Tag Archives: Bella Donna

Stevie Nicks, UK Articles

Stevie Nicks – On The Wings Of A Dove | Classic Rock

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Classic Rock Magazine
Issue 288, June 2021
By Bill Demain

Forty years ago, Stevie Nicks stepped out from the chaos and control of Fleetwood Mac with a hit-laden debut solo album that showed she could fly just as high on her own.

It’s September 1980. From the deck of the Pacific Palisades home that Stevie Nicks was sharing with her new boyfriend, producer Jimmy lovine, you could hear the hypnotic push and pull of the ocean. Inside, among the tropical plants, Persian rugs and paintings of dragons and gypsies, there was the even more alluring sound of three siren voices dovetailing in perfect harmony. Stevie and Lori Perry and Sharon Celani, her two closest friends, would spend hours around the upright piano, singing everything from old country and western covers to Stevie’s new songs. It was here that the seeds took root for Bella Donna, the breakout solo record that forever changed both the dynamic in Fleetwood Mac and Nicks’s life as an artist.

Exhausted from the previous two years of high-stakes drama around the recording and touring of Fleetwood Mac’s epic double album Tusk, the 32-year-old singer welcomed the laid-back etting and easy camaraderie with her girlfriends.

“In Fleetwood Mac there’s always a chaos,” Nicks told me in 2003. “It’s not easy for us. It never will be. It hasn’t ever been. Whenever we get back into a room together and start working, we don’t agree on a lot of stuff. And we’ve fought through every single record we have ever made.”

Part of that fight was getting songs on a record. Having three songwriters in Mac meant that after six years in the band Nicks had built up a backlog of unused top-drawer material. “When we’d do an album, they’d hear fifteen of my songs and invariably pick the two that were my least favourite,” she complained. “Some of my favourite songs wouldn’t get used.” Continue reading Stevie Nicks – On The Wings Of A Dove | Classic Rock →

Release Info, Solo Activity, Stevie Nicks

Stevie Nicks – Bella Donna (2016 Remaster Gold Vinyl)

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STEVIE NICKS – BELLA DONNA (2016 REMASTER GOLD VINYL)

Release Date: 1/17/2020

The first solo album from two-time Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame inductee, Stevie Nicks. The timeless album features the hit songs: “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” “Leather and Lace,” and “Edge of Seventeen”.

DISC 1
1. Bella Donna (2016 Remaster) 5.18
2. Kind of Woman (2016 Remaster) 3.08
3. Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around (with Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers) [2016 Remaster] 4.02
4. Think About It (2016 Remaster) 3.33
5. After the Glitter Fades (2016 Remaster) 3.27
DISC 2
1. Edge of Seventeen (2016 Remaster) 5.28
2. How Still My Love (2016 Remaster) 3.51
3. Leather and Lace (2016 Remaster) Stevie Nicks & Don Henley 3.55
4. Outside the Rain (2016 Remaster) 4.17
5. The Highwayman (2016 Remaster) 4.49
Release Info, Solo Activity, Stevie Nicks

Hear Stevie Nicks’ Intimate ‘Bella Donna’ Demo | Rolling Stone

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Rolling Stone
By Brittany Spanos
13th Oct, 2016

Deluxe reissues of singer-songwriter’s first two solo albums, ‘Bella Donna’ and ‘The Wild Heart,’ out November 4th

Hear a previously unreleased demo version of Stevie Nicks' 1981 track "Bella Donna," to appear on one of two reissues out in November. Herbert Worthington III
Hear a previously unreleased demo version of Stevie Nicks’ 1981 track “Bella Donna,” to appear on one of two reissues out in November. Herbert Worthington III

On November 4th, Stevie Nicks’ first two solo albums — Bella Donna and The Wild Heart — will be reissued via Rhino. Each deluxe release will feature not only the original LP but rarities and bonus tracks, like the previously unreleased demo of her solo debut’s title track, streaming below.

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Stripped of its backing vocals as well as the raucous live band and synthesizers featured on the original album version, Nicks’ demo is a tender, intimate take on the song. She sings softly above just the piano track, nearly whispering “Bella donna, my soul” and barely reaching the full-throated belt she unleashes on the 1981 recording.

Later this month and just before releasing the reissues, Nicks will embark on a solo tour with opening act the Pretenders. Nicks’ tour is in support of her 2014 album 24K Gold, a collection of songs she had cut from her prior solo releases for various reasons. “These are the glory songs,” she told Rolling Stone of her reason to follow a multi-year world tour with Fleetwood Mac with the solo dates. “These are the sex, rock & roll and drugs songs that I’m actually not really writing right now, and these are the songs I could never write again.”

