. “It’s generations of gods and goddesses … it’s the stories the Welsh left behind — how to be in love, how to have kids, how not to fight your benefactors, how to run the world basically — told through the eyes of a fairy tale.

“I feel like it’s my spiritual path to do this. I wanted to do this in 1980. It was in my original contract with Atlantic Records. I was excited then as I am now. Then my whole solo career was busting. It had to be put on the back burner. I feel like it’s come to the surface in a big way.

“People might go, `Oh, I’m so sure.’ But when I get in my head I’m going to do something, I’m never not successful. I feel like when you’re as passionate about something like this as I am, you can make it happen.”

 

Stevie Nicks with Vanessa Carlton
WHEN: 8 p.m. Thursday, June 30, and 8 p.m. Friday, July 1
WHERE: Event Center at Borgata, Atlantic City
HOW MUCH: Tickets are $75, $95 and $125 and available at Borgata box office or Ticketmaster at (800) 736-1420 or www.ticketmaster.com

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/entertainment/casinos/cas_inter.shtml
Reviews, Solo Activity, Stevie Nicks, Tour Info

Stevie Nicks – Summerfest Review, OnWisconsin.com July 2005

Nicks’ power isn’t fleeting – She makes most of her own show

summerfest05

By GEMMA TARLACH
OnWisconsin.com
July 4, 2005

Who needs Don Henley?

Stevie Nicks performs Monday night at the Marcus Amphitheater. The amphitheater was only half-full, but Nicks gave a full-scale performance in her Summerfest appearance.

Stevie Nicks, originally scheduled to co-headline a Summerfest show with her occasional duet partner, put on a heady “Leather and Lace” show all on her own Monday night at the Marcus Amphitheater. Alternating dreamy power ballads with utter rock-outs – including her first encore, a feisty run-through of Led Zeppelin’s “Rock and Roll” -Nicks was more force of nature than mere front woman during a two-hour set. At a time when the women of pop music are too often stripper wannabes lip-synching to a song someone else wrote, Nicks’ classy and commanding presence felt like a revelation.

With her sleek blond hair and a succession of floaty, sparkly, mostly black outfits, Nicks’ appearance remained timeless, as did her voice. Her distinctive smoky alto was as powerful as ever, particularly on “Landslide,” final encore “Beauty and the Beast” and “Has Anyone Ever Written Anything for You,” a song Nicks dedicated to “all those kids who we’re going to help” after making a pitch to the audience to sign an online petition to end world poverty.

Nicks mixed signature hits from her time in Fleetwood Mac, such as “Rhiannon,” with unexpected gems that included a cover of Bonnie Raitt’s “Circle Dance.”

But it was arguably the chunks of the set from her own successful solo career that packed the most power, including “Fall From Grace” and “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” with longtime guitarist Waddy Wachtel standing in for Tom Petty on the vocal duel with Nicks.

Despite an amphitheater that was barely half-full, Nicks and her nine-piece backing band never lagged in their energy or seemed in a hurry to get back to the tour bus.

Before the encores, the band riffed on “Edge of 17” for several minutes as a gracious Nicks shook fans’ hands and kissed one little girl in the crowd.

Wouldn’t it be nice if that little girl went home realizing chicks can write their own songs and rock out well into their 50s?

Self-possessed beyond her years and downright charming, opening act Vanessa Carlton overcame some early breathiness on set opener “Ordinary Day” to wow the crowd with a half-hour collection of songs, including the new “This Time.” Alone on stage with her piano, Carlton proved she has much more substance to offer than her vanilla hit “Thousand Miles.” Among the highlights was “White Houses,” a thoughtful reflection on losing one’s virginity – and a song deemed too risqué for booty-loving MTV, an irony Carlton noted during her tart introduction of the song.

Reviews, Stevie Nicks, Tour Info

Stevie Nicks – Nostalgia Is A Good Thing, Cincinnati.Com, June 2005

For Stevie Nicks Nostalgia is a Good Thing

June 29, 2005
By Chris Varias
Cincinnati.Com

bildeStevie Nicks performed Tuesday night at Riverbend.

At this point in her career, it’s hard not to label Stevie Nicks a nostalgia rocker. This isn’t discrimination. It’s less a case of ageism (the fabled Fleetwood Mac alumna turned 57 last month) than one of no-big-hits-in-a-mighty-long-time-ism. There wasn’t one significant new song performed during her show at Riverbend Tuesday night, probably because she hasn’t recorded a significant song in at least 20 years.

