Stevie Nicks is one of rock music’s most iconic figures.
And the 69-year-old singer-songwriter has talked about her affinity for the gypsy-like lifestyle, instilled in her at an early age as a result of her father’s work as the vice-president of Greyhound Buses and president of a food company.
‘I was able to go into new schools and make new friends. My brother, on the other hand, didn’t cope with it so well,’ she told Stellar.
‘I was always that gypsy’: Stevie Nicks has talked about her affinity for the gypsy-like lifestyle, instilled in her at an early age as a result of her father’s work
This extended into her life on the road with Fleetwood Mac in 1975, and her successful solo career, which followed in the 80s.
‘So the thing is, am I still that gypsy? Well, I was always that gypsy,’ she said.
Even today, life on the road sees the Landslide singer travel around the world to perform shows.
Fleetwood Mac operates on one’s imagination in a way few other bands can — whether within your musical memory, or onstage at Dodger Stadium as they were Sunday night (July 16), for the second evening of Classic West.
Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Scoop Marketing Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac performs during The Classic West at Dodger Stadium on July 16, 2017 in Los Angeles.
The sweetly intoned, plaintive melodies of Christine McVie, the now-gentle, now-angry mini-operas of Stevie Nicks, and what might be called the ecstatic agonies (“Bleed To Love Her,” anyone?) of Lindsey Buckingham, all swirl into an understanding that emotion will come to the fore. The shorthand for their genre is “hits,” and they delivered plenty to a crowd that roared appreciatively from the time the lights went down to usher in “The Chain” to the last notes of “Don’t Stop,” 20 songs later.
The inherent drama that suffuses any Fleetwood Mac performance might be baldly stated as “Who’s still in love with whom?” and the band not only lives with that as a sometimes-aggravating hangover — reliving your late twenties onstage as a member of a band whose average age hovers near 70 can’t always be easy — but as an evergreen dramatic conceit.
Opening with “The Chain” definitely fed the beast of tortured past relationships as a topic: “And if you don’t love me now/ You will never love me again” reverberated with feeling even as it showcased the group’s durable trademark sound — Fleetwood’s funereal drumbeats, John McVie’s underrated mutterings on bass, the ladies’ baleful harmonies, and Buckingham’s venomous leads. Buckingham’s clearly incapable of pretending it’s an evening’s casual entertainment and would come on at the end — spotlight chasing him as he gyrated somewhere near the park’s bullpen — to reinforce that he’s one of the great closers in the trade. Continue reading Fleetwood Mac Caps Classic West With Poignant Closing Set | Billboard→
Rudi Greenberg Tuesday 27 June 2017 15:13 BST
The Independent
The duo who have released a self-titled LP are currently touring the US before the Fleetwood Mac global tour next year
Before Christine McVie rejoined Fleetwood Mac in 2014 after a 16-year hiatus, she reconvened with guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, bassist and ex-husband John McVie and drummer Mick Fleetwood in the studio. Buckingham was working on a solo album and, before rehearsals began for Fleetwood Mac’s upcoming tour, the four – sans Stevie Nicks – played around with some songs.
“We didn’t have an idea what it was going to be, we just wanted to welcome her back,” Buckingham says. “Less than a week in we were like, ‘Oh, my God, this is better than it’s ever been.’
They recorded for a few weeks and then put things on hold until the tour wrapped. The resulting album, Lindsey Buckingham/Christine McVie, released this month, sounds like it could be a long-lost Fleetwood Mac album. It’s all there (except for Nicks): Buckingham’s jangly guitar and pop sensibility, Christine’s breathy vocals and melodic piano playing, the classic rhythm section.
Fans have gone wild with the news that Fleetwood Mac are reuniting for a world tour next year
By Becky Pemberton
16th June 2017, 11:36 am The Sun
THE legendary Fleetwood Mac have announced they are coming together for a global 2018 tour. But what do we know about the tour, when will it take place, and which members will be involved?
Fleetwood Mac is made up of members Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Christine McVie on the keyboard, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks
Who are Fleetwood Mac?
Fleetwood Mac are a British-American rock band who have sold over 100 million records worldwide – making them one of the most successful bands of all time. They formed back in 1967 and revealed their first album, Peter Greens Fleetwood Mac, in 1968.
The successful band has seen a number of changes to the line-up over the years, with the only original member still remaining being drummer Mick Fleetwood.
The band, pictured in 1973, has seen a change to the line-up over the years, with Bob Weston (far left) being a previous member
The band is now made up of members Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Christine McVie on the keyboard, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks.
Their last tour was in 2014-2015 for their On With The Show world tour, which included two nights at London’s O2 Arena.
When is the Fleetwood Mac tour?
Christine McVie confirmed on The One Show that Fleetwood Mac will be going on tour next year.
She said: “We’re going to start rehearsing in March, next year. The tour is around June. It will be global.”
The 2018 tour is currently set to feature the full mid ’70s Fleetwood Mac line-up.