Release Info, Stevie Nicks

Rhino Expands Stevie Nicks’ “Bella Donna” and “The Wild Heart” In November

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The Second Disk
October 4th, 2016
By Joe Marchese

Stevie Nicks is launching her 24 Karat Gold tour later month, named for her acclaimed 2014 studio album consisting of new recordings of previously unheard compositions. Now, Nicks is looking back once more with two more 24-karat gold Deluxe Editions of her first two solo albums, Bella Donna and The Wild Heart. Both releases arrive from Rhino on November 4, along with remastered, stand-alone editions of the original albums on LP, CD and DD.

stevie-nicks-bella-donna-300x298
stevie-nicks-the-wild-heart

1981’s solo debut Bella Donna will be released as a 3-CD set. Produced by Jimmy Iovine, the album yielded such immortal Nicks tracks as “Edge of Seventeen” and two duets: “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and “Leather and Lace” with Don Henley. Disc Two of the upcoming set has nine previously unreleased cuts (including alternate versions of “Edge of Seventeen,” “Leather and Lace,” and the title song) plus Nicks’ soundtrack performances of “Blue Lamp” from Heavy Metal and “Sleeping Angel” from Fast Times at Ridgemont High. The third disc premieres a 1981 concert featuring selections from Bella Donna alongside Fleetwood Mac favorites “Sara” and “Rhiannon.”

Following the 1982 release of Fleetwood Mac’s Mirage (recently reissued across multiple formats by Rhino), Nicks returned to her solo career with 1983’s The Wild Heart. The double-platinum smash is being reissued as a 2-CD set. It included such favorites as “Stand Back,” “Nightbird” and “I Will Run To You,” which reunited the artist with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. The 9-track bonus disc has seven previously unreleased cuts including demos and outtakes, plus the “Stand Back” B-side “Garbo” and Nicks’ recording of “Violet and Blue” from the Against All Odds soundtrack.

“I’ve had so much fun reliving the making of Bella Donna and The Wild Heart while working on the liner notes and listening to all of the alternate versions and demo takes,” Nicks commented in the original press release. “The liner notes are so much more than liner notes. They are like a little novel. I tried to make whoever reads this feel like they were there. I think…I succeeded….”

These two highly-anticipated reissues arrive from Rhino on November 4. In the meantime, Stevie kicks off her 24-Karat Gold tour (on which she’ll be joined by The Pretenders) on October 25 in Phoenix. It wraps December 18 at The Forum in Los Angeles!

Pre-Order on the links below:

Bella Donna (remastered 3CD deluxe edition)
Belle Donna (remastered CD)
Bella Donna (remastered vinyl)

The Wild Heart (remastered 2CD deluxe edition)
The Wild Heart (remastered CD)
The Wild Heart (remastered vinyl)

You can peruse the track listings for both Deluxe Editions below!  Continue reading Rhino Expands Stevie Nicks’ “Bella Donna” and “The Wild Heart” In November →

Article Archive Pages, Solo Activity, Stevie Nicks

Stevie Nicks: The Fleetwood Mac Siren Finds Solo Stardom | BAM Magazine

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Fleetwood Mac’s siren soars with her first solo album Bella Donna.

by Blair Jackson
September 1981
BAM Magazine

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THE VIEW FROM THE living room of Stevie Nicks’ Marina del Rey condominium is spectacular. As far as the eye can see there is nothing but an endless expanse of sand, ocean and sky. It is probably as close to a truly peaceful place as can be found in the Los Angeles area. Inside, the golden rays of late afternoon sun cast a glow on the warm pinks and beiges that dominate the room. Two rooms away is the bustling nerve center of the household, where workers have been handling phone calls and a stream of interviewers awaiting an audience with the hottest-selling artist in rock and roll.

Actually, the word “audience” is terribly unfair, because it implies pretension, and Stevie Nicks doesn’t leave a pretentious bone in her body. Though she has been a platinum selling artist for six years as a member of Fleetwood Mac, and her face has been steadily gracing the covers of magazines as long, the Stevie Nicks I interviewed for two and one-half hours recently seemed remark­ably unaffected by success and candid! almost to a fault.               ,

Her first solo album, Bella Donna, is already a smash hit — it is sitting at – Number One on Billboard’s chart as this is being written, and it looks like it will only he a week or two before –Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,– the gutsy, rock single that she sings as a duet with the song’s author, Tom Petty, also hits Number One. A new Fleetwood Mac album is due this fall, too, so it looks, as though the airwaves will belong to Stevie Nicks for the next several months.

Nicks’ rise to fame was a relatively-quick one. She and Lindsey Buckingham moved to Los Angeles in the early ’70s after several years as members of the once-popular Bay Area hand Fritz. ‘They cut an album as a duo (still available on Polygram) and then were asked to join Fleetwood Mac, which was struggling following the departure of Bob Welch. The first album the new five-piece Mac made Fleetwood Mac, was an enormous hit, thanks largely to the presence of Nicks and Buckingham, whose songwriting and singing totally dominated the LP. “Rhiannon,” a swirling Nicks tune about a Welsh witch, immediately established Nicks as one of the top women singer-songwriters in rock. Continue reading Stevie Nicks: The Fleetwood Mac Siren Finds Solo Stardom | BAM Magazine →