STEVIE NICKS INFO

Category: 24 Karat Gold (2014)

ALBUM REVIEWS: 24 Karat Gold – Songs from the Vault

Positive (10) / Mixed (4)

Fleetwood Mac star heads to Nashville, chasing the songs that nearly got away.

Rating: 7/10

As if Stevie Nicks hasn’t done enough soul-searching during her 40 years in one of the world’s biggest bands… On her eighth solo album, Nicks immerses herself in her past, gathering 16 of her long-lost songs together like errant children and dressing them in traditional costume — the billowing robes and gypsy shawl — before sending them out, fully Nicksed, into the world.

24 Karat Gold – Songs from the Vault finds the 66-year old getting her memories in order with the help of longtime associates Waddy Wachtel (he first played with her on 1973’s Buckingham Nicks) and Dave Stewart, producer of Nicks’ last solo set, 2011’s In Your Dreams, and a band of hired hands in Nashville who knocked out new versions of Nicks’ old songs in 15 days last May. In Your Dreams, somewhat tarnished by Dave Stewart’s sweet tooth, took 14 months. Fleetwood Mac records take far longer.

The songs in question stem from demos Nicks wrote at various stages in her career between 1969 and 1995, intended for her solo or Fleetwood Mac albums. One ballad, the bonus track “Twisted,” written in 1995 with Lindsey Buckingham for the film Twister, she felt deserved a wider audience. “When songs go into movies you might as well dump them out the window as you’re driving by because they never get heard,” she tells Uncut.

Many of these songs will be familiar to Mac devotees, having appeared online and on bootlegs or box sets in one form or another. Indeed, Nicks’ main incentive for the project was to record definitive versions of those unauthorized tracks floating around online that her assistant had drawn to her attention. Nicks hates computers and was once so worried about internet piracy that she didn’t release a solo record between 2001 and 2011, so this principled stance represents some sort of progress; if you can’t beat’em, join’em. “Just because I think computers are ruining the world, I can’t expect everyone to be on my wavelength,” she reasons. But to most, 24 Karat Gold is effectively a brand new album, albeit one that one occasion has the luxury of revelling in the twists and turns of a vintage Nicks number like “Lady,” formerly a fragile piano demo from the mid-’70’s called “Knocking On Doors” that’s now a footstep away from “Landslide.”

With these demos newly upholstered as mid-tempo soft-rock ballads by a solid Nashville outfit, it’s tempting to view the collection as an alternative look at Nicks’ life in music, each song offering a slightly different take on key moments in her colourful career. Nicks, too, her live-in voice stained with experience, seems to relish the chance to reacquaint herself through her lyrics with the girl she once was. The earliest cut here, a corny speakeasy pastiche called “Cathouse Blues,” was written by a 22-year old Nicks in 1969 before she and Buckingham, who played on the original, moved to Los Angeles. By “The Dealer,” a musky Tusk-era tumble, she’s already world-weary: “I was the mistress of my fate, I was the card shark / If I’d’ve looked a little ahead, I would’ve run away,” runs the chorus.

On Bella Donna cast-offs “Belle Fleur” and “If You Were My Love”, Elton John guitarist Davey Johnstone reprises his original role and plays on these new versions. Her trusted foil, Mike Campbell of the Heartbreakers, rolls up his sleeves for AOR james “Starshine” and “I Don’t Care”, tracks he just about remembers writing with Nicks in the early 80’s. “Mabel Normand,” a moving parable based on the tragic life of the 1920s silent movie star, came to Nicks when she herself was dancing with the devil in 1985. Following the death of her godson from an accidental overdose in 2012, the song has a more profound resonance today.

As befits a compilation of songs that weren’t up to scratch first time around, 24 Karat Gold contains a few tinpot tracks that even the Nashville boys couldn’t fix. Most, too, spill over the five-minute mark. but as fresh testament from one of Rock’s great survivors, it makes for a fascinating listen.

24 Karat Gold – Songs from the Vault will be released October 6th in the UK.

Piers Martin / Uncut (UK) / September 23, 2014 (November 2014 issue, p.82)

Stevie Nicks: 24 Karat Gold – Songs from the Vault

* * * *1/2 (four and a half stars out of five)

With the subtitle Songs from the Vault, you’d be forgiven if you thought 24 Karat Gold was an archival collection of unreleased material and, in a way, you’d be right. 24 Karat Gold does indeed unearth songs Nicks wrote during her heyday — the earliest dates from 1969, the latest from 1995, with most coming from her late-’70s/early-’80s peak; the ringer is a cover of Vanessa Carlton’s 2011 tune “Carousel,” which could easily be mistaken for Stevie — but these aren’t the original demos, they’re new versions recorded with producer Dave Stewart. Running away from his ornate track record — his production for Stevie’s 2011 record In Your Dreams was typically florid — Stewart pays respect to Nicks’ original songs and period style by keeping things relatively simple while drafting in sympathetic supporting players including guitarists Waddy Wachtel and Davey Johnstone and Heartbreakers Benmont Tench and Mike Campbell. It’s certainly not an exacting re-creation of Sound City but Stewart adheres to the slick, hazy feel of supremely well-appointed professional studios, so 24 Karat Gold has a tactile allure. Sonically, it’s bewitching — the best-sounding record she’s made since 1983’s The Wild Heart but, substance-wise, it’s her best since that album, too. If there aren’t many remnants of the flinty, sexy rocker of “Stand Back” (the opening “Starshine” is an exception to the rule), there’s enough seductive, shimmering soft rock and the emphasis on Laurel Canyon hippie folk-rock feels right and natural. Retrospectively, it’s a surprise that Nicks sat on these songs for years, but that only indicates just how purple a patch she had during Fleetwood Mac’s glory days. It’s a good thing she dug through her back pages and finished these songs, as she’s wound up with one of her strongest albums.

Stephen Thomas Erlewine / All Music / Monday, October 6, 2014

Review Stevie Nicks looks back on shimmering 24 Karat Gold

Stevie Nicks
24 Karat Gold: Songs From the Vault (Warner Bros.)
* * *1/2 (three and a half stars out of four)

Now that young bands such as Haim and One Direction are reviving the polished pop-rock of Fleetwood Mac, it seems only right that the group’s iconic frontwoman, Stevie Nicks, would look back as well.

As its title suggests, 24 Karat Gold: Songs From the Vault offers new recordings of tunes Nicks wrote as long ago as 1969; the most recent is from 1995. You can tell the material is old too. In the aching “Hard Advice” she sings about listening to the radio and hanging out in a record store. (Remember those?)

But Nicks has always found fresh drama in the past — think of “Rhiannon,” loosely inspired by an ancient Welsh legend — and here she sounds no less energized chewing over bygone resentments in the throbbing title track and pondering bad decisions in “The Dealer,” which rides a silky groove reminiscent of the one in the Mac’s indelible “Dreams.”

For “Mabel Normand” she reaches back further, sympathizing with a real-life silent film star thought to have struggled with cocaine.

Recorded mostly in Nashville with Nicks’ longtime guitarist Waddy Wachtel and Dave Stewart (who also produced Nicks’ excellent “In Your Dreams” from 2011), “24 Karat Gold” makes room amid the retrospection for some new sounds. “Cathouse Blues” touches unexpectedly on ragtime, while “Blue Water,” with backing vocals by Lady Antebellum, shimmers with traces of country and soul.

There’s also a couple of crunching hard-rock numbers, including “I Don’t Care,” that feel powered by the same aggression Fleetwood Mac channeled on its 2013 arena tour. (Now reunited with Christine McVie, the group launched yet another road show last week and will hit the Forum in November.)

Whatever the arrangement, though, Nicks’ voice — that signature drone that’s gotten only more appealingly imperious with age — defines the music here. Her singing dominates as easily now as it ever did.

Twitter: @mikaelwood. Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times

Mikael Wood / Los Angeles Times / Monday, October 6, 2014

Stevie Nicks, 24 Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault

(Review: Positive)

The first question you’re likely to have about Stevie Nicks’s new album is, when was this recorded? It’s almost impossible to tell, because Nicks sounds so classic, as if surveying each decade of her long career on her own and with Fleetwood Mac. 24 Karat Gold is Stevie at her Nicks-iest: a gold dust woman, caught mid-twirl.

Nicks notes in the press materials that most of these songs were written between 1969 and ’87, with a pair from the early ’90s, but the album was recorded this year in Nashville and Los Angeles.

To her credit, she and fellow producers Dave Stewart and Waddy Wachtel have a light touch here, letting Nicks’s silvery voice lead with grace and grit. So many of these songs evoke yesteryear Nicks, from the serpentine, “Rhiannon”-like groove of “Mabel Normand” to the starry prettiness of “If You Were My Love.” “Blue Water” has a dusky country vibe; it could have been a Fleetwood hit, right down to its line “And I wait for the sound of my gypsy.”

There are also new shades of her — all the color of midnight blue, of course — including a jazzy little number called “Cathouse Blues.” “I just care that you love me,” she growls on the heavy rocker “I Don’t Care.” And a piano ballad, “Lady,” is big and bare, a chance to savor Nicks in full splendor. (Out Tuesday)

ESSENTIAL “Blue Water”

Stevie Nicks performs with Fleetwood Mac at TD Garden on Oct. 10 and Oct. 25. James Reed can be reached at jr***@***be.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeJamesReed

James Reed / Boston Globe / Monday, October 6, 2014

Review: Stevie Nicks – 24 Karat Gold

Rating: 7/10

Immediately 24 Karat Gold is exactly what you’re expecting from Stevie: it’s all jazz piano and bluesy guitar with that husky rock n’ roll girl voice that just makes you want to dedicate the rest of your life to growing your hair our and wearing lots of tassels. But Stevie has been solo for quite a while, and her personal style has developed somewhat, with moderate to pleasant results.

Lyrically, the album is much weaker than those that have come before it; the storytelling is clumsy and a bit desperate, and often the languid content is mirrored by a lethargic tone. There’s a glassy attempt at depth in many of the songs, and in favour of her once minimalist style of writing Stevie seems to be pouring any thought she fancies into 24 Karat Gold, with the tone of a person who wrote an entire album to make someone listen to their problems.

Saying this, one place where Stevie Nicks could never fail is musically: there is no denying that she stands strong with off-beat piano and the smoothest guitar melodies, not to mention the odd use of the pedal to remind us all that she’s a rock n’ roller at heart. Rescued by their excellent instrumental arrangements, “Lady” and “I Don’t Care” are probably the best songs on the album, followed by the slightly weaker “Carousel,” which is one of the few songs on the album that doesn’t sound like a 100bpm diary entry.

There are lots of positives to this album; Stevie’s voice is warm and relaxing, and there is not an ounce of aggression in her tone. I would recommend the album is you’re feeling pensive, or just nostalgic for old skool chick rock.

Jodie Rigden / The Knowledge (UK) / Monday, October 13, 2014

ALBUM REVIEW: Stevie Nicks 24 Karat Gold – Song from the Vault

(Review: Positive)

Fleetwood Mac may have just started a mammoth tour of the United States, their first with songbird Christine McVie in 17 years, but Stevie Nicks has still managed to release a new solo album, this month.