However, as far as the crowd was concerned, the last two decades don’t matter, and nostalgia is a good thing. As long as Nicks’ 2005 singing voice resembles the 1975 version, and the old tunes deliver those bygone chills, she will continue to twirl her way into her fans’ hearts.

Backed by a seven-man band and two singers, Nicks belted her way through a 16-song set that focused on her solo career, with occasional nods to the Mac. The band was outstanding, stacked with lace session players like guitarist Waddy Wachtel and longtime Fleetwood Mac collaborators like multi-instrumentalist Brett Tuggle

The hit parade began with “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” her 1981 duet with Tom Petty. Wachtel helped out on vocals for Petty’s parts.

It was soon followed by the one-two Fleetwood Mac punch of “Dreams” and “Rhiannon.” Nicks played with each number’s phrasing a bit, but never to the point of getting in the way of the song. She knew better than to spoil what was for the crowd a moment of back-to-back, adult-contemporary, yesteryear magic.

The lesser-known “Sorcerer,” with its fanciful imagery, offered Nicks the opportunity to switch into witchy-woman mode, as the video screen flickered with medieval visions of crystals and skeletons and wizards and such.

The next song, “Stand Back,” began with a long percussion intro, which served as the moment for Nicks to fetch her black and gold shawl from backstage. She would need the shawl to accentuate her many twirls (unofficial count: 18 360-degree turns) during the song’s guitar solo and climactic ending.

Other highlights that measured up to repeated spinning included a version of “Gold Dust Woman,” with its tick-tock drum opening immediately setting off cheers; a true-to-the-original acoustic version of “Landslide”; an epic “Edge of Seventeen,” with a lengthy percussion piece starting things off and few great Wachtel guitar solos along the way.

Led Zeppelin’s “Rock and Roll” was an interesting choice for an encore song. “It’s been a long time since I rock and rolled,” she sang, which could be her way of telling the world she’s a nostalgia act and proud of it.

Singer-piano player Vanessa Carlton, a 24-year-old who sings as pretty as she plays, did a 30-minute solo opening set that included familiar songs like “A Thousand Miles” and “Ordinary Day” plus a few new and unreleased tunes.

Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Nicks

Stevie Nicks – Long Distance Winner

LONG DISTANCE WINNER – Surviving the 70s
ANDY CAPPER
Viceland.com
May 2005

I’m 56 now, but music still has the same effect on me as when I was 15. Every so often, I’ll hear a couple of songs that will just kill me and make me go instantly to my desk to write, and then straight to the piano to compose. That feeling is something that’s never gone away and I feel really blessed by that.

I know some people say they used to write better when they were younger, but I feel the greatest writing for me is yet to come. I’m always working on new material and I’m always inspired. At the moment, I’m going between preparing for a short residency at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas and composing a series of songs based on the books of Rhiannon, these Welsh legends that I really love. They’re such beautiful stories. It’s what the old Welsh people left behind to teach future generations about how to raise their children and how to deal with relationships—how to run their lives, basically.

Another thing that inspires me in my music at the moment is my niece Jesse. She’s 13 but she’s an inch taller than me, with black hair and blue eyes. Sometimes when I’m running on my treadmill and listening to music on my CD player, I’ll be singing and howling along while Jesse’s in the same room and I’ll make her listen to how the singer is singing. Jesse was with me when I wrote four songs for the last Fleetwood Mac album, and she even got to sing on the title track, “Say You Will.” That was fun. Continue reading Stevie Nicks – Long Distance Winner →

Fleetwood Mac, Mick Fleetwood, Stevie Nicks

Mick and Stevie at the 20th Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Ceremony I Mar 2005

nicks_rrhof2005

20th Annual Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony
Modern Guitarist
March 19, 2005
Words by Hugh Ochoa
Photographs by Hugh Ochoa and Sean North

The press room was behind the stage of the ceremony ballroom, and it was to this room the inductees and inductors were brought after an induction for photos and interviews. It was a pleasant surprise when Stevie Nicks and Mick Fleetwood arrived and agreed to a Q&A session and photo op in the press room.

When Nicks was asked about her up-coming “Vegas Tour” she replied, “Well, it’s not really a tour, it’s just four days. I am looking forward to it, because it’s a chance to play and do something where you don’t really have to travel. So for me, as an almost 57-year-old woman, this looks very good, because it means you can put all of your energy into the show as opposed to travelling all over the United States. So it would be a nice thing for me to be able to do till I’m a very old little old lady.”

“Where are you doing the shows?” Nicks was asked.

“I think Caesar’s. I’m not a gambler so I’m not really familiar with all that.”

