By Gary Graff
Billboard
Friday, March 29, 2013
Stevie Nicks says that making her latest solo album, 2011’s In Your Dreams, was “the best year of my life.” And she’s even happier to have it chronicled on film.
Directed by David A. Stewart, the former Eurythmics member who co-produced and co-wrote the album, the In Your Dreams documentary will be shown for one night only on April 2 in North American theaters; locations and ticket information can be found at www.inyourdreamsmovie.com. This follows showings at several film festivals during 2011 and 2012, most recently at the South By Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas, where Nicks also performed with Dave Grohl’s Sound City Players.
“It’s a magical little film,” Nicks tells Billboard. “It really allows you to sit right there with us through the entire year of the making of In Your Dreams, and it’s funny. It’s really funny. It’s really compassionate and it’s at my house for a whole year. Dave’s team during 2011 took it down from a whole year to three hours and myself, my assistant and Dave’s editor took it down from there to an hour and 40 (minutes). It shows how hard it was to make (the album) and also how much fun it was and how magical it was. I hope that when people see it they really want to hear the record, even if they didn’t know I had a record out.” In Your Dreams debuted at No. 6 on the Billboard 200 in May of 2011 and has sold 188,000 copies to date, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
As the film’s promotional description notes, In Your Dreams documents “costume parties, joyous dinner feasts, tap dancing, fantasy creations, and revealing songwriting and recording sessions all of which are captured on film.” Mick Fleetwood, actress Reese Witherspoon, Mike Campbell of Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers, co-producer Glen Ballard and longtime Nicks cohort Waddy Wachtel also appear in the movie, as does former boyfriend Lindsey Buckingham. The session that produced the song “Soldier’s Angel,” which was inspired by Nicks’ periodic visits to wounded U.S. military personnel at hospitals on the East Coast, is also chronicled.
“I told (Buckingham) the story of the song and said, ‘If you can’t figure it out, it’s not going to go on the record and I’m going to be destroyed because this is truly my most sacred and revered song,’ “Nicks recalls. “He really saved the day on that; not only did we create something that’s probably as Buckingham-Nicks as we have been since 1973, but…it really brought Lindsey and I back together. As he was leaving on the second day he said, ‘I feel like we’re closer than we’ve been in 30 years, and I would not mess with that for anything. I’m so happy we have been able to do this song and make it something we love, because I know that’s so important to you.’”
Nicks—who kicks off a tour with Fleetwood Mac on April 4 in Columbus, Ohio—will also be taking the In Your Dreams film to the Toronto International Film Festival, with a screening and Q&A on April 15. “These are so crazy for me because I’ve never been to a film festival in my life before this,” she says. “So that was really an interesting experience for me to go to a real theater and do a question-and-answer, and then see the film and then do another question-and-answer. It was great. And, of course, I just love doing anything that allows me to hang out with Dave Stewart, ‘cause he just makes me laugh from the bottom of my feet up.”
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The In Your Dreams film is being distributed by Abamorama. Co-produced and co-directed by former Eurythmic Dave Stewart, In Your Dreams is a portrait of the elusive Nicks as she and Stewart embark on a musical journey to write and record the critically acclaimed album In Your Dreams. Nicks called this “the greatest year of my life” and felt compelled to share the joyful experience that she terms “the day the circus came to town” with her fans. The record was co-written by Nicks and Stewart and produced by Stewart and Glen Ballard. Watch the trailer at 
Nicks, one of the lead singers and emotional catalyst for Fleetwood Mac, is embarking on a world tour with them beginning April 4th in Columbus Ohio. A multi-Grammy-Award-winning artist and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, Nicks allowed cameras inside her magical old mansion high atop the hills of LA with a wild cast of musicians and friends. The inner life of the legendary Nicks has by her design long been kept at a distance from the public. We learn in Dreams that her world features, costume parties, elaborate dinner feasts, tap dancing, fantasy creations and revealing songwriting and recording sessions all of which are captured on film. Also cameos by Edgar Allan Poe, Mick Fleetwood, Reese Witherspoon, a massive white stallion in the backyard, owls and naturally a few vampires who appear in several “home movie” style music videos.
Along with tracking the Nicks/Stewart creative partnership, In Your Dreams has plenty of other cinematic payoffs including rare never before seen personal scrapbook stills from Nicks’ childhood and family life, and a wealth of candid backstage and performance shots taken over the last 35 years. The documentary was produced by Dave Stewart’s production company, Weapons of Mass Entertainment.
“She is really real. It doesn’t matter if she is singing in the make-up room or in the middle of a TV interview. She is who she is, and she doesn’t change,” commented Stewart.