24 Karat Gold: Songs From the Vault, is a collection of 14 songs from Nicks’ enormous back catalogue of demos that never made it onto her records- songs which were written between 1969 and 1995.

Recorded over a three-month period, Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart was once again on production duties. After producing her last album, In Your Dreams, which was something of a let-down both musically and lyrically compared to 2001’s Trouble in Shangri-La, 24 Karat Gold makes much more of a statement than both of the aforementioned releases.

This may be, in part, due to Nicks herself also producing the record, with the help of long-time collaborator Waddy Watchel, who featured heavily on her early solo albums.

The reason this record has much more of an impact than her more recent albums, is possibly because each of the 14 tracks follow the same theme. In the liner notes, Nicks states: “ Each song is a lifetime. Each song has a soul. Each song has a purpose. Each song is a love story… They represent my life behind the scenes, the secrets, the broken hearts, the broken hearted and the survivors.”

Kicking off with the Rolling Stones-esque Starshine, Nicks’ unmistakeable nasal voice remains as constant as her chiffon scarves and platform boots.

Next up is “The Dealer,” which was demoed for both her first solo album, Bella Donna, and her third, Rock A Little. Finally making it onto 24 Karat Gold, it is very similar to the superior first version, demoed for Bella Donna.

Other fine up-tempo tracks include “I Don’t Care,” the token snarling ‘rock-out’ moment, which features at least once on most of Nicks’ solo records; and “Cathouse Blues,” more honky tonk in flavour.

That being said, this album’s finest moments take shape in the form of its darkest tracks. The title track begins with a pounding bassline, and goes into a haunting piano rhythm and jarring guitar part from Mr Watchell, as Ms Nicks sings about the chains of love.

Mabel Normand is another highlight on the record. Originally demoed for the Rock A Little album in 1985 – a time when Nicks was paying the price for her years of cocaine abuse – it documents the life of the silent film actress it is named after, who had the same substance battle several decades before. It becomes clear that Nicks is writing about Normand and herself in the song, as she sings: “She did her work, but her heart was quietly crying. I guess she even felt guilty about even dying.”

Gorgeously simple ballads, such as If You Were My Love and Hard Advice, nicely juxtapose the rockier material on the album.

24 Karat Gold is probably the most consistently fine selection of Nicks’ self-penned material since her 1983 album, The Wild Heart. A fine selection of similar yet different songs, each holding their own within this album, which is not something that could be said for Nicks’ last solo effort.

This is a real insight into the last 45 years of the life of one of the most unique and mystical talents there has ever been. Nicks has held nothing back, this time.

James Nuttall / Yorkshire Evening Post (UK) / Monday, October 13, 2014

Stevie Nicks 24 Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault Review

(Review: Positive)

Listening to 24 Karat Gold is like being caught in a time warp. Then is now, now is then, and the listener feels confronted by Stevie Nicks’ 1981 solo debut Bella Donna’s scandalous twin: the sister sent away for telling truths no one wanted known.

But time and truth have a way of not being denied. Ditto songs that yearn to be heard. And so Nicks, one of romance and gypsy mysticism’s great ciphers, returns to these songs of love left to die, romances unrealized and adventures that haunted her long after their end.

Written from 1967 through the mid-’00s, it is the chronicle of a wild heart that knew no caution and took the battering inherent to living amongst the outlaws. Advance press confirms these songs were inspired by Fleetwood Mac partners/former paramours Lindsey Buckingham and Mick Fleetwood, Don Henley and good friend Tom Petty.

In the fraught wreckage of a life fully inhabited, if perhaps faithlessly shared, Nicks puts her angst outside her skin and stitches the songs up with Waddy Wachtel’s searing guitar lines, notably on the Petty homage “Hard Advice.” In many ways, Wachtel’s twisting sting and bass player Michael Rhodes’ melodic throb give these songs shape and offer presence.

But the real star is Nicks’ voice, every bit as throaty and suggestive as in her “Rhiannon”/”Edge of 17” heyday. Earthy and resonant, it teases on the gently undulating “Cathouse Blues,” sweeps wide-open across the luminous “Starshine” and haunts the lonesome piano-grounded “Lady.”

If “I Don’t Care” is an awkward lite-metal track that topples into pensive songwriter territory and “All The Beautiful Worlds” is a pretty-enough romp through a painfully self-conscious implosion, the ambitious “Mabel Normand” considers Nicks’ own storied addiction against the prism of an obscure ‘20s comedienne of that name.

And that is the challenge of this collection.

Nicks teams again with Dave Stewart, and the excesses are indulged to a lush extreme which doesn’t always serve her songs. While “Blue Water” feels like classic-if-generic SoCal ‘70s rock, with harmonies from country’s boy-girl-boy crossover Lady Antebellum, Mark Knopfler’s co-written “She Loves Him Still” is as gorgeous as any of Nicks’ signature ballads (“Landslide,” “Beautiful Child”), proving Nicks’ magic remains.

That’s the vexation and amazement of Gold’s frozen-in-amber reality. For as much as her acolytes wish they could twirl in chiffon scarves and platforms, few remain as ageless or beyond the clock as Nicks; in that gap ripples the nostalgia that stains these songs.

Holly Gleason / Paste Magazine / Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Stevie Nicks: 24 Karat Gold-Songs from the Vault

* * *1/2 (three and a half stars out of five)

The title is misleading: Originally written by Nicks between 1969 and 1995, these are new recordings cut with Nashville session pros. But it’s an inspired move — after all, Music City pop scientists have cribbed shamelessly from Fleetwood Mac for years. With California expat steel man Dan Dugmore as cultural bridge alongside veteran Laurel Canyon scene guitarist Waddy Wacthtel, plus Nicks’ longtime backing singers Sharon Celani and Lori Nicks refracting Mac harmonies, Nicks conjures the old black lace magic and makes it feel new.
Not all the material is top shelf, and her voice is starting to show its milage. But Nicks uses it to her advantage. Most convincing: “Mabel Normand” a tribute to a powerhouse silent film star and legendary coke fiend with whom Nicks apparently identifies (go figure). Best flashback: the triple harmony California dreaming of “Belle Fleur” (“Canyon dancing/ All night long”). Second best flashback: “The Dealer,” a casino metaphor that — like many songs here — may or may not be about Lindsey Buckingham. Most surprising: “Cathouse Blues,” a Dixieland-band-bordello strut in which the singer confides, “I need some new red velvet shoes,” then purrs, “I’m still a dreamer’s fancy. True that.

Will Hermes / Rolling Stone / October 26, 2014

CD Reviews: Stevie Nicks

Stevie Nicks 24 Karat Gold – Songs From the Vault
Reprise Records
* * * * (four stars out of five)

For all the guys who fantasised about being with her and the girls who wanted to be her, Stevie Nicks is back to her best with an album of new tracks that could have been plucked from the ’70s and ’80s.
After the theft of demos from her house, Nicks put Dave Stewart in the producer’s chair and with a host of rock legends reworked the previously unheard tracks.

24 Karat Gold is so laden with gems it seems absurd only to hear them now.

Stewart stays faithful to a hazy vibe synonymous with Nicks’ sultry huskiness, as Stevie reels back her years of romantic misfortune.

Single download: Mabel Normand
For those who like: Fleetwood Mac, Marianne Faithful, Sheryl Crow, Tom Petty

Mark Orton / Otago Daily News (NZ) / Monday, october 20, 2014

Album Review: Stevie Nicks – 24 Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault

“Each song is a lifetime. Each song has a soul. Each song has a purpose. Each song is a love story.” – Stevie Nicks

Before there was Taylor Swift there was this woman: a self-confessed poet, a woman that has lived a notoriously interesting life; Gold Dust Woman anyone? Stevie Nicks remains to be an influential story teller, and a clever one at that.

24 Karat Gold isn’t a continuation of that journey but a glimpse of a past; a tale that has intrigued the masses for over twenty-five years, yet was understood through her music. It is difficult to categorise such an album, with its eclectic mixture of country, folk and old school rock that I would simply call a story.

Opening with a bluesy number “Starshine,“ 24 Karat Gold is an album that existing fans will rejoice in and cause new fans to emerge, and with that undertone of country flowing through there is certainly room for it within the world of Garth Brooks and Reba McEntire. In all honesty, Nicks created the way for such story tellers to exist.

Personally, I feel a lot can be learnt from this album, especially for young songwriters. Stevie Nicks has that extra layer, that extra part of her soul to bare that allows her to create a diversity and power that can be told through this medium. We even get a hint of rock ‘n’ roll with punchy “I Don’t Care” and a guest appearance from Lady Antebellum on “Blue Water,” a true test to their ability that her trust was gifted to them. Ending with the mellow “She Loves Him Still,” which is the perfect way to wind down the album with its addition of the cello and violin, it reiterates the fact that Nicks creates beautiful music, as well as stories.

For those afraid that 24 Karat Gold is all about being deep and meaningful, don’t be. You will be taken on a journey of emotions, where you will want to dance to “Cathouse Blues” and “If You Were My Love,” as well as wish you had it to play on your record player, which is exactly how I feel. As someone who appreciates and loves vinyl, this particular record suits it to the ground and reminds me of how music is as its best: raw and honest.

My favourite track is a tricky one to pick, but it has to be “The Dealer” – I can feel it in my heart.

@georgiejourno

Georgie Robbins / Cult Noise (UK) / Friday, November 14, 2014

Mixed Reviews (4)

Music review: 24 Karat Gold: Songs From the Vault

New Stevie Nicks collection holds both riches and rejects from Fleetwood Mac star’s past

* * * (three stars out of five)
Stevie Nicks, star of Fleetwood Mac, has rerecorded songs from earlier years for her new solo collection.

Catchy music can obscure the meaning of a song just as surely as it can enhance it. When a melody achieves perfection, it steals attention from the lyrical core. That dynamic forms a key part of the puzzle of pop. But it has special relevance to the latest release from Stevie Nicks.

Unlike her beautifully pruned work with Fleetwood Mac, many songs on her latest solo work fray at the seams, or wander outside the confines of an ideal melody. The album does contains a few must-have highlights, but key parts feature lyrics that wobble awkwardly on their tunes. Yet those very flaws and indulgences wind up casting a clearer light on Nicks’ character, and concerns, than ever.

There’s good reason for the music’s wavering quality: The album is a collection of castoff songs from Nicks’ 45-year career. True, Nicks recorded all the music anew over the last year, but she wrote most of the material between 1969 and 1987. A few songs date from 1994-95.

Any Nicks-oholic will immediately notice her trademark lyrical tics. Words like “silver,” “dream” and “chains” keep turning up. She’s often left “alone in a room” or found standing “out in the rain.” There’s also her tendency to split her inner voice into a conversation between what “I said” and what “she said.” Nicks’ broader themes also hold — the tug between professional achievement and personal relationships, between the desire to connect and the need for free-range love.