When queried about her participation in the movie “School Of Rock” she replied, “Well I have to tell you, I actually watched that with a 15-year-old who didn’t know I was in it and I didn’t mention that. And it was so trippy and so much fun because though I’d seen it once it was wonderful to see it with someone that young. I felt very honoured to have been the only woman actually mentioned in that movie. So for me, I have to say, you know, it was the neatest thing ever to happen to me.

Mick Fleetwood stated in regards to the band, “The future of Fleetwood Mac…uhh…”

“We’re resting.” Nicks helps out.

“We’re resting.” Fleetwood concurs. “We had a long recording period and then went out and did the better part of 2 years work all over the world. So having a hiatus…”

“135 shows” Nicks interjects.

“…but there’s always a Fleetwood Mac story somewhere,” continues Fleetwood. “But I’m enjoying being at home to tell you the truth.” [laughs]

Nicks adds, “I think, you know, what happened is that we started “Say You Will”, in uh…I started with everybody on February 2, 2002 ,and then it took over a year to record and then 3 months of rehearsal and then 135 shows in a year-and-a-half of touring so we’re just resting right now because we feel that, as all wonderful things go, you come out, and you know, you make a big show of it, and then you go away for a little bit, and rest, so that when you come back, it’s all wonderful again”.

When asked if there was any chance of Christie ever coming back to perform with FM again, Mick replied in a very slow and solemn tone, “I think very, very slim next to nothing, so I will say, ‘No’. Ah, but we miss her.”

Nicks added when asked if they were going to perform or be on stage or if they are just fans, “We’re just here to watch, because we both feel that being in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame is our greatest honor and if we can possibly be here for whoever is being inducted, then we will be here. Cause it’s important and it’s our club and it’s very very special.”

Mick adds, “I’m overjoyed Mr. Buddy Guy is being inducted tonight. It’s just great to see a gentle man being inducted and I think Eric is gonna play with him, so I’m thrilled. A blues man at heart I am. So there you go.”

Finally, when asked about the most gratifying part of the band, Nicks concludes, “Well, the most gratifying part is to be a member of a band, especially a band that is as good, I think, as my band is probably the best thing that I’ve ever done in my whole life. Fleetwood Mac is the thing that I am most proud of, and I think that this man would agree that it’s something that we love really deeply and it’s wonderful that everybody loves it too, but for us, it’s like the most…it’s like our life, you know. It’s been our life since 1975 and for Mick even way before, when Fleetwood Mac was first formed. So it’s a long, incredible special, yellow brick road.”

 

Release Info, Solo Activity, Stevie Nicks

Music To My Ears | Billboard Magazine

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Billboard Magazine
by Timothy White
April 8th, 1998

A quarter-century ago, Stevie Nicks penned a tune about embracing a paradox, its music an upward spiral that predicted a corresponding descent, its lyrics contemplating the change that only comes from awareness of the unchangeable. The song ultimately celebrates the victory that arrives by agreeing to allow others to triumph.

On the eve of the release of “Enchanted” (Atlantic, due April 28) the engaging three-CD, 46 track retrospective – with eight unreleased cuts – of Nicks’ lengthy solo career, it seems the soon-to-be 50-year old sing/songwriter, who wrote the lovely “Long Distance Winner” as half of an early – ’70’s duo Buckingham-Nicks, has finally found the wisdom to learn from the intuition of her 25-year-old self.

“Back then, ‘Long Distance Winner’ was very much about dealing with Lindsey,” says Nicks, referring to Lindsey Buckingham, her artistic and emotional partner in the interval before their act merged with a subsequently revitalized Fleetwood Mac. “How else can I say it?” she wonders aloud, quoting a passage of the “Enchanted” track resurrected from the long out of print “Buckingham-Nicks” album: “I bring the water down to you/But you’re too hot to touch.”

“What the song is really all about,” Nicks confides, “is a difficult artist, saying ‘I adore you, but you’re difficult. And I’ll stay here with you, but you are still difficult” And the line ‘Sunflowers and your face fascinates me’ means that your beauty fascinates me, but I still have trouble dealing with you – and I still stay. So it’s really just the age old story, you know?” Meaning the inability to live with someone and the inability to live without them.

According to Nicks, who starts a 40-date US solo concert trek May 27 in Hartford, Conn., Buckingham’s stubborn but admirable streak lay in his unwillingness to compromise his composing to play in clubs, playing four sets a night in a steakhouse, whereas I was much more able to be practical.” That was then, and this is now, an era in which Nicks and the tempestuous Fleetwood Mac were able to set aside their collective differences, focus on teamwork, and reunite for the hugely fruitful “The Dance” live record and tour.