The band is due to perform at festivals in New York and Los Angeles this summer, but have no other live shows scheduled.
Turning her back on Fleetwood Mac. Teaming up with Chrissie Hynde. And ditching drugs with a little help from Prince. The rock icon confronts all those rumours
Now this is a treat. It’s Saturday night in a cavernous rehearsal facility in the San Fernando Valley, over the hills from Hollywood, and I’m enjoying a private concert from rock ’n’ roll’s greatest woman – a living, breathing, dancing, sunglasses-indoors legend. Ahead of an American tour, Stevie Nicks is running through a selection of hits from her multi-million-selling career as a solo artist and as frontwoman with Fleetwood Mac.
Rhiannon, Gold Dust Woman, Stand Back, The Wild Heart, Edge Of Seventeen: these are some of the best-loved songs of the past 40 years. And the woman who wrote them – more used to wowing arenas – is standing a few feet away, singing them to me, bashing a tambourine as if her life depended on it, swirling in a vision of black scarves and drapes.
Stevie Nicks has had her own well-publicised battles with addiction in the Seventies and Eighties
During a break, I sit down with Nicks and, as she cradles her beloved terrier Lily, she talks. And talks. At the age of 69, this warm, witty woman remains as irrepressible as ever. As is usual in the world of Fleetwood Mac, there’s a lot to discuss. One topic is her upcoming US shows with fellow icon Chrissie Hynde, in support of Nicks’ 24 Karat Gold album. Another is rumours of a Fleetwood Mac tour – a tour that’s possibly a farewell one.
But more pressing is the imminent release of Lindsey Buckingham/Christine McVie. It’s ostensibly a duo album from Mac guitarist Buckingham and keyboard player/singer McVie. In the set-up and billing, it feels like a successor to Buckingham Nicks. This legendary ‘lost’ 1973 album was made by Stevie and Lindsey – then a couple – before the Californians joined a mouldering English blues band led by drummer Mick Fleetwood and assisted by bass player John McVie.
Their duo act didn’t last, and neither did their relationship. But Nicks’ and Buckingham’s songwriting contribution – not to mention their split, as famously documented in their songs on 1977’s 40-million-selling album Rumours – helped rocket-power Fleetwood Mac to Seventies rock’s mega-league.
Will Hodgkinson
January 21 2017, 12:01am, The Times
The Fleetwood Mac singer talks about her past lovers, drugs hell — and why, at 68, she’s not too old to get married
Stevie Nicks is coming to Hyde Park for a summer concert GETTY IMAGES
If you have wondered how Stevie Nicks, at the age of 68, manages to tour the world with Fleetwood Mac, run her solo career and be an inspiration to young female stars including Adele and Florence Welch, here’s the answer. She’s scared that if she stops, she’ll shrink.
“A friend told me that when you retire, you get smaller,” says Nicks, who at 5ft 1in cannot afford to take that chance. “Small means old, so I fight it with a sword. I’ll be on stage, dancing around, thinking, ‘Now, let’s see . . . how old am I again? 110?’ And it blows my mind! But I would be so bored if I wasn’t doing this.”
It is one in the morning, and Nicks is sheltering from a rainstorm in her beachfront apartment in Santa Monica. Announcing that she rarely goes to sleep before the small hours because she is “the Cruella de Vil of the night”, she proves to be fighting the war against age valiantly. Her California gypsy fashion sense, first shared with the world on the cover of Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 divorce-era masterpiece, Rumours, remains unchanged. Her weathered voice, sexy in a stayed-up-till-7am way, is the same as it ever was. And this July she will be sharing a Hyde Park headline slot with Tom Petty, the man who kickstarted her solo career in 1981, when Fleetwood Mac were at their Lear Jethopping height and nobody wanted or expected Nicks to break out on her own.
Stevie Nicks, photographed in 1978 — her California gypsy fashion sense was already established SAM EMERSON/POLARIS/EYEVINE
“When I started work on [the debut solo album] Bella Donna I wanted it to be like a Tom Petty record, but by a girl. That led me to Tom’s producer, Jimmy Iovine, who did not drink, do drugs, anything,” says Nicks, who at the time was known for her cocaine-centric lifestyle; she even wrote a song, Gold Dust Woman, about it. Continue reading Stevie Nicks: ‘I was so sick — I couldn’t shower. I almost died’ | The Times→
London Evening Standard
By Alistair Foster
Tues 17th Jan, 2017
The music icon says the band are more keen to focus on touring
Stevie Nicks says she does not think Fleetwood Mac will make another album together — because they are “not 40” any more.
The singer, 68, believes the band are more likely to focus on touring and doubts they will ever record a follow-up to 2003’s Say You Will.
She said: “If the five of us were to get together to make a record it would take a year, which is what it always takes us.
“It would be a whole year of recording, then press, then rehearsal, and by the time we got back onto the road, it would be heading towards the second year, and I don’t know whether at this time it’s better for us just to do a big tour.”