The most finely formed songs use those themes to raise goosebumps. In the piquant “Hard Advice,” Nicks recounts the tough words from a friend, who told her to quit pining for a famous musician who has already moved on. As with many Nicks songs, speculation on the boldfaced lover’s identity is very much encouraged.

“Lady” pushes further, with its grand melody and gripping lyrics that find Nicks wondering if her loneliness will one day devour her.

The sole cover — of Vanessa Carlton’s “Carousel” — both furthers the theme and breaks up the melodic familiarity.

Otherwise, the album meanders through songs of significant energy, but with middling tunes (the Tom Petty-esque “Starshine”), or with lyrics tha turn verbose (the mess “Mabel Normand”).

If Lindsey Buckingham had his way, this stuff would surely have been sharpened. But there’s a happy consequence to his absence. We get pure Stevie — needier than some might find comfortable, but also unexpectedly wise. It’s too much for the casual listener but catnip for the devoted.

Stevie Nicks appears with Fleetwood Mac at the Garden Tuesday.

jf*****@*********ws.com

Jim Farber / New York Daily News / Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Stevie Nicks 24 Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault

* * * (three stars out of five)

24 Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault is a glorified act of copyright protection. Stevie Nicks reportedly decided to revisit old demos when she was informed that they’d been bootlegged and uploaded to the Internet. This was no doubt a shock to the technophobic Nicks, who doesn’t own a cellphone and communicates with fans via handwritten letters that are uploaded to her website by members of her team.

The material, written from 1969 through the ’90s and newly recorded here, is significantly sharper than what was found on Nicks’s last studio album, 2011’s In Your Dreams. The new recordings mostly dispense with the awkward electronic flourishes (vocal distortion, canned synths) that have marred other recent Nicks-related recordings. “Starshine” is given an uptempo, straight-ahead rock treatment that recalls Nicks’s collaborations with Tom Petty, while on “The Dealer” she almost perfectly embodies her ’70s glory days with Fleetwood Mac. The latter finds Nicks looking back at a failed relationship, though it cleverly doubles as a longer-term survey of loves lost and reconciled, particularly with bandmates Lindsey Buckingham and Mick Fleetwood. “If I’d known a little more, I’d have run away,” she laments, but of course she didn’t, and now she’s on a sold-out tour with both of those men.

Old flames occupy much of the subject matter throughout the album, and even when Nicks isn’t explicitly singing about herself, it’s hard not to read autobiographical meanings into the songs. The silent-era comedienne Mabel Normand, who gets a tribute song here, is a character with whom Nicks clearly identifies, singing about her “quietly crying” heart underneath all her beauty and talent. And Nicks even tips her hat to friend Vanessa Carlton with a cover of the latter’s “Carousel,” adding little to it beyond some fairy-tale harpsichord, though there’s poignancy in seeing Nicks return the favor of paving the way for Carlton’s career with a song about how everything comes back again.

Unfortunately, 24 Karat is stuffed with too many stately piano-and-guitar ballads that return to the same theme of bygone romance. The one wild turn from that format is “Cathouse Blues,” a slinky ode to Nicks’s high-heeled strut that sounds like something you’d hear wafting from a sweaty bar on the Mississippi River. While not Nicks’s first time fetishizing the South (see “New Orleans”), it’s unfortunately so ill-suited to the California mystical dream-girl aesthetic that she’s carefully cultivated over the years that it comes off as an unintended joke.

There’s a fundamental paradox to Nicks’s brand, which she once referred to in a moment of rare self-awareness as “the Stevie Nicks thing.” Though she plays the perpetually tender, romantic, emotionally available, spurned woman, Nicks has always had an air of cool detachment that puts her at a remove from listeners. On songs like “The Dealer,” “She Loves Him Still,” and “Hard Advice,” she re-spins the same old image of a Nicks who’s gripped by long-ago love affairs with fellow musicians—”dreams to be sold,” as she puts it on the title track—while her current life is kept somewhere out of view. The most illuminating moment is on “Lady,” which reveals the deep chasm between the naïve woman who wrote it after moving to L.A. to become a rock star and the 66-year-old she is now, looking uncertainly over her empire. “What is to become of me?” she pleads with appropriate dramatic irony. Nick has always given us just enough snatches of insight to keep us wondering the very same thing.

LABEL: Warner Bros. RELEASE DATE: October 7, 2014

Paul Rice /Slant Magazine / Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Stevie Nicks – 24 Karat Gold: Songs From The Vault

(Review: Mixed)

(Warner) UK release date: 6 October 2014

Fleetwood Mac‘s ‘classic’ line-up (ok, the classic line-up post-Peter Green) may be back together and touring, but the wait goes on for a new album. Despite the arena tours and the yearly rumours (pun intended) about the band headlining Glastonbury, Say You Will from 2003 remains the most recent Fleetwood Mac record.

Some may say that’s hardly important with such a back catalogue of riches to draw upon, but those who are really experiencing withdrawal symptons may well be sated with this, Mac stalwart Stevie Nicks‘ 10th solo album. And it’s no ordinary solo album – as the slightly self-aggrandising title, 24 Karat Gold: Songs From The Vault, would suggest, this is a collection of old demo versions that Nicks has abandoned over the years, spruced up and re-recorded. So, there’s Fleetwood Mac songs that could have been, lost Buckingham/Nicks numbers – everything in fact, to make a hardcore Mac fan salivate.

It doesn’t sound like a hotch-potch of songs all thrown together either, as you may expect from that description. Indeed, most of the songs that Nicks has resurrected are strong enough to make you wonder why she scrapped them in the first place. And, considering that the timespan of these songs stretches from the late ’60s up to the mid ’90s, it sounds like a surprisingly cohesive album, even if the hour-plus running time means that a more judicious editor would have ensured that some tracks remained in demo form.

There is some gold unearthed though, albeit maybe not of the 24 Karat variety. “Starshine” kicks the album off to an energetic start, and the sad tale of silent film star Mabel Normand, who died at the age of 37 of tuberculosis, following years of cocaine abuse is a story that’s obviously close to Nicks’ heart. Long-term Nicks fans who scour the internet for bootlegs will be well aware of the gorgeous country workout “Blue Water,” which sounds – on this version at least – like it would have fitted in nicely onto the Mirage album, not least because the word ‘gypsy’ is referenced in the lyrics.

Talking of “Gypsy,” that famous Fleetwood Mac song is more than musically echoed in the title track, one of a few numbers that are inevitably reminiscent of Nicks’ band’s golden era. Yet this doesn’t sound like a ‘lost’ Fleetwood Mac album, mainly because Nicks’ backing band have the nouse not to copy Buckingham, Fleetwood and the McVies. Instead, it sounds like what it is – a collection of old songs, spring cleaned and brought up to date.

Obviously, Nicks’ voice has lost its wispy, breathy quality over time, but her more mature, throaty growl sounds perfect for these songs. Her performance on the powerful ballad Lady is genuinely affecting, the sound of a woman looking back on her life and contemplating regret and loneliness (as the song’s key line has it: “I’m tired of knocking on doors when there’s nobody there”. There’s also some familiar lyrical ground trodden over, such as Hard Advice’s intriguing tale of a doomed affair with a rock star and the inevitable ‘is this about Lindsey?’ song, “She Loves Him Still.”

With only the creaky, clunky “Cathouse Blues” and the rather pointless Vanessa Carlton cover “Carousel” counting as real duds, this is a surprisingly strong album considering it consists of songs initially rejected or abandoned by their creator. Nothing on 24 Karat Gold comes close to classic Fleetwood Mac songs, but long-term fans will delight in hearing decently recorded versions of tracks that they may otherwise only have heard as scratchy demos.

John Murphy / Music OHM (UK) / Thursday, October 9, 2014

Stevie Nicks: 24 Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault

Rating: 6/10

Stevie Nicks Empties the Vault

Everyone wishes that their favorite artist or band would release a rarities album filled with unreleased songs, B-sides, and other hidden gems. With 24 Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault, that is exactly what Stevie Nicks fans gets, an album composed of reworked, and in some cases, completely reimagined demos, some dating as far back as the late ‘60s. And despite this collection being composed of songs recorded at different periods in time, it’s still a surprisingly cohesive and unified album that is as much a part of Stevie Nicks’ canon as are beloved albums like Bella Donna and The Wild Heart.

Although it is a distinctly Stevie Nicks experience, certain songs on 24 Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault do borrow from other bands, and/or popular musical styles from the time they were originally recorded. With its glam infused blues sound, lead track “Starshine” is reminiscent of early ‘70s Rolling Stones, and its eerily easy to envision Mick Jagger singing along with Stevie. “Mabel Normand” has that patented Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers pop-rock sound to it that adds an intriguing dimension to Nicks’ hauntingly vivid lyrics. Adding to the diverse nature of the album is “Twisted”, a song that sounds better suited for the adult contemporary charts of 1995.

Not only is it a refreshingly eclectic sounding album, it’s still one that is wholly and uniquely Stevie Nicks. Amongst the decade spanning diverse sounds, reminiscent of other bands, Nicks even finds time to include other artists on this album. Lady Antebellum provides backing vocals on “Blue Water”, as well as a superb cover of Vanessa Carlton’s “Carousel”, which deals with the uncontrollable passing of time, something that Nicks’ lyrics have dealt with for over 40 years now.

One of the album highlights, “She Still Loves Him”, features one of the most poignant and underrated collaborations of her career with music and a melody written by Dire Straits member Mark Knopfler. “She Still Loves Him” answers the question of “What Stevie Nicks album would be complete without a love song to Lindsey Buckingham?” It’s the direct sequel to one of the most beloved B-sides of all time in “Silver Springs”, another songs written by Nicks for Buckingham. Nicks is the titular “She” as Buckingham is “Him”, the misunderstood object of her affection, and it’s a proclamation, better yet, an exaltation of her love for him despite the passing of time and the impossibility of ever being with him again. The entirety of her relationship with Buckingham can be summed up in one of the last lines of the album: “Oh no, they would not like it much anyway, but she still loves him.” It’s strikingly powerful, yet somberly intimate which makes it a Stevie Nicks classic after the first listen.

Despite the fact that the songs on the album were recorded at different points, and despite the fact that they are influenced by the times in which they were recorded, what saves the collection from falling off the rails, which it very easily could have, is Stevie Nicks’ ever present aura. All of her songs, even when with Fleetwood Mac, possess an intangibility to them. There’s a certain enchantment to all the songs on the album that blends in nicely with the rest of her catalog. Even an outlandish track like “Cathouse Blues” with its snazzy 1940s sound is still imbued with Nicks’ gypsy charm.

Just as much as she borrows from other musicians and sounds, she also borrows from herself on 24 Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault. “Dealer” sounds like an updated version of “Gypsy” even though it was written and recorded around the time of Tusk. Nonetheless, it’s still interesting to listen to these tracks knowing their chronology and literally listening to how her own personal sound and style has changed over the years. If you know Stevie Nicks, it’s pretty easy to ascertain when each song on this album was originally recorded.