Stevie is quick to assert that the Mac now “plays way better than we did in the beginning” and readily agrees that the material selected for ‘The Dance’ boasts even better arrangements than the vintage renditions. Yet she admits her own personal and artistic intransigence of old: ‘Gold and Braid’, another song on ‘Enchanted’ is an unreleased track from my (1981) Bella Donna’ (solo debut) sessions, and it’s about Lindsey wanting more from me in our relationship. But wanting to know everything about someone, which goes hand in hand with being in love, was never something I’ve ever wanted to share with anybody. Professionally, everybody always wanted me to be their idea of what I should be. I’d flat-out look at people and say, “you know I’m not gonna do what you want, so why do you bother?”

“I’ve learned from mistakes,” she adds. “I got fat, and on the Dr. Atkins diet I had to lose 30 pounds I had been trying to lose for four or five years. But people have come into my career and wrongly told me, “Change your music, reinvent yourself! I just stayed what I am.”

Which is a real rock’n’roll character; a true one-of-a-kind piece of work. “Thank you!” she responds, erupting into giggles edged with her trademark throaty rasp. “People used to laugh at my musical style or my black handkerchiefy stage clothes, which make me look like an orphan out of ‘A Tale of Two Cities,’ and say ‘Oh, that’s very Stevie Nicks.’But now people in the fashion industry (like designers Anna Sui and Isaac Mizrachi) are giving me these accolades. If you believe in something and stick it out, it’ll come around, and you’ll win in the end.”

Other familiar criticism of Nicks center on her devotion in both composing and common-day activities to a heavily mystical life view. Possibly the single most recurrent image in her material, as illustrated by the “Sleeping Angel” cut that “Enchanted” retrieves from the 1982 “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” soundtrack, is a supporting cast of heavenly spirits. “I am religious,” Nicks explains. I wasn’t raised in any religion, because we were always moving when I was a kid and didn’t get involved in any church. But I believe there’ve been angels with me constantly through these last 20 years, or I wouldn’t be alive. I pray a lot. In the last few years I’ve asked for things from God, and he’s given them to me. And there were things I thought were going to kill me, and he fixed them. I felt that because I was fat I wasn’t talented anymore; I was destroying this gift God gave me and asked for help. Now I’m happy, even outside my music, and enjoying my life.

Stephanie Nicks was born May 26, 1948, the daughter of General Brewing president Jess Nicks and the former Barbara Meeks. “My mother’s mom and dad were divorced very early,” says Stevie, “and her stepfather worked in a coal mine in Ajo, Arizona, and died of tuberculosis. She had a hard life, was very poor, was 19 when she got married, had me at 20. My dad went after a big job in a big company, got it, did very well, and liked to move around and travel a lot. My mom got used to it and had a lot of fun, but she’s much more practical, frugal – she still sniffs her nose at my dad’s and my experience tastes – and she wanted more than anything else for her daughter and son (Christopher) to be independent and self assured.”

“I didn’t want to be married or have children,” Nicks confesses, “because then I couldn’t have worked as hard on all this. I would have split the whole thing down the middle, and I wouldn’t have been a good mother, or a good song writer either. If I got a call from the love of my life and a call from Fleetwood Mac saying you have to be here in 20 minutes, I’d still probably go to Fleetwood Mac. And that’s sad, but it’s true.”

Over the years Nicks has overcome substance abuse, serious eye surgery, the Epstein-Barr virus, and a host of detractors eager to diminish her musical contributions. Yet “Enchanted” documents a resilience and a wry candor – “I’m no enchantress!” she pointedly exclaims on the albums “Blue Lamp” – as well as a parallel path to her Big Mac experience, characterized by productivity and solo success equaling or exceeding that of her talented bandmates. Nick’s work is un-apologetically feminine in the face of the boys’ club that is rock. Consistently tuneful and sure in its spell-weaving , Nicks’ music also has surprising staying power, as show by “If Anyone Falls,” one of the best and sexiest pop/rock singles of the ’80s, and Enchanted’s” frank “Thousand Days,” which could close the ’90s on a similar note.

“‘Thousand Days’ was written about my non-relationship with Prince,” says Nicks, who had earlier composed “Stand Back” with him – although she notes he’s never called her back “to set up his payment on 50%” of the latter. “Days” recounts an abortive, all-night ’80s recording session with him at his Minneapolis home during a Fleetwood Mac tour, climaxing with Nicks “smoking my pot – he didn’t agree with my lifestyle – and going to sleep on Prince’s floor in his kitchen. I like him, but we were just so different there was no possible meeting ground.”