Iconic: Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac perform (Getty)
The band has sold more than 100 million records and reformed with the classic line-up of Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, John and Christine McVie and Mick Fleetwood for a world tour, which ended in 2015.
Nicks said: “It’s every single penny we make divided by five, so the expense of making a record, which is huge, and then to get back on tour … we are not 40.
“We have to take that into consideration — how long can we do tours that are three-hour shows? Would you rather spend a year in the studio or get back on the road? I think that the band would choose to tour.”
Nicks, who is focusing on her solo career, is also reluctant to make new music.
The American rock band return for their only European show in 2017, bringing the Fleetwood Mac star with them as support
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers will celebrate the 40th anniversary of their debut album release with a headline appearance at the British Summer Time Hyde Park series.
At the London event on Sunday 9 July, the American rock band will perform their only European show in 2017. Supporting them on the night will be folk-rock group the Lumineers and Petty’s longtime friend and former collaborator, Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks. “In 1976, I’d been in Fleetwood Mac for about a year when I heard Tom Petty’s debut,” Nicks told Rolling Stone in 2010. “I became such a fan that if I hadn’t been in a band myself, I would have joined that one.”
Petty’s appearance will be the second visit he and the Heartbreakers have made to the UK in 20 years. Their last was in 2012, when they headlined the Isle of Wight festival and two shows at the Royal Albert Hall.
This year sees the anniversary of Tom Petty’s debut album with the Heartbreakers, a self-titled release which came out in November 1976. Petty has since released 16 albums, a number of hit singles such as Free Fallin’, Don’t Come Around Here No More, You Got Lucky, You Don’t Know How It Feels, I Won’t Back Down, Listen to Her Heart, Don’t Do Me Like That, and has earned 18 Grammy nominations through the years. As well as being part of the Travelling Wilburys with Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne, he and the Heartbreakers toured with Dylan as his backing group in 1986 and 1987. They also played on Nicks’s first two solo records.
James King, senior vice president of the event organisers AEG Live, described the evening as a “one-night-only experience direct from the music gods”.
“Tom Petty’s UK fans will feel blessed to see him and the Heartbreakers in such a rare appearance in this country,” King said. “Celebrating their 40th anniversary with them is their friend and true icon Stevie Nicks. Music does not get better than this.”
Also announced as headliners for the other nights of the series are Kings of Leon, Green Day, Phil Collins and Justin Bieber.
Nicks, who performed at Van Andel Arena on Wed., Nov. 23 and at The Palace on Sun., Nov. 27, 2016, admitted this is not her typical solo tour. She called it a little darker than usual. This slideshow tells the stories behind many of the songs she performed. “It’s something different for me after all these years. I didn’t want to come out here and do the same Stevie Nicks stuff that you’ve seen 5,000 times.”
Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders opened for Nicks, performing for one hour. They performed songs from their 10th studio album, “Alone,” and some classics including: I’ll Stand By You,” “Back On The Chain Gang”, “Don’t Get Me Wrong,” and “Brass in Pocket.” Hynde made sure to put a little more emphasis on the line “been driving Detroit leaning” from the song “Brass in Pocket.”
Story behind “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around”
Nicks brought out Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders for this duet, originally performed with Tom Petty. The song is from Nicks’ first album, “Bella Donna” from 1981. Nicks says it wasn’t on the album at first, but producer Jimmy Iovine said it needed a hit single.
For fans craving something fresh on the concert stage, Stevie Nicks’ new 24 Karat Gold Tour is truly golden.
Photo Credit: Kristin Burns
She rehearsed 30 songs with her band to come up with the 20 that made the cut for the tour, which comes to Sunrise’s BB&T Center on Nov. 4 with opening act The Pretenders. Her goal was to include tunes she has never (or rarely) done live in a career that dates to the 1973 “Buckingham Nicks” album with then-boyfriend Lindsey Buckingham.
Fleetwood Mac’s recently reissued “Mirage” album from 1982 includes a disc of outtakes. One of the songs, Stevie Nicks’ “If You Were My Love” is featuring for the first time live on her current 24 Karat Gold Tour.
Rarities like “Bella Donna” and “Wild Heart,” the title tracks of her first two solo albums that are also being reissued in expanded versions this coming Friday, are in the set. So is “Crying in the Night” from “Buckingham Nicks” that predates the couple joining Fleetwood Mac.
Fans will also appreciate the live debuts for a couple of tracks from her most recent solo album, “24 Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault” — “The sex, drugs, rock and roll glory songs between 1969 and 1987,” Nicks said of demos she polished and recorded anew in Nashville in 2014.
“I can never write those songs again. Those were songs I am very proud of. I pulled them off Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac records. The reasons were I didn’t like the production or I didn’t like the way they were recorded. I considered those to be my best songs so what I am going to do is go out with those songs and songs off “In Your Dreams” [her 2011 solo album] I didn’t do live, and it will be really fun.” Continue reading Stevie Nicks dusts off rarities for 24 Karat Gold Tour | Miami Herald→
You must be logged in to post a comment.