One thing that has most definitely changed over the years is Nicks’ voice. At her best, she sounds exactly how you’d think 29 year old Stevie Nicks would sound at age 66. At her worst, on “If You Were My Love”, she sounds like Bob Dylan with a stuffy nose. Despite some pitfalls and missteps, the raspy, scratchy vocals of Stevie Nicks are still preserved and come through rather nicely when all is said and done.

Bear in mind that being 16 tracks deep, this is a long album clocking in at 70 minutes. Understandably, pacing problems ensue. While it’s thoughtful of Nicks to dig deep into her unreleased catalog, the middle third of the album drags on a little too much as the middle five songs can, and should have, all been cut down by a minute each. The pacing of the album isn’t as flawed as Exile on Main Street, nor does drag its feet through its most boring section, but halfway through 24 Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault listeners will get antsy waiting for the pace to quicken again. Thankfully with “Watch Chain”, one of the standout tunes, the album recovers and conservatively sprints to the finish line with tracks that range from the passable (“Hard Advice”), to the mesmerizing (“She Still Loves Him” and “Carousel”).

It’s great to see an artist dig so far back and deliver an album of unreleased, and unused material, especially when their fanbase has been begging for one. 24 Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault owes its inception to the rampant number of bootlegged copies circulating YouTube. Clearly there was a demand for an album like this, and Stevie Nicks certainly delivered. Albums like these are intended solely for the real fans, as casual listeners would like two or three songs, but they wouldn’t fully appreciate it as much as others would. With such a mix of songs spanning almost 40 years, Stevie Nicks proves that if you open the vault, you might as well empty it out.

Andrew Doscas / PopMatters / Tuesday November 25, 2014

Andrew Doscas is a pop culture analyst who seeks to explore the intrinsic meaning of all medium that make up our popular culture. He tries to make sense of society by using Batman Forever, The Who and the 1993-1994 New York Knicks as makeshift paradigms for the entire universe. In his spare time he writes for his own blog at nowherebutpop.com where he tries to defend One Hot Minute and explain why most musicians eventually go insane.

October 6, 2014
Stevie’s secret history

IN THE ’80S, A DOCTOR WARNED FLEETWOOD MAC’S GOLD-DUST WOMAN STEVIE NICKS THAT IF SHE DID ONE MORE LINE OF COCAINE, SHE’D HAVE A BRAIN HEMORRHAGE. THREE DECADES LATER, ROCK’S FAIRY GODMOTHER IS STILL HERE — AND MAN, DOES SHE HAVE STORIES. HAVE YOU HEARD THE ONE ABOUT THE BABY SHE ALMOST HAD WITH DON HENLEY?

Stevie Nicks was sitting in her den in Los Angeles’ Pacific Palisades recently, overlooking the ocean, when the 66-year-old peered out the window and saw black angel wings. The wings were so pretty, she thought about taking a photo. But after several minutes, she heard ambulance sirens and realized that a boat had caught fire: The angel wings were in fact black smoke.

It’s telling that she saw beauty in a disaster. Rumours, the 1977 Fleetwood Mac album, is both one of the most elegant pop albums ever made, and one of the most savage. The record chronicles the romantic crossfire between Nicks and guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, a pair of Americans who’d joined the venerable British group two years earlier, and bassist John McVie and keyboardist Christine McVie, who’d broken up and weren’t speaking to one another, following her affair with the band’s sound engineer. (Drummer Mick Fleetwood didn’t escape the melodrama — his wife had an affair with Mick’s best friend.) Though the Nicks-Buckingham romance ended long ago, it continues to yield great songs: On her new album, 24 Karat Gold — Songs From the Vault, due Oct. 7, Nicks has recorded lost songs she wrote between the late ’60s and mid-’90s, at least one of which, she tells Billboard, is about Buckingham.

On the day of her album’s release, Nicks, who was once married briefly, will play New York’s Madison Square Garden with Fleetwood Mac, the fifth date of the band’s On With the Show North American concerts, which continue through December — the first leg of a planned world trek. A year ago, the group canceled dates in Australia and New Zealand due to John McVie’s cancer treatment (the band’s publicist reports that he’s “in excellent health now”), and this new tour reunites them with Christine McVie, who quit the group in 1998. That’s a lot of ex-lovers on the same stage, and a lot of beautiful black smoke.

24 Karat Gold is an unusual idea: You recorded songs you’d written years ago but never released. Were you able to figure out in what year you wrote each song?

I don’t know the exact dates. I’m pretty sure “Cathouse Blues” was written in 1969, before Lindsey and I moved to L.A. And I think “Lady” was written at the end of 1971 or beginning of 1972, when Lindsey and I got our first piano. I think it was the first song I ever wrote on a piano.

Why old songs instead of new ones?

This album was made very fast. When [John McVie] got cancer, we had to cancel our tour of Australia. I had some free time, and I thought, “Maybe I should make a record.” All over the Internet, there are songs I wrote but never released, and people keep saying, “Why don’t you record these songs for real?” I’d never had time to do that. Now I had an empty, precious three months.

My previous album, In Your Dreams, took a year and two months. So I called [In Your Dreams producer] Dave Stewart and said, “How do we make a record in two months?” And he said, “We go to Nashville.” He told me, “In Nashville, you hire the best studio musicians, and they record two songs a day. On a really good day, they might even do three.” I was laughing, because I didn’t believe him. But we were there for three weeks, and we recorded 17 songs in 15 days.

Fleetwood Mac couldn’t record 17 songs in 15 months.

They couldn’t, not even if you offered them $5 million apiece. In Fleetwood Mac, I play them a demo, and someone says, “That’s great, but why don’t we work on that second verse?” I might say, “Are you crazy?” or I might say, “That’s a good idea.” You mull it over.

We packed up after those 15 days in Nashville and went back to my house, where we recorded background vocals and guitar overdubs. This was all done in under three months, because on Aug. 4, I had to start Fleetwood Mac rehearsals. We didn’t have a minute to spare.

Is there relief in doing a solo album, rather than going through the democratic process of Fleetwood Mac? In a band, you have to ask others “What do you think?” and then pretend you care.

Right. Because you don’t really care. You’re asking people to give you an opinion, just so you’ll be able to say, “I totally disagree with you, and I know I’m right. But I’m glad to hear how you feel.”

You spent months listening to your old songs, and for 24 Karat Cold’s art, looking at photos of yourself as far back as your 20s. What did you learn about your life?

Part of me is feeling extremely old now, and part of me is feeling extremely young. Because I look at these pictures and realize I worried about things that I shouldn’t have been worrying about. Like the fact that I had little marionette lines around my mouth when I was 29, and I was complaining about them. I wouldn’t go out to the beach without a sarong from my neck to my ankles. Now I see a picture of myself from that era in a bikini and I’m like, “You looked great. And you missed out on a lot of fun vacations, because you were so sure that you were fat.”

So the moral is, spend more time in a bikini?

Spend more time in a bikini! All the little girls in their 20s, they’re terrified of looking like they’re not 16. And I’m like, “Oh, just get ready for what’s to come.” It’s going to be way harder for them. The world has become a much more vain place.

“Cathouse Blues” is the oldest song on 24 Karat Gold, and it’s a very unusual style for you, almost ragtime.

It is unusual. I think I wrote it in 1969, maybe ’68. It’s about some cartoon cats. They’re hanging out on a fence and — I don’t want to say hooker cats, because they weren’t that, but they were definitely street cats. When it says “blue-gray eyes,” I think that must have been about Lindsey, because he has blue-gray eyes.

At 15 and a half, I fell in love with a really handsome boy in Arcadia High School in Los Angeles. Thank God for that, because even though my relationship with Lindsey didn’t really end well, the passionate feeling I had for this man — who I still know very well, and, in my own way, will always be crazy about — he brought out this love song.

When you went back to listen to songs you’d written years ago, did they each remind you of a specific period of your life?

Yes. Give “Mabel Normand” a special listen. Mabel was an amazing actress and comedian from the ’20s, and she was a terrible cocaine addict. She eventually died of tuberculosis, but it was really her drug addiction that killed her. She was in love with a famous director, who tried to get her off coke, and he was murdered. Rumor has it, drug dealers killed him. I saw a documentary of her in 1985, when I was at my lowest point with the blow. I was watching TV one night, the movie came on, and I really felt a connection with her. That’s when I wrote the song. Less than a year later, I went to rehab at Betty Ford.

Didn’t a doctor warn you in the ’80s that if you did one more line of coke, you might have a heart attack?

He said I’d have a brain hemorrhage, actually. The documentary really scared me, because I saw this beautiful girl go downhill so fast. Sometimes you can’t see it in yourself, but you sure as heck can see it in someone else. And suicide was never my MO. I’m basically a happy person. I was a happy person back then. I just got addicted to coke, and that was a very bad drug for me. It was obviously a very bad drug for Mabel too. She had a gang of rich kids, like Lindsay Lohan today. That same bunch of girls comes around every 15 years.

What about “Hard Advice”? What’s happening in that song?

It’s a lecture Tom Petty gave me one day about something that was going on in my life. I’d asked him to write a song with me — this was about two months after I came out of rehab for [addiction to] Klonopin. I was still in a fragile state, after 48 days of hell in rehab. And Tom said, “You don’t need help to write a song. You just need to get over this experience that bummed you out so bad. The relationship you were in is over, it was over a long time ago, and you need to move on.” And I went home and wrote this song.

You’ve toured with Tom, you’ve recorded a few duets, and his band members contributed to your first two solo albums. Wasn’t he also tangentially involved in “Edge of Seventeen” [from 1981’s Bella Donna]?

I asked Tom’s wife, Jane, when she met him. She said, “I met him at some point during the age of 17.” But I thought she said, “The edge of 17.” I said, “Jane, can I use that? Can I write a song called ‘Edge of Seventeen’?”

I always thought “Edge of Seventeen” was about lusting after a younger guy. But recently, I read that it’s about John Lennon’s murder.

It is. And “Edge of Seventeen” is also a little bit about Tom. “He seemed broken hearted/Somethin’ within him,” that was Jane talking about Tom. I bet a lot of people thought I was talking about me, but I was chronicling their relationship as she told it to me.

I notice you haven’t said which of your ex-boyfriends “Hard Advice” is about. That reminds me of a story Don Henley told years ago, about your [Fleetwood Mac] song “Sara.” He said you got pregnant while the two of you were dating, and Sara was the name you gave the unborn baby.

Had I married Don and had that baby, and had she been a girl, I would have named her Sara. But there was another woman in my life named Sara, who shortly after that became Mick’s wife, Sara Fleetwood.

So what Henley says about the song is accurate, but it’s not the entirety of the song?

Right. It’s accurate, but not the entirety of it.

Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours is, famously, an album made while both couples in the band were breaking up. But you and Lindsey were already having problems when you joined the band in 1974. So I wonder if the previous album, Fleetwood Mac, is also a breakup album.