With current colleagues/collaborators does she most admire?

“Alanis Morissette, Joan Osborne, Sheryl Crow (who co-authored “Somebody Stand By Me” on “Enchanted”), and Fiona Apple, who’s very young and angry. I care about her and hope she’s OK. Fame is dangerous ground when you are young. You have gotta pace yourself.”

Release Info, Solo Activity, Stevie Nicks

Rumours Tribute and Stevie Nicks box fans Fleetwood Mac Flames | ICE Magazine

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ICE Magazine
February 1998

In 1997, the RUMOURS-era lineup of Fleetwood Mac returned to the spotlight with a highly publicized live album (The Dance), an MTV special of the same name and a mega-successful reunion tour. Two new projects are likely to keep the Mac’s profile high through the first quarter of 1998: RUMOURS REVISITED, a various-artists salute to the band’s 1997 magnum opus, and ENCHANTED, a three-CD Stevie Nicks box set featuring two best-of discs and one CD filled with soundtrack songs, unheard outtakes, home demos and the like. The tribute album is due March 17 from Lava/Atlantic, while the Nicks box arrives a week later, on March 24, from Modern/Atlantic.

Modern/Atlantic has March 24 slated for ENCHANTED, the new three-CD box set covering Stevie Nicks’ career (apart from Fleetwood Mac). The first two CDs present the best tracks from Nicks’ five solo albums: BELLA DONNA, THE WILD HEART, ROCK A LITTLE, THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MIRROR and STREET ANGEL. Also included are four non-album B-sides mixed in with the album tracks: “Edge of Seventeen” (the unedited eight-minute live version, only released promotionally), “Garbo”, “One More Big Time Rock and Roll Star” and “Real Tears”.

All tracks on the first two discs are being presented in their original mixes. At the beginning of the decade, Nicks remixed much of her best material for a greatest-hits disc called TIMESPACE. So the thinking was, ENCHANTED would be a good forum to re-present the original mixes.

The third disc of ENCHANTED contains all of the collector’s items, and its contents were still being finalized at press time. Tentative plans called for the following 15 tracks to be included:

“Crying in the Night” ~ from the coveted BUCKINGHAM NICKS album that Nicks recorded with lifelong collaborator Lindsey Buckingham back in the early ’70s. The marks the first official CD release of any track from that album, generally considered to be “America’s most wanted” missing CD. We asked a source closely involved with the project how this particular track was chosen. “We sat down with the tracks that had the bulk of her lead vocals on them,” our source says, “and we all agreed that this was the catchiest track, and the one that people would probably enjoy the most. It was also the first single from BUCKINGHAM NICKS back then.”

“Whenever I Call You Friend” ~ sung with Kenny Loggins, from the latter’s 1978 album NIGHTWATCH.

“Gold” ~ done with John Stewart, from Stewart’s 1979 album BOMBS AWAY DREAM BABIES.

“Blue Lamp” ~ from the HEAVY METAL soundtrack, a cult item itself which was unavailable on CD for years. A track from the BELLA DONNA era.

“Sleeping Angel” ~ from the 1982 soundtrack for FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH.

“Golden Braid” ~ unreleased outtake from THE WILD HEART. Fans may be familiar with it from Nicks’ concerts, but this is the unreleased studio version. Both “Sleeping Angel” and “Golden Braid” are outtakes from THE WILD HEART.

“Violet and Blue” ~ from the 1984 soundtrack to AGAINST ALL ODDS.

“I Pretend” ~ performed with singer-songwriter Sandy Stewart, from the latter’s 1984 album CAT DANCERS. “Sandy wrote and performed with Stevie during THE WILD HEART/ROCK A LITTLE era,” says our source. “She co-wrote, and performs on, ‘Nightbird.’ So this duet, from Sandy’s album which is out of print, is kind of a payback.”

“Battle of The Dragons” ~ from the 1986 soundtrack to AMERICAN ANTHEM.

“Thousand Days” ~ an unreleased performance.

“Somebody Stand By Me” ~ from the 1995 BOYS ON THE SIDE soundtrack.

“Free Fallin'” ~ from the 1996 PARTY OF FIVE album.

“Twisted” ~ Nicks’ songwriting demo of the song that wound up on the 1996 TWISTER motion picture soundtrack. “It’s her playing guitar, with something like a percussion loop, and Jesse Valenzuela of Gin Blossoms adding a little mandolin part,” says our source. “It’s structurally different from the version that ended up on TWISTER. It’s really nice, kind of pure and sweet. Recorded in her living room, by her, on 4-track.”

