The ex-Fleetwood Mac singer isn’t bound by trends or ties to her former group.
Stevie Nicks believes in angels. In fact, she believes they helped arrange her current concert tour.
”The angels cleared everything in my life so I could concentrate on this,” she says matter-of-factly. ”I believe angels protect us all.”
And that’s not all Nicks believes. When talking to the singer, she’s never far from expressing some kind of New Age faith. No matter what you ask, she ends her answer with something like:
”If you keep a positive attitude, things will work out.”
Or: ”When one door closes, another one opens.”
Or: ”We all go back to the sea.”
All of which only further endears the ethereal singer to her fans.
With a new album just out — Street Angel, her fifth — and a year-long tour, Nicks has sustained the most productive solo career of any former member of Fleetwood Mac.
This despite being a figure of easy ridicule. For years, Nicks has been lampooned in some circles as a kind of rock dinosaur, at 46 still writing badly embroidered school-girl poetry while wearing the same suede platforms and elaborate shawls as in her ’70s heyday.
Still, Nicks wears her lack of trendiness as a badge of honor.
Nicks says the lacy look always appealed to her.
”Even when I was little, I loved the idea of seeing grandmother’s clothes,” she says. ”I’m fascinated by garments that are 100 years old. And being in Fleetwood Mac, I got to travel the world and buy these beautiful things.”
Not that Fleetwood Mac was all joy and shopping sprees. In fact, Nicks says she’s glad the superstar era of her life with the group has ended so she can concentrate ”on singing and writing. I don’t need to headline massive arenas. I need to make music and entertain — to find an intimacy with people.”
It also pleases Nicks that she no longer has to balance a solo career with any Fleetwood Mac duties. Before the group’s final breakup in 1991, Nicks says that whenever she returned from a solo tour, the rest of the band already would be working in the studio ”and they wouldn’t be very happy with me.”
Worse, Nicks had to endure the barbs of ex-lover and Fleetwood Mac producer Lindsey Buckingham.
”I make Lindsey cringe,” Nicks says flatly. ”He says, “How can she be so popular? She can’t sing or write music.’ Everything I did that was successful would make his hair stand on end.”
Still, what has long embarrassed some about Nicks — her exaggerated femininity, her vague and dainty lyrics — makes others swoon. If anything, the singer knows that the last thing her fans want is a trendy Nicks.
”I think people like the fact that I don’t change,” she explains. ”They think, “If she stays the same, then it means she’ll always be with us.”
Even at 46, Stevie Nicks still is partial to the elaborate shawls she’s worn since Fleetwood Mac’s ’70s heyday.
Jim Farber / New York Daily News / July 29, 1994