We were breaking up when Fleetwood Mac asked us to join. We moved down from San Francisco to L.A. in 1972, and made Buckingham Nicks in 1973, and were having problems all through that. When we moved, it was lonely. I didn’t have any girlfriends. And I was the one who worked. I had to be a waitress, and a cleaning lady, in order to support us — because Lindsey didn’t want to play four sets at Chuck’s Steakhouse, where we could’ve made $500 a week. To him, that was selling out. He wanted to play original music, so I went along with that.

When we joined Fleetwood Mac, I said, “OK, this is what we’ve been working for since 1968. And so Lindsey, you and I have to sew this relationship back up. We have too much to lose here. We need to put our problems behind us. Maybe we’re not going to have any more problems, because we’re finally going to have some money. And I won’t have to be a waitress.”

I made Lindsey listen to all the Fleetwood Mac records. And I said, “I think we can do something for this band. We’ll do it for a year, save some money and if we don’t like it, we’ll quit.” And he’s like, “But Buckingham Nicks, I still think the record’s going to start to break out.” I said, “You wait around. I’m sick of being a waitress. We are joining Fleetwood Mac and we’re going to be great.”

I got an apartment on Hollywood Boulevard, he moved back in with me, and we kind of put our relationship back together. We weren’t fighting about money, we had a really nice place, and we were going to work with these hysterically funny English people every day, making great music.

Christine was like my mentor, and the only person who could buffer Lindsey. She could totally soothe him and calm him down, and that was great, because I wasn’t good at that. We were sailing along on the highest wave. It was OK for a while, until it wasn’t. At the end of 1976, that’s when it just blew up.

So do you hear premonitions of that breakup in the Fleetwood Mac songs?

Absolutely. Some of those songs came from two years before, when we broke up. People didn’t examine that record as much, because to the public, it looked great — two couples in a band. And by the way, Christine and John weren’t doing so great either during that album.

I feel bad for John. If Lindsey wrote a mean song about you, you could write one about him. Christine could write one about John. But John didn’t get to write a mean song about anyone.
No. John just got to snarl and play bass. That’s why it’s good to be a writer, because you get to lash back. And had John been a writer, he would have a lot to say.

Why haven’t you written a memoir?

Because I wouldn’t be able to tell the whole truth. The world is not ready for my memoir, I guarantee you. All of the men I hung out with are on their third wives by now, and the wives are all under 30. If I were to write what really happened between 1972 and now, a lot of people would be very angry with me. It’ll happen some day, just not for a very long time. I won’t write a book until everybody is so old that they no longer care. Like, “I’m 90, I don’t care what you write about me.”

I am loyal to a fault. And I have a certain loyalty to these people that I love because I do love them, and I will always love them. I cannot throw any of them under the bus until I absolutely know that they will not care.

The world is ready, but the third wives are not ready.

The third wives are not ready. The husbands are not ready either.

You said getting revenge is one reason it’s good to be a writer.

Yes, but you also have to be kind. Just because a relationship ended badly, and shitty things happened, you cannot tell that to the world. But you can write a song about it, in three verses and a bridge and a chorus, that tells the really magical moments.

24 KARAT GOLD: PHOTOS FROM THE VAULT
While Nicks was recording 24 Karat Gold on a strict three-month deadline, she also had to create cover art for the album. But she didn’t have a concept, and there was no time for a photo shoot, so for the cover art and CD booklet, Nicks says, “We used Polaroids I took between 1975 and 1987,” a period when Fleetwood Mac was often on tour.

“I used to stay up half the night when I was on tour, because I wanted to learn to be a great photographer,” she recalls. But because of her schedule, Nicks was usually the subject of her pictures. “I couldn’t find anyone to model for me, because I worked so late at night.” And like a lot of photographers, she was demanding, too: “I’d say, ‘If you want to be my model, be in my room at 2:30 in the morning, dressed like Queen Elizabeth.’” She laughs at the absurdity of her demand. “I was a ridiculous, obsessive photographer.” — R.T.

SELFIES BY STEVIE
Nicks, who has a decades-long history of self-portraiture, shared these recent photos with Billboard.

PHOTO (COLOR): “A lot of what happened in my relationships was wonderful and magical,” says Nicks. Clockwise from opposite page: Performing in the ’80s; Fleetwood Mac around the time of 1977’s Rumours; with Petty in 2002; her 1966 senior yearbook photo from Menlo-Atherton High School in Atherton, Calif.

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): “I don’t have a computer, nor am I on the Internet — I do not do any of that,” says Nicks over a landline. The artist in 1981 and (right) in 2014.

Rob Tannenbaum / Billboard (Vol. 126, Issue 32) / October 4, 2014

October 4, 2014
A CLOSER LOOK: 24 Karat Gold — double vinyl edition

September 30, 2014
Stevie Nicks on Mick Fleetwood

Singer-songwriter Stevie Nicks began performing in bands in high school in California, and later joined Lindsey Buckingham’s band, Fritz, opening for such artists as Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Jefferson Airplane. After three-and-a-half-years Fritz disbanded, and in 1973 Nicks and Buckingham recorded the album, Buckingham Nicks.

Soon after, they joined Mick Fleetwood and Christine and John McVie’s band on their eponymous 1975 album, Fleetwo0od Mac. Nicks would continue with the group to this day, recording eight albums, while also recording eight solo albums, including the 2014 release, 24 Karat Gold: Songs From the Vault.

CBS News correspondent John Blackstone recently talked with Nicks about her relationships with members of Fleetwood Mac, who are regrouping with former member Christine McVie for a new album and tour.

John Blackstone: You’re a better singer now than you were in the 1970s, Stevie.

Stevie Nicks: So much better. So much better. I’m really trained. I could teach voice now.

Blackstone: Mick said, “As much as Stevie said she’d like time off, that girl just keeps workin’.” You got a new album comin’ out. You’re doin’ this tour. You can’t stop. You don’t wanna stop.

Nicks: You know what? It’s kind of like, what else would you do? This is my job. This is what I’ve been doing since I was a senior in high school, and I joined my first band with, you know, three girls and five guys [singing] Bob Dylan songs.

And I learned to play the guitar, not very well, but well enough to play for my mom and dad and convince them that I was gonna be a singer. And so it’s what I do. I enjoy it. I think I would be probably better served to take a little bit of a break once in a while. The last time I actually had a real vacation was 2008. And I went to Mexico for three months. And I should do that every once in a while.

But it seems that every time I almost get to booking that trip — we were not supposed to come back out on the road this year. And then Christine called and said, ‘I’m back.’ And then all of a sudden, shows went on sale and sold out in the beginning of February. So there was no time for that. So I kind of look at it as, well, I guess it’s better to have a job than to not have a job!

Blackstone: Let me just ask, for you, the significance of having Christine back in the band now.

Nicks: Well, when she left in 1998, it was very significant. Because we had only just reunited to do The Dance tour and The Dance record. And it went swimmingly well. We hadn’t played together since the Mirage tour, which was somewhere in the beginning of the ’80s. It was after Bella Donna and before Wild Heart. It was really a long time ago that Fleetwood Mac, as a band, this five, played. Because when we did Tango in the Night in 1987, Lindsey quit before that tour. And we had to hire Rick Vito and Billy Burnett to take his place. Because we were already so booked that there was no getting out of that tour.

So The Dance was the first time that this five had played in a long, long time. So when that tour finished our 40th show, Christine, after the Grammys in 1998, came to me and said, “I’m quitting,” I’m like, “Why? We’ve just done 40 shows. And we have, like, the potential to do another 100 shows.”

And she said, “Because I wanna go back to England. I don’t wanna fly anymore. And I don’t wanna live in hotels anymore. And I don’t wanna do this anymore.” And there was something in her eyes that was so serious that it really is like somebody breaking up with you, when they say, “I’m leaving you.” And you don’t even go, like, “Why?” She was done.

And so the fact that she made the phone call last year, right before we got to Europe to do the the last leg of tour that we did last year, and said, “How would you feel if I came back to the band?” I’m like, “Are you serious?” Because I never would’ve thought she would. I really believed her from the very beginning. And 16 years slowly went by. And there was never a phone call saying, “I’m thinking about it.”

And I said, “I think it would be amazing. But you should come and see us play. It’s a three-hour show. It’s very physical. And you should hire a trainer.” So she did come to see us play. She hired a trainer. And she is now stronger than any of us. She’s been working out solid since then. I’ve never even had a trainer in my life. So she’s, like, left us in the dust. (laughs) So she’s totally, really strong. And she’s ready to go. So she slipped right back into the band as if she never left.

I mean, I look over, and I think, “I don’t think she ever left. I think that was a dream, a bad dream that wasn’t true. And she’s really never been gone. She’s actually been here all this time,” or we left. And it’s the “Twilight Zone.” (laughs)

So it’s really wonderful to have her back. And she brings the funny. And the funny is very, very important. And that is what is really, to me, besides her beautiful songs and her beautiful presence, the fact that she’s such a comedienne, and she just makes us all laugh is, to me, the most precious part of the whole thing. What you do notice is how much you missed that. Without her, it was a much more serious band. With her, it’s it’s much more lighthearted. So that right there makes the whole thing easier.

Blackstone: When you’re up there now, does it seem like 40 years since the five of you all started?

Nicks: No. It really doesn’t. I can remember going to dinner with them. They called us. Mick called Lindsey and I on New Year’s Eve 1974 and asked us if we would have dinner with them at a Mexican restaurant in Los Angeles and alluded to the fact that he was interested in Lindsey and I joining Fleetwood Mac.

Now, we really didn’t know much about Fleetwood Mac. But we did know that they were fairly well-known in Europe. So we went, like, two days later and had dinner with them. And in that 24 hours ran to Tower Records and bought every record that they had ever done and listened to all, back to front, all their records. They [had] a mystical quality with “Bermuda Triangle” and the Bob Welch things.

And I said to Lindsey, “You can totally fit into any one of those guitar players’ world if you want, if you so choose. And it’s a great band. What more could we ask for? And, if we get in the band and we don’t like it, we save some money, I put it away, and we can quit. What’s not to love about this?”

So we went to dinner with them, had a raucously great time, just laughed ourselves silly for three hours and went home. And I said, “We need to join this band.” And he said, “Okay.” And that was it.

Blackstone: A lot has happened in that 40 years. And much of what’s happened has ended up in your songs. On your new album comin’ out, 24 Karat, a couple of those songs are about Mick.

Nicks: They are. Two of them are. “24 Karat Gold” and “Watch Chain.” Thank you, Mick, for that. (laughs) You know, a girl has to have stuff to write about. And I have had a lot of really interesting men in my life who have inspired me to write, like, some pretty amazing poetry, I think. And I don’t think you write amazing poetry unless you’re inspired by somebody who is amazing– and who really affects you.

My songs always start as formal poems. And then I go to the piano with my formal, finished poem. So those were just two songs that, well, they were all demos. So when I called up Dave Stewart and said, “How do I make an album in 2 1/2 months,” he said, “We go to Nashville. ‘Cause those guys will take your 17 really, really well-done demos, and they will copy them exactly, except they’ll play them way better than you did. They’ll play them like great musicians.” And I’m like, “Seriously?” And he said, “Yeah.” So that’s what we did.