“It’s Late” ~ a cover of Ricky Nelson’s 1959 hit, also with Valenzuela on guitar. “It’s an unusual side of her,” says our source. “It has kind of a rockabilly feel.”

“Reconsider Me” ~ an unreleased outtake from ROCK A LITTLE, written by Warren Zevon, with vocal parts added by Don Henley.

The new box set will be housed in a 6×10-inch package with digitrays, much like the box sets by Abba, The Police and Bob Marley. Tentative plans call for a 64-page booklet with lyrics to all the songs, musician credits, liner notes by Larry Flick of BILLBOARD, an introductory essay by Nicks, and lots of unreleased photos, including some taken by the artist herself. Superimposed over some of the photos will be handwritten extracts from Nicks’ diaries, revealing personal reflections on particular moments in her career. Her brother, Christopher, served as art director for the project, and our source says that Nicks “has been extremely involved in every aspect of the box set.” Published reports also indicate that Nicks will tour this spring in support of the project.

Solo Activity, Stevie Nicks, UK Articles

Come Into My Parlour | VOX Magazine, Feb 1992

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Spencer Bright
VOX Magazine
February 1992

STEVIE NICKS INTERVIEW
Come Into My Parlour

Deserted by Mick Fleetwood, bullied by her record company and haunted by the memory of four abortions, Stevie Nicks is rich but not happy.

Spencer Bright breaks out the Kleenex for the woman who couldn’t go her own way.

Homely snaps by George Bodnar

SN-VOX1

I pull a Kleenex from its box and hand it to Stevie Nicks. She wipes a tear as it slides down her cheek. She cries when she speaks of Mick Fleetwood, she cries when she speaks of the babies she might have had and she cries when she speaks of the bullies in the record industry shoving her around. She’s like a damsel in distress in her castle, and we’re in her fairyland lounge. There is a warm glow from the chunky candles and the blue flame of the log fire, while outside in LA the temperature sizzles up in the 80s.

Stevie points out her favourite chaise lounge. Her favourite doll, which resembles her, sits regally upon it. One, a favourite 12-year old garment, is loosely draped around the chanteuse. Stevie needs the comfort of long-familiar possessions: they stress a continuity and equilibrium that have been sadly lacking in her emotional life.

To say that Stevie Nicks is considered flaky is a mild understatement. But, as with so many things Nicksian, it’s a mythical fog that masks the true woman. She isn’t just a mystical old crone running a witches’ coven in the Hollywood Hills: the fantasy world she appears to inhabit actually stems from her love of England, notably it’s history, kings and queens.

Her home is Encino- up the road from Dave Stewart’s house and over the brow of the hill from that of her former lover Tom Petty- is the sort of chocolate box creation you’d expect to find in a theme park. From the outside it’s a Tudor mansion with elephantitis: as you enter there’s a drained waterfall replaced by plants and flowers running alongside the winding brick staircase.

Climbing the stairs it changes from medieval to Hansel and Gretel, as the carved wooden banisters meander perpendicularly up three more stories. At the top of the house is an octagonal bell tower, but there’s no bell: just a viewing platform and windows where Stevie, her friends, and employees go to watch the sun set over San Fernando Valley.

I’m given a guided tour that the barman at my hotel would have died and gone to heaven for. There’s Stevie’s giant four poster bed with lace cushions and lacy covers. In the adjoining dressing room a sweet musty smell of perfume hangs in the air. All around are satin and silk nightgowns bunched on hangers.

Stevie says she bought this house because she could imagine Ann Boleyn living here. When Stevie Nicks first made money with Fleetwood Mac she was able to fulfill  her Dickensian fantasies of looking like a “ragged doll”- she came out resembling between the Artful Dodger, Bill Sykes’ girlfriend Nancy from “Oliver Twist” and Miss Haversham from “Great Expectations.”

Stevie is not quite sure where this obsession with things English came from: “It was born into me. Maybe my last life was in England.” Thus when, in January 1975, a 6’5″ English eccentric named Mick Fleetwood came and asked Stevie and her boyfriend Lindsay [sic] Buckingham to join his band, she had to say yes “Just the idea that this band was English was reason enough to join. It was a dream come true.” At the age of 26, Stevie saw the new group as the perfect opportunity to learn about kings, queens, princes, and princesses.

