The original vinyl insert of Bella Donna features just one photo of Stevie Nicks. Wearing a black dress with sheer lace sleeves, she peers over her right shoulder squarely at the camera, with a look that’s defiant yet a tad bashful. Next to Nicks are her two co-vocalists on the album, Sharon Celani and Lori Perry. The former sits stiffly on a formal antique couch, studiously looking at the floor; the latter perches on piece of ridiculously ornate wooden furniture, her arm slung over one knee.

The sisterhood evident in the photo and on the sleeve info (the vocalists are prominently credited, directly below Nicks) isn’t merely an aesthetic choice. It’s a reflection of the striking feminine energy underpinning the music on the 1981 disc, which topped the US and Australian album charts and launched the Fleetwood Mac member’s solo career. In the liner notes of a deluxe 2016 reissue, Nicks recalled that the Bella Donna sessions started with her, Celani and Perry in the living room of a rented oceanside home, working out harmonies and singing together while the album’s musical director, Benmont Tench (keyboardist with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers), added accompaniment.

Once these sessions moved into the studio, this carefree camaraderie continued. The women sang together live and recorded live with the other musicians, leading to harmonies that pop out of the mix: a twangy chorus on the title track; R&B coos on the anxious Edge of Seventeen; soulful rock’n’roll oohs on How Still My Love. Unlike other rock albums of the early 80s, Bella Donna doesn’t overdo it with synthesisers or production gloss, which gives space for Nicks to bloom as a lead vocalist. She belts out the title track with passionate vibrato, matches Tom Petty’s ragged, wary tone on Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around and provides a tender, open-hearted foil to Don Henley on Leather and Lace.

Producer Jimmy Iovine recruited a gaggle of hotshot male musicians for the studio sessions, including members of the Heartbreakers, the E Street Band and Eagles. Waddy Wachtel (and, on occasion, Mike Campbell) tosses off searing guitar licks, while Russ Kunkel’s reassuring drums, Tench’s lush organ and Roy Bittan’s introspective piano adds depth. The pedal steel-dipped After the Glitter Fades hints at the country music Nicks grew up on, thanks to her grandfather. On How Still My Love and Outside the Rain, the music channels the easygoing blues rock of her beloved Heartbreakers. Bella Donna is decidedly a separate entity from Fleetwood Mac, free of that band’s musical tension and sonic restlessness.

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