And we were able to record a record in exactly two months — a month at my house here in L.A., and a month in Nashville — and then under a month to put together all the art, which was old Polaroids that I had taken. This little record all came together very easily, because I had so much of it already done.

Blackstone: You’d written a couple of those songs about Mick, as you said. Mick isn’t a songwriter. So as you know, he’s written a book.

Nicks: Yes.

It was very hurtful to his wife and very hurtful, down the road, to his children and to all his relatives that I knew really well. So I paid a price for that.

Blackstone: Has he shared the book?

Nicks: I have not read his book yet, only because there hasn’t been one minute to sit down and read a book. But you know, I trust that Mick has written a good book. He’s had a very, very interesting life. He’s a very interesting man. And I’ve been there, since — I mean, he was 29 when we joined Fleetwood Mac. So I’ve been there from 29 on to watch his life. I’m sure that he has a lot of wisdom to impart to the world.

Blackstone: I’ve had a chance to read some of it, and he writes, “My love with Stevie was the perfect underground liaison. It was a true love affair. There was tremendous passion. And then the game was called off.”

Nicks: True.

Blackstone: Does that all sound accurate?

Nicks: Pretty accurate.

Blackstone: Who called it off?

Nicks: Mick did. And this is something that I always, as a songwriter, said that I would never — I would never change it around. So if somebody left me, I would never say that I left them, you know? I would never not be truthful. What happened was I had a very dear friend, one of my top two or three friends, whose name was Sara. When I fell in love with Mick, I think that she fell in love with Mick, too. And she really will readily admit to you that she just went after him. And she got him. And there was really, you know, nothing I could do except basically stop speaking to both of them.

And then three months later, I forgave Sara. Because I just really kinda missed my friend almost more than I missed Mick. Because sometimes friends, you know, are like almost more missable than lovers in a lotta ways.

So and eventually, during the next couple of months, I forgave Mick. I didn’t feel that either of them set out to hurt me. And it just played out the way it was supposed to play out. And Mick and I both knew, from the very beginning, because Mick was married to somebody that I loved very much, to his wife, Jenny, and had two little girls that I adored, our relationship was just a fluke anyway. And it happened in Australia after a super-drunken party, where Mick and I ended up to be the last two people in the suite. And all of a sudden, Mick and I were goin’ out, you know, and discretely, super discretely. Because he was married.

And I believe in my heart that when you accidentally set upon to break up somebody’s marriage, you’re gonna pay in the end. And so there was a big price to pay. It was very hurtful to his wife and very hurtful, down the road, to his children and to all his relatives that I knew really well. So I paid a price for that. And I learned a very valuable lesson in that.

Blackstone: And yet, does all that disappear when you’re on the stage now, all that history?

Nicks: Because Mick and I had the kind of relationship that allowed us, once we got past that year, ’cause that was the year of Tusk, that was 1979 — it was 13 months — Mick left me for Sara, and he ended up marrying Sara and being married to Sara for, like, 18 years. So I would never have married Mick if he —

Blackstone: You wouldn’t have stuck around that long?

Nicks: No, I wouldn’t have. So the fact is that it was 13 months. By the end of the 13 months, when we got done with Tusk, Mick and I were okay. We had put it all behind us. And because we both knew that Fleetwood Mack was gonna go on probably longer than anybody’s marriage and that it was important that we be friends.

So Mick and I just put our friendship back together and have been really the kind of friends where, you know, I fly to his house and we hang out. And we all go on vacation together. Some people, you can have that relationship with. Some people, you can’t have that relationship with. I’m really glad that, with Mick, it worked out that way. Because it would have really been sad over the last 30 years if Mick and I hadn’t been able to — you can see what good friends we are. It’s just very seeable. And we make each other laugh. And we just really love each other. You know, long after Fleetwood Mac is over, Mick and I will still be best friends.

Blackstone: Looks like Fleetwood Mack is never gonna be over.

Nicks: Well, I know. But if it ever is, we’ll still be really good friends.

John Blackstone / CBS Sunday Morning / Sunday, September 28, 2014

September 28, 2014
Stevie Nicks admits past pregnancy with Don Henley

Stevie Nicks admits past pregnancy with Don Henley and more about her wild history

In the ’80s, a doctor warned Stevie Nicks that if she did one more line of cocaine, she’d have a brain hemorrhage. Three decades later, she’s still here — and she has plenty of stories to tell.

Stevie Nicks was sitting in her den in Los Angeles’ Pacific Palisades recently, overlooking the ocean, when the 66-year-old peered out the window and saw black angel wings. The wings were so pretty, she thought about taking a photo. But after several minutes, she heard ambulance sirens and realized that a boat had caught fire: The angel wings were in fact black smoke.

It’s telling that she saw beauty in a disaster. Rumours, the 1977 Fleetwood Mac album, is both one of the most elegant pop albums ever made, and one of the most savage. The record chronicles the romantic crossfire between Nicks and guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, a pair of Americans who’d joined the venerable British group two years earlier, and bassist John McVie and keyboardist Christine McVie, who’d broken up and weren’t speaking to one another, following her affair with the band’s sound engineer. (Drummer Mick Fleetwood didn’t escape the melodrama — his wife had an affair with Mick’s best friend.) Though the Nicks-Buckingham romance ended long ago, it continues to yield great songs: On her new album, 24 Karat Gold – Songs From the Vault, due Oct. 7, Nicks has recorded lost songs she wrote between the late ’60s and mid-’90s, at least one of which, she tells Billboard, is about Buckingham.

On the day of her album’s release, Nicks, who was once married briefly, will play New York’s Madison Square Garden with Fleetwood Mac, the fifth date of the band’s On With the Show North American concerts, which continue through December — the first leg of a planned world trek. A year ago, the group canceled dates in Australia and New Zealand due to John McVie’s cancer treatment (the band’s publicist reports that he’s “in excellent health now”), and this new tour reunites them with Christine McVie, who quit the group in 1998. That’s a lot of ex-lovers on the same stage, and a lot of beautiful black smoke.

24 Karat Gold is an unusual idea: You recorded songs you’d written years ago but never released. Were you able to figure out in what year you wrote each song?

I don’t know the exact dates. I’m pretty sure “Cathouse Blues” was written in 1969, before Lindsey and I moved to L.A. And I think “Lady” was written at the end of 1971 or beginning of 1972, when Lindsey and I got our first piano. I think it was the first song I ever wrote on a piano.

Why old songs instead of new ones?

This album was made very fast. When [John McVie] got cancer, we had to cancel our tour of Australia. I had some free time, and I thought, “Maybe I should make a record.” All over the Internet, there are songs I wrote but never released, and people keep saying, “Why don’t you record these songs for real?” I’d never had time to do that. Now I had an empty, precious three months.

My previous album, In Your Dreams, took a year and two months. So I called [In Your Dreams producer] Dave Stewart and said, “How do we make a record in two months?” And he said, “We go to Nashville.” He told me, “In Nashville, you hire the best studio musicians, and they record two songs a day. On a really good day, they might even do three.” I was laughing, because I didn’t believe him. But we were there for three weeks, and we recorded 17 songs in 15 days.

Fleetwood Mac couldn’t record 17 songs in 15 months.

They couldn’t, not even if you offered them $5 million apiece. In Fleetwood Mac, I play them a demo, and someone says, “That’s great, but why don’t we work on that second verse?” I might say, “Are you crazy?” or I might say, “That’s a good idea.” You mull it over.

We packed up after those 15 days in Nashville and went back to my house, where we recorded background vocals and guitar overdubs. This was all done in under three months, because on Aug. 4, I had to start Fleetwood Mac rehearsals. We didn’t have a minute to spare.

Is there relief in doing a solo album, rather than going through the democratic process of Fleetwood Mac? In a band, you have to ask others “What do you think?” and then pretend you care.

Right. Because you don’t really care. You’re asking people to give you an opinion, just so you’ll be able to say, “I totally disagree with you, and I know I’m right. But I’m glad to hear how you feel.”

You spent months listening to your old songs, and for 24 Karat Gold’s art, looking at photos of yourself as far back as your 20s. What did you learn about your life?

Part of me is feeling extremely old now, and part of me is feeling extremely young. Because I look at these pictures and realize I worried about things that I shouldn’t have been worrying about. Like the fact that I had little marionette lines around my mouth when I was 29, and I was complaining about them. I wouldn’t go out to the beach without a sarong from my neck to my ankles. Now I see a picture of myself from that era in a bikini and I’m like, “You looked great. And you missed out on a lot of fun vacations, because you were so sure that you were fat.”

So the moral is, spend more time in a bikini?

Spend more time in a bikini! All the little girls in their 20s, they’re terrified of looking like they’re not 16. And I’m like, “Oh, just get ready for what’s to come.” It’s going to be way harder for them. The world has become a much more vain place.

“Cathouse Blues” is the oldest song on 24 Karat Gold, and it’s a very unusual style for you, almost ragtime.

It is unusual. I think I wrote it in 1969, maybe ’68. It’s about some cartoon cats. They’re hanging out on a fence and — I don’t want to say hooker cats, because they weren’t that, but they were definitely street cats. When it says “blue-gray eyes,” I think that must have been about Lindsey, because he has blue-gray eyes.

At 15 and a half, I fell in love with a really handsome boy in Arcadia High School in Los Angeles. Thank God for that, because even though my relationship with Lindsey didn’t really end well, the passionate feeling I had for this man — who I still know very well, and, in my own way, will always be crazy about– he brought out this love song.

When you went back to listen to songs you’d written years ago, did they each remind you of a specific period of your life?

Yes. Give “Mabel Normand” a special listen. Mabel was an amazing actress and comedian from the ’20s, and she was a terrible cocaine addict. She eventually died of tuberculosis, but it was really her drug addiction that killed her. She was in love with a famous director, who tried to get her off coke, and he was murdered. Rumor has it, drug dealers killed him. I saw a documentary of her in 1985, when I was at my lowest point with the blow. I was watching TV one night, the movie came on, and I really felt a connection with her. That’s when I wrote the song. Less than a year later, I went to rehab at Betty Ford.

Didn’t a doctor warn you in the ’80s that if you did one more line of coke, you might have a heart attack?

He said I’d have a brain hemorrhage, actually. The documentary really scared me, because I saw this beautiful girl go downhill so fast. Sometimes you can’t see it in yourself, but you sure as heck can see it in someone else. And suicide was never my MO. I’m basically a happy person. I was a happy person back then. I just got addicted to coke, and that was a very bad drug for me. It was obviously a very bad drug for Mabel too. She had a gang of rich kids, like Lindsay Lohan today. That same bunch of girls comes around every 15 years.

What about “Hard Advice”? What’s happening in that song?

It’s a lecture Tom Petty gave me one day about something that was going on in my life. I’d asked him to write a song with me — this was about two months after I came out of rehab for [addiction to] Klonopin. I was still in a fragile state, after 48 days of hell in rehab. And Tom said, “You don’t need help to write a song. You just need to get over this experience that bummed you out so bad. The relationship you were in is over, it was over a long time ago, and you need to move on.” And I went home and wrote this song.