Fleetwood perfectly matched her dreams. “The first time Mick walked into the room I thought I was witnessing the entrance of an English king, because that’s how he looked to me. He was wearing a burgundy-coloured, water silk vest (waistcoat) with a watchchain and a very long jacket that was really nipped in at the waist, and beautifully made pants. I was awestruck, and still am to this day of Mick’s presence. The whole air around him is power.” The people who saw Fleetwood’s performance on the Brits Awards with Samantha Fox may find this a little difficult to accept.

Previously, Lindsay [sic] Buckingham had dominated Stevie. He was the artist; he didn’t know how to do anything but music. “What was he going to do, sell shoes? I had a $50,000 education, I could do anything.” Her waitress job paid for the rent, the food, the car. “I knew it was going to take my strength to push Lindsay and I over the edge if we were going to make it in the music business.”

After Buckingham came a rogues’ gallery of powerful rock and roll suitors not known for their wimpishness: Joe Walsh, Don Henley, Tom Petty, and producers Jimmy Iovine and Rupert Hine. And the man who called his on the road dalliances an attack of “veal viper,” Mick Fleetwood. All get their individual tributes on Stevie’s ‘Best Of’ compilation album, “Timespace.”

In parallel with the last ten years of Fleetwood Mac, Stevie enjoyed the most successful solo career of the whole group. Her first solo album “Bella Donna” sold ten million copies, and subsequent collections have enjoyed less spectacular but still respectable sales. Now, though, with the apparently final demise of Fleetwood Mac, Stevie is suffering a personal and professional crisis.

The recent Fleetwood Mac troubles can be traced to an old Nicks song called “Silver Springs.” So taken was Stevie’s mother by this number that she was moved to open an antique clothing shop in Phoenix with the same name. Stevie made a gift of the song to her.

“Silver Springs” nearly became a classic, but was dropped at the last minute from the 20 million-selling “Rumours” album. Stevie thought it would be nice to resurrect the song and place it on “Timespace.” But Mick Fleetwood refused to give up the group’s performance rights: he wants the option of having the number on a boxed set due for this year’s commemoration of Fleetwood Mac’s 25th anniversary.

” I have told the world what a vile thing it was that Mick Fleetwood had done to me, who has fought like a dog to keep this band from breaking up. I don’t really know what’s going through Mick’s mind. He never returned a phone call, and he never felt it was his duty to sit down and write a letter to tell me why.

“He’s always been very English, and very proper and sometimes very arrogant, but to me, a very close and loving friend. And somebody that I always felt I could trust and love,” says Stevie, wiping away the tears.

“He has always been the boss of the group. He has always made all the decisions. And he has always made them without asking anyone else. So he had no reason to do this to us. To break up the whole band.”

In the tradition of rock and roll’s longest running soap opera, Stevie has Fleetwood’s soon-to-be ex wife Sarah [sic] on her side. “She’s singing with me now, she’s a very good friend. She’s divorcing Mick after being with him for 13 years: they are completely separated. She doesn’t understand.”

Stevie has included “Beauty and the Beast” on “Timespace,” a song written after her affair with Mick in the late 70’s. She explains that it is not a dig at him being a beast, but about the beauty and the beast within us all. The album’s sleeve notes are full of similar references to her ex-lovers.

Was there a common thread among her men? “They are all very smart and very loving, and they all had a difficult time with my life and the way that I live it and how busy I am.” For four lovers, a crucial test came when she became pregnant and opted for terminations. “It’s always been a tragedy. But they understood.” But they didn’t really. “Eventually, their hearts couldn’t take it, they couldn’t understand quite enough, how deeply embedded in this I was. And so it eventually hurt them too much and they had to leave, or face devastation on their own.”

She put her relationship with her fans before a relationship with one man. Ever since she saw Janis Joplin perform, she wanted to emulate her, to achieve that state of communion with the crowd. “I just wanted to be in love with my audience and I wanted them to be in love with me back.”

But now there is remorse at the havoc her abortions have wreaked on her psyche. “To give up four (babies) is to give up a lot that would be here now. So that really bothers me, a lot, and really breaks my heart. But they’re gone, so…” she composes herself. “But I couldn’t because I was too busy. And I had all these commitments.” She wants to adopt, but age and single-parenthood are against her.

“I’ve also thought about having one myself but I’m booked up for the next four years. I don’t know, at my age, if I can get pregnant right away, do an album at the same time, have a baby, promote the album, go on tour with the baby. So I’m going back and forth in my mind. At 43 years old, my time clock is ticking, so I can’t afford to wait around for very long.” Surely these are the same excuses she made on the last four occasions- with two important differences. There is no obvious candidate for the father, and even if there were, the decision remains totally in her hands.

In an epic inversion of the star’s role, she is subservient to the 40 people who depend on her for their livelihoods. “I don’t know quite how to walk away without hurting a lot of people- even though every one of those people would say ‘You’ve done a lot for us and we know that you love us, but go and do something for yourself for a change.’ But I just can’t.”

The determination, toughness and pragmatism that helped her achieve success now seem elusive, but what hurts most is being pushed around by business moguls. She is smarting from the inclusion- against her wishes- of Jon Bon Jovi’s aptly titled song “Sometimes It’s a Bitch” on “Timespace.”

“I was told at the beginning of this year that if I didn’t do a song by Jon Bon Jovi then my career was over. I don’t have any reason to hate Jon Bon Jovi. He wrote me a song, that was a very wonderful thing to do. I knew that just me singing that kind of a song wasn’t going to go over with a lot of my fans, which it hasn’t. But I was told by the industry, by management, by the record companies, and by everyone else, that if I did NOT do this, and reach this new audience, that my career was simply, finally, completely over.

“They exerted all the pressure you could possibly exert, they scared me to death. So I did the song, and is it a big hit song? No, it’s not.” She found it particularly distasteful to sing the word “bitch,” which she considers a swear word. Stevie concedes that she has difficulty challenging authority figures.

It all makes her appear so fragile. While we speak she only opens her doe eyes to wipe away the tears, preferring instead to look down when talk gets serious. There are no crutches anymore. She gave up the cocaine and alcohol in 1986 when she admitted herself to the Betty Ford Center.

Bad as she was, she still had the inner strength to take control of her destiny, probably because she was in mortal danger. One night while there she was inspired to write a personal creed: “I am not special. I am not infallible. I am dying.”

“I started crying really hard, and I wrote under it something to the effect, never forget these three lines. And so I feel that yes, I can write stories for people. I can tell stories to people, but that I’m not indestructible and that I’m not special. And that I was dying. So, that was a very big turning point at Betty Ford for me.”

If Fleetwood Mac had been told to do “Sometimes It’s a Bitch” she thinks she knows what would probably have happened. “Mick would’ve ridden in on his white horse and swept me up and told them all to go to hell and say I won’t let her do it.” The tragedy is that after all these struggles, Stevie Nicks is a victim once again.

SHOOTING STEVIE

VOX was privilaged to receive a guided tour of Stevie Nicks’s home. However, since several previous attempts at photographing the interior of her mansion had not matched up to her idea of how it should look, Nicks chose to recreate the interior in sympathetic lighting conditions.

Two days later later Ms Nicks summoned our photographer to a professional sound-stage at a studio near LA International airport. There, with the aid of two articulated lorries of furniture, clothes, dolls and assorted knick-knacks, she recreated her bedroom.

A staff of more that a dozen people – including caterers (note the bulging fridge), lighting men, set builders, make-up artists, hairdressers and a mysterious ‘personal assistant’ – spent a whole day recreating the authentic ambiance of Stevie’s home.

All of this was done at her own cost. But Ms Nicks is no stranger to excess. During the last Fleetwood Mac world tour she had every hotel room she stayed in redecorated to her personal taste – and at her own considerable cost.

Archive News, Release Info, Solo Activity, Stevie Nicks, UK Articles

In The Nicks of Time | Record Mirror

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Record Mirror
May 20, 1989

Stevie Nicks is one of pop’s most enduring personalities. As she releases her first solo album since 1986, Robin Smith meets the Joan Collins of rock and discovers a born survivor who’s just a romantic at heart


Stevie Nicks’ hotel suite is so large you could land a jumbo jet on the carpet or convert the place into an indoor golf course. But somehow, a smaller room just wouldn’t suit her. After all, Ms Nicks’ vocals have powered Fleetwood Mac to becoming one of the best seling groups of all time and she’s also pursued a very lucrative solo career. Her new single, ‘Rooms On Fire’, is nestling as comfortably in the charts as Stevie reclining on a plush sofa.

Stevie Nicks is the Joan Collins of pop. The struggling musician who scraped together a living as a waitress before she was whisked away to a limousine lifestyle. En route she’s suffered several broken love affairs, extreme loneliness and a drugs problem.

“Sometimes I think that not even the bubbliest, wildest soap opera could compare with being in Fleetwood Mac,” chuckles Stevie. “We’ve done a lot of laughing and a lot of bleeding in the band and I don’t think there are another group of people I could work with. There’s such a chemistry and a feeling of love and respect between us.” Continue reading In The Nicks of Time | Record Mirror →