You’ve toured with Tom, you’ve recorded a few duets, and his band members contributed to your first two solo albums. Wasn’t he also tangentially involved in “Edge of Seventeen” [from 1981’s Bella Donna]?

I asked Tom’s wife, Jane, when she met him. She said, “I met him at some point during the age of 17.” But I thought she said, “The edge of 17.” I said, “Jane, can I use that? Can I write a song called ‘Edge of Seventeen’?”

I always thought “Edge of Seventeen” was about lusting after a younger guy. But recently, I read that it’s about John Lennon’s murder.

It is. And “Edge of Seventeen” is also a little bit about Tom. “He seemed broken hearted/Somethin’ within him,” that was Jane talking about Tom. I bet a lot of people thought I was talking about me, but I was chronicling their relationship as she told it to me.

I notice you haven’t said which of your ex-boyfriends “Hard Advice” is about. That reminds me of a story Don Henley told years ago, about your [Fleetwood Mac] song “Sara.” He said you got pregnant while the two of you were dating, and Sara was the name you gave the unborn baby.

Had I married Don and had that baby, and had she been a girl, I would have named her Sara. But there was another woman in my life named Sara, who shortly after that became Mick’s wife, Sara Fleetwood.

So what Henley says about the song is accurate, but it’s not the entirety of the song?

Right. It’s accurate, but not the entirety of it.

Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours is, famously, an album made while both couples in the band were breaking up. But you and Lindsey were already having problems when you joined the band in 1974. So I wonder if the previous album, Fleetwood Mac, is also a breakup album.

We were breaking up when Fleetwood Mac asked us to join. We moved down from San Francisco to L.A. in 1972, and made Buckingham Nicks in 1973, and were having problems all through that. When we moved, it was lonely. I didn’t have any girlfriends. And I was the one who worked. I had to be a waitress, and a cleaning lady, in order to support us — because Lindsey didn’t want to play four sets at Chuck’s Steakhouse, where we could’ve made $500 a week. To him, that was selling out. He wanted to play original music, so I went along with that.

When we joined Fleetwood Mac, I said, “OK, this is what we’ve been working for since 1968. And so Lindsey, you and I have to sew this relationship back up. We have too much to lose here. We need to put our problems behind us. Maybe we’re not going to have any more problems, because we’re finally going to have some money. And I won’t have to be a waitress.”

I made Lindsey listen to all the Fleetwood Mac records. And I said, “I think we can do something for this band. We’ll do it for a year, save some money and if we don’t like it, we’ll quit.” And he’s like, “But Buckingham Nicks, I still think the record’s going to start to break out.” I said, “You wait around. I’m sick of being a waitress. We are joining Fleetwood Mac and we’re going to be great.”

I got an apartment on Hollywood Boulevard, he moved back in with me, and we kind of put our relationship back together. We weren’t fighting about money, we had a really nice place, and we were going to work with these hysterically funny English people every day, making great music.

Christine was like my mentor, and the only person who could buffer Lindsey. She could totally soothe him and calm him down, and that was great, because I wasn’t good at that. We were sailing along on the highest wave. It was OK for a while, until it wasn’t. At the end of 1976, that’s when it just blew up.

So do you hear premonitions of that breakup in the Fleetwood Mac songs?

Absolutely. Some of those songs came from two years before, when we broke up. People didn’t examine that record as much, because to the public, it looked great — two couples in a band. And by the way, Christine and John weren’t doing so great either during that album.

I feel bad for John. If Lindsey wrote a mean song about you, you could write one about him. Christine could write one about John. But John didn’t get to write a mean song about anyone.

No. John just got to snarl and play bass. That’s why it’s good to be a writer, because you get to lash back. And had John been a writer, he would have a lot to say.

Why haven’t you written a memoir?

Because I wouldn’t be able to tell the whole truth. The world is not ready for my memoir, I guarantee you. All of the men I hung out with are on their third wives by now, and the wives are all under 30. If I were to write what really happened between 1972 and now, a lot of people would be very angry with me. It’ll happen some day, just not for a very long time. I won’t write a book until everybody is so old that they no longer care. Like, “I’m 90, I don’t care what you write about me.”
I am loyal to a fault. And I have a certain loyalty to these people that I love because I do love them, and I will always love them. I cannot throw any of them under the bus until I absolutely know that they will not care.

The world is ready, but the third wives are not ready.

The third wives are not ready. The husbands are not ready either.

You said getting revenge is one reason it’s good to be a writer.

Yes, but you also have to be kind. Just because a relationship ended badly, and shitty things happened, you cannot tell that to the world. But you can write a song about it, in three verses and a bridge and a chorus, that tells the really magical moments.

Rob Tannenbaum / Billboard / Friday, September 26, 2014

September 26, 2014
Q&A: Stevie Nicks

On the Fleetwood Mac reunion, her solo LP, and why she can’t stop writing about Lindsey Buckingham

You can’t keep a gold-dust woman down – and Stevie Nicks is one busy gypsy these days. Her excellent new album, 24 Karat Gold – Songs From The Vault, features tunes she has written over the years but never recorded before, reaching back to 1969. This fall she hits the road again with Fleetwood Mac – this time with Christine McVie back in the fold after 16 years away. “The five original cast members,” Nicks says proudly. “Of all the elite bands of the Seventies, we’re the only one touring with the same lineup we had in 1975.”

So you go back on the road with Fleetwood Mac – a week before you release your solo album?

Yeah, I’m running two careers at the same time. But I don’t walk into Fleetwood Mac rehearsals and expound upon the record I just made, because I am a smart woman. When the time comes to hear it, they’ll like it. Lindsey will love it – half of the songs are about him!

Lindsey likes that?

Well, of course! We have continually written about each other, and we’ll probably keep writing about each other until we’re dead. We have been through great successes, great misunderstandings, a great musical connection. He has more appreciation for that now. I think it’s because he has two little daughters and a lovely wife, so he’s really in Girl World now. He’s more aware of a feminine point of view.

When you did Stand Back on the last tour, I counted 18 twirls during the guitar solo. Are you ever tempted to just stand there and take it easy onstage?

Well, I’m very practiced at twirling. I took a lot of ballet. The reason I wear the ponchos and the big shawl-y chiffon things is because I realized from a very young age that if you’re five foot one and aren’t twirling a baton of fire, you need something that is gonna make you be seen from far away.

I do this dance during Gold Dust Woman – we call it the Crackhead Dance. It’s me being some of the drug addicts I knew, and probably being myself, too – just being that girl lost on the streets, freaked out. When Christine saw it, she said, “Wow, we’ve always known that Gold Dust Woman’ was about the serious drug days, but this really depicts how frightening it was for all of us.” We were dancing on the edge for years.

What’s it like playing with with the whole Mac again?

We have to start from scratch. The Christine songs feel brand-new to us after 16 years. It’s not like we have record parties and listen to our old stuff.

Did you ever think Christine McVie would come back?

Never. We re-formed with The Dance in 1997, but that only lasted a year before Christine flipped out and said, “I just can’t do this anymore. I’m having panic attacks.” She sold her house and car and piano and moved back to England, never really to be heard from again. Then last year she called me and said, “This is crazy. I don’t need to sit in this castle 40 miles outside London watching gardening shows. I’m ready to come back to the world.” So I said, “Get a trainer.”

One of the great moments in the Mac live show is when the roadie brings out your top hat for the encore. Does the hat have its own roadie?

Absolutely. It’s a very special top hat – it’s from the 1920s and you can’t find another one like it. So the hat has its own roadie, its own box and its own cage. It’s always protected.

People really lose it when you sing, ‘I’m getting older too,” in Landslide. Yet you were so young when you wrote that song.

I was only 27. I wrote that in 1973, a year before I joined Fleetwood Mac. You can feel really old at 27.

There are so many young rock artists who are obviously hardcore fans of yours – Sharon Van Etten and White Lung and Sky Ferreira.

It’s sweet how that happens. It’s crazy to think about all these people listening who weren’t born back then. We put Seven Wonders back in the set because of American Horror Story. Our monitor guy said, “I’m not familiar with that song.” I said, “Because it came out when you were two.”

You’re like David Bowie that way – every generation discovers you.

Well, I’m a big fan of David Bowie. Especially his movie The Hunger, with Susan Sarandon and Catherine Deneuve. Just creepy and strange and amazingly beautiful. I’m always surprised Bowie didn’t make more vampire movies.

My favorite song of yours is ‘Ooh My Love’, from 1989. People always forget that one.

That’s one of my favorites, too. In fact, The Other Side of the Mirror is probably my favorite album. It was a really intense record. I had gotten away from the cocaine in 1986. I spent a year writing those songs. I was drug-free, and I was happy.

By Rob Sheffield / Rolling Stone / October 9, 2014

September 26, 2014
VIDEO: Recording 24 Karat Gold — Songs from the Vault

Stevie Nicks talks about the recording of 24 Karat Gold — Songs from the Vault.

http://youtu.be/dgXnFrIwGCM

September 26, 2014
Stevie Nicks self-portraits shown for the first time

[slideshow_deploy id=’18205′]
A stunning collection of Polaroids will go on display in New York next month after languishing in a shoebox for years. Gallery owner Peter Blachley tells the Guardian how the exhibit came about

A collection of self-portrait Polaroids shot by Fleetwood Mac legend Stevie Nicks will go on display at a New York City gallery next month after languishing in a shoebox for decades.

“Some people don’t sleep at night. I’m one of those people,” Nicks said in a statement about the photographs. “I would begin after midnight and go until 4 or 5 in the morning. I stopped at sunrise, like a vampire. I never really thought anyone would ever see these pictures.”

The exhibit, 24 Karat Gold, curated by Eurythmics guitarist and Stevie Nicks collaborator Dave Stewart, accompanies a new album from Nicks, which will be released under the same title. The album, like the portraits, is a time capsule unearthed: the songs were written and demo-ed between 1969 and 1987, but re-recorded in recent months.

The Guardian spoke to Peter Blachley, owner of the Morrison Hotel Gallery, where the exhibit takes place next month, about the show.

Tell us a little about your gallery – the Morrison Hotel Gallery – which I understand specialises in photographs of and by musicians.

PB: The gallery itself has been specific to fine art music photograph for many years. We started in 2000-2001 doing little shows on the west coast just to do the photography of Henry Diltz, who was one of our partners, and shot covers for the Eagles, the Doors, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Jackson Browne.

When we went to New York we knew that was the city we wanted to be based in. We went to three different locations in Soho before we finally found our permanent gallery. It’s evolved to where today we have over 120 photographers that we represent and they’re all music-based and probably the best in the world.

The Stevie Nicks show is curated by Dave Stewart, who produced an album of Stevie’s. You also have a music industry background. How did that play into how the exhibit came about?

Dave came to us a few years ago with his own photographs, and I saw what he was doing with Mick Jagger and Tom Petty and I thought: jeez, here’s a recording artist who at the same time has such an eye and a technical ability for creating photography. This is a natural for the Morrison Hotel Gallery.

Fast forward a few years later, when Dave has been working with Stevie, and he sees these self-portrait Polaroids that she did and said: look, we should really do an exhibit with these, I know a gallery in New York. So we decided to do the Stevie Nicks show based on what we saw as some very creative work done at a certain point in her life.

She said that she took the pictures to “learn how to be a photographer”. To me, many of the images look very sophisticated, like the work of a pro. Is she just being modest?

I think she was really being her own muse in terms of how she wanted to see herself. She sort of opened up this wonderful treasure chest of clothing and furniture and accessories, and all the things that she would have had around her to create these little worlds of fashion, and how she saw herself.

From a photographic point of view, if you look at those Polaroids, at the photographs, of course this is before digital and today it’s a lot easier to take digital self-portraits because the cameras auto-focus, they auto-color, they do everything. Even those early Polaroid cameras that she was using with a cord – in the shot where she’s in the swimming pool you can see the cord in her hand as she’s clicking the shot – in every other shot she’s disguised it very well.

So I think even though she was learning and experimenting, she was very sophisticated in her knowledge of composition, her knowledge of framing, her knowledge of color. Because the shots are just beautifully art directed.

I couldn’t help but notice a disparity in how the show was billed only as ‘self-portraits’, but a lot of media coverage has called the photographs ‘selfies’. Did you cut out the word on purpose? Do you have an opinion on it?

What we’re trying to project is a woman who was, as I say, filled with whatever muse was going on. She had to do these self-portraits because back in 1975, that’s what they were. And that’s what she was going for. Now we’re in 2014 and everybody has phones and ‘selfie’ has become the thing that everybody does.

I felt from a gallery point of view, probably the most credible and authentic way to approach this was ‘self-portrait’ because that’s what they were called in 1975 and that’s what she did when she was doing them. But in 2014, I knew that once the media got this we were going to see ‘selfie’ everywhere. And actually, fair enough, because I feel that, yeah, OK, maybe Stevie Nicks created the original selfie portraits. Wonderful! That doesn’t bother me at all.

I want to talk about nostalgia, which the show packs heavily, and which paradoxically makes it feel current because of the Instagram feel of the photos.

Here’s the difference. Because if they were really selfies they would forever live on your iPhone. You would look at them that way. But Nash Editions, which is one of the greatest fine art photography labs in the country, created much larger, Iris digital prints that are museum quality. These things are going to be 6ft x 7ft in many cases. When you walk into the show itself and you see these, the word ‘selfie’ is going to kind of go away, and the word ‘fine art’ is going to come into your head because they’re going to be impressive when they’re that large. The colors, her expressions, even her fingernails – the color of her fingernails, or the rings she was wearing, or the bracelets. It’s going to become so much more front and center than how you would see it in a small format.

How is the accompanying album incorporated into the exhibit? How did the album come out to be in tandem with this show? Does it play into the show?

There are two factors at play: the album is certainly one of them. It’s a new Stevie Nicks album, however, it’s a lot of cuts and things she had done previously. So it’s sort of a retrospective for her musically in the same way the self-portraits are. 24-Karat Gold, meaning we just mined these nuggets that we found in Stevie’s archive. We’re bringing them forward.

But the other element, the second element, is her touring with Fleetwood Mac and now that Christine McVie is in the band you’ve got the original band back. It’s like Stevie’s kind of coming full circle in a way, but at the same time we feel that with the new album and the gallery showing, it’s sort of bringing out more elements to her than we’ve ever seen before. I think it’s really smart on her part to do that.

Stevie Nicks was recently on what turned out to be a massively popular episode of American Horror Story, and all this is now happening. What do you put down to her enduring success? Why do people find her image so bewitching?

I think Stevie has a particular appeal with women, that is different than her appeal with men. I think men, when their first album came out, we just said about Stevie: “Wow, what a gorgeous woman.” I think women took it deeper. I think there was some connection that Stevie made with women. I don’t really know what that connection was but I think a lot of woman became really fanatical about her, but in a good way.

Usually, our gallery appeals to men. Most rock’n’roll photographs of men are heroic, and men are drawn to that. So many times they’ll come in our gallery and their girlfriends or their wives will come over to me and go: “I want to get that for his birthday, how much is it?”

So I was up in the gallery the other day and a man came in and said: “I came here because I want to get a Stevie Nicks photo for my wife. It’s our anniversary and she loves Stevie” – like we were talking about – “She’s fanatical about her. She speaks to her.” You know, all these things. Like, “She’s gotta have one of these.” And I said, “Sir, we will make that happen for her” and I’m gonna tell you, as a guy I’ve never seen this before.

That’s never happened before? That’s amazing.

No! It really is. And we’re seeing that trend with Stevie’s show. And that’s different than we’ve had with others.

24 Karat Gold opens to the public on 10 October at the Morrison Hotel Gallery at 201 Mulberry Street in New York City, before moving down the road to its showroom at 116 Prince Street. Her album, 24 Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault is out in the US on 7 October

Maraithe Thomas / The Guardian (UK) / Wednesday, September 24, 2014

September 24, 2014
REVIEW: Stevie Nicks 24 Karat Gold – Songs from the Vault

Fleetwood Mac star heads to Nashville, chasing the songs that nearly got away.

Rating: 7/10

As if Stevie Nicks hasn’t done enough soul-searching during her 40 years in one of the world’s biggest bands… On her eighth solo album, Nicks immerses herself in her past, gathering 16 of her long-lost songs together like errant children and dressing them in traditional costume — the billowing robes and gypsy shawl — before sending them out, fully Nicksed, into the world.

24 Karat Gold – Songs From The Vault finds the 66-year old getting her memories in order with the help of longtime associates Waddy Wachtel (he first played with her on 1973’s Buckingham Nicks) and Dave Stewart, producer of Nicks’ last solo set, 2011’s In Your Dreams, and a band of hired hands in Nashville who knocked out new versions of Nicks’ old songs in 15 days last May. In Your Dreams, somewhat tarnished by Dave Stewart’s sweet tooth, took 14 months. Fleetwood Mac records take far longer.

The songs in question stem from demos Nicks wrote at various stages in her career between 1969 and 1995, intended for her solo or Fleetwood Mac albums. One ballad, the bonus track “Twisted,” written in 1995 with Lindsey Buckingham for the film Twister, she felt deserved a wider audience. “When songs go into movies you might as well dump them out the window as you’re driving by because they never get heard,” she tells Uncut.

Many of these songs will be familiar to Mac devotees, having appeared online and on bootlegs or box sets in one form or another. Indeed, Nicks’ main incentive for the project was to record definitive versions of those unauthorized tracks floating around online that her assistant had drawn to her attention. Nicks hates computers and was once so worried about internet piracy that she didn’t release a solo record between 2001 and 2011, so this principled stance represents some sort of progress; if you can’t beat’em, join’em. “Just because I think computers are ruining the world, I can’t expect everyone to be on my wavelength,” she reasons. But to most, 24 Karat Gold is effectively a brand new album, albeit one that one occasion has the luxury of revelling in the twists and turns of a vintage Nicks number like “Lady,” formerly a fragile piano demo from the mid-’70’s called “Knocking On Doors” that’s now a footstep away from “Landslide.”

With these demos newly upholstered as mid-tempo soft-rock ballads by a solid Nashville outfit, it’s tempting to view the collection as an alternative look at Nicks’ life in music, each song offering a slightly different take on key moments in her colourful career. Nicks, too, her live-in voice stained with experience, seems to relish the chance to reacquaint herself through her lyrics with the girl she once was. The earliest cut here, a corny speakeasy pastiche called “Cathouse Blues,” was written by a 22-year old Nicks in 1969 before she and Buckingham, who played on the original, moved to Los Angeles. By “The Dealer,” a musky Tusk-era tumble, she’s already world-weary: “I was the mistress of my fate, I was the card shark / If I’d’ve looked a little ahead, I would’ve run away,” runs the chorus.

On Bella Donna cast-offs “Belle Fleur” and “If You Were My Love”, Elton John guitarist Davey Johnstone reprises his original role and plays on these new versions. Her trusted foil, Mike Campbell of the Heartbreakers, rolls up his sleeves for AOR james “Starshine” and “I Don’t Care”, tracks he just about remembers writing with Nicks in the early 80’s. “Mabel Normand,” a moving parable based on the tragic life of the 1920s silent movie star, came to Nicks when she herself was dancing with the devil in 1985. Following the death of her godson from an accidental overdose in 2012, the song has a more profound resonance today.

As befits a compilation of songs that weren’t up to scratch first time around, 24 Karat Gold contains a few tinpot tracks that even the Nashville boys couldn’t fix. Most, too, spill over the five-minute mark. but as fresh testament from one of Rock’s great survivors, it makes for a fascinating listen.

24 Karat Gold – Songs From The Vault will be released October 6th in the UK.

Q & A STEVIE NICKS

How did you end up recording in Nashville?

The last album I did was with Dave Stewart in my house and we let it take a year because we were having so much fun. So I called him and said, “Dave, I know we spent a year doing In Your Dreams, but how can we do a record in two months?” And he said, “Go to Nashville. Those guys are on the clock.” So you go to Nashville and hire six or seven of the best players in the world and give them your 16 demos and they give you 15 days. You do two songs a day, which is unheard of in the way that we record, usually, but they are union people so they get there at nine in the morning.

How did ‘Hard Advice’ come about?

“Hard Advice” was a lecture Tom Petty gave me on his way through Phoenix one night. I was having a little problematic moment in my life and he gave me one of his seriously hard advice lectures. He looked at me straight in the eyes with those big clear blue eyes and said, “This pain’s gone on too long. Go home, light up your incense and your candles and go to your Bosendorfer and write some real songs.”

This could be an alternative greatest hits.

Or a greatest hits that never came out. Somebody said at one point, “If you took the last line out of this chorus it would be so much more of a hit record,” and I just flat out said in front of the record company and everybody else: “I’m not trying to make a hit record here, I”m trying to make a great record.” Hit records don’t even sell anymore, anyway. Records don’t sell anymore.

Sleeve Notes

Recorded at:
Blackbird, Nashville; Rock A Little Studio; Weapons Of Mass Entertainment Studio; Village Recorder, LA

Produced by:
Dave Stewart, Waddy Wachtel, Stevie Nicks

Personnel:
Stevie Nicks (Vocals), Dave Stewart (Guitar), Waddy Wachtel (Guitar, bk vocals), Mike Campbell, Davey Johnstone (Guitar) Ann Marie Calhoun (Violin), Sharon Celani, Lori Nicks (bk vocals) Tom Bukovac (Guitar), Michael Rhodes (bass), Dan Dugmore (Banjo), Chad Cromwell (Drums), Benmont Tench (Keyboard), Lenny Castro (Percussion).

Piers Martin / Uncut (UK) / September 23, 2014

September 23, 2014
Listen to 24 Karat Gold title track

http://youtu.be/gSWGlfjQARo

September 19, 2014