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  • Q & A with Stevie Nicks

    Q & A with Stevie Nicks

    Enchanted box set cover

    Stevie Nicks talks about compiling first retrospective box set, new solo album, and the future of Fleetwood Mac

    Anyone who was paying attention during Fleetwood Mac’s reunion tour last fall could tell that Stevie Nicks, 49, was still the star of the show. Trim and healthy, she got the biggest cheers and entranced the audience just as she had two decades before when the Mac was riding high on the mega-million-selling success of the album Rumours. Now, with Fleetwood Mac taking a breather, Nicks is going her own way once again, with her most prodigious display of wares since she began her first solo career in 1981. On Tuesday she releases Enchanted, a three-CD box set that contains her solo hits, choice album cuts and a bunch of rarities including soundtrack songs, collaborations with Kenny Loggins and John Stewart, outtakes and a haunting, spare piano version of “Rhiannon.”

    She begins a tour May 27 in Connecticut, with Boz Scaggs opening. When that wraps up in early August, she plans to finish her first solo album in four years — and her first release for her new label, Warner-Reprise.

    Q: This is quite a productive period for you.

    A: It’s almost like I didn’t ask for any of this; it just happened. I was truly started on a record of my own when the whole world changed, upside down.

    Q: You had started on your next album when the reunion popped up?

    A: Yes. All of a sudden this thing about Fleetwood Mac happened, and as the days went by there was more talk and then somebody from Warner Bros. actually came up and said (Lindsey Buckingham) really is going to put his record on the shelf to do this. I said, “Well, I don’t believe that,” because he said that a million times before. So I called him and I said, “Lindsey, I need you to tell me what’s happening because if we really are going to do this I’m not even going to start my record.” And he said, “I’m going to do it.” I said, “You’re sure? You promise?” He said, “Yes.” And then when I got home from the Fleetwood Mac thing I was told Atlantic felt this was a good time to do the box set, since I was going to Warner-Reprise. So all of these things just sort of happened, to my surprise.

    Q: You were so clearly the fan favorite during the tour. How does the rest of the band deal with that?

    A: I think probably it’s fine and fairly easy for everybody in the band except Lindsey. I think it’s hard for Lindsey because we started out together. I think he goes, like, “When did you do all this? Why do you get this kind of reaction?” And I think that is hard for him. So I don’t talk to him a lot about it. I don’t want to make Lindsey unhappy. I care about him and want him to be happy.

    Q: Do you foresee another Fleetwood Mac project?

    A: I feel that what we did this last year, it was great. Everybody had a great time. It was a little hard on Christine (McVie), but I think she will change her mind and she will get bored and say, “Oh, I want to do this one more time.” There’s no way this band won’t play again. I just know that when the time is right it’ll come back together. It’ll probably be in two years, two and a half years.

    Q: What was it like compiling Enchanted?

    A: It was like going through the photo album that went along with all those records, that went along with my life. Those songs are the photo album of my life because each one of them really was about something pretty heavy, for me to write a song about it. And when you put them all together it’s a pretty tumultuous bunch of songs.

    Q: Will this tour be different from your others?

    A: It’s going to be a great set, and it’s not going to be like any other set. On a regular tour basically you just go back and get the tour you did last time and change it around a little and add two new songs off of whatever new record you’re going out with. This tour is going to be a story. Because it’s the box-set tour, it’s OK for me to pick songs that people aren’t familiar with. This will be kind of a special show, I think.

    Q: What’s the next album going to be like?

    A: The title song is written — “Trouble in Shangri-La.” It’s like Bella Donna; it’s a definite concept album. It’s about achieving Shangri-la and not being able to handle it.

    Q: Sounds like a true story.

    A: (laughs) Oh, yes. I understand it all pretty well. Going through all these songs (for Enchanted) made me take a walk back through my life and made me think about things I’d forgotten, and think about experiences that were pretty strong and really touched and changed my life. I look back on all that now and really see what were the good things and what were the bad things — just wisdom, you know? I think I’m really smarter than I used to be, and I don’t take anything for granted now.

    Q: Any regrets?

    A: No, because the things that I’ve wanted to do and haven’t done, I will do. I want to do a children’s cartoon movie. And I want to do a Rhiannon record with just the songs of Rhiannon — because there’s “Rhiannon,” but there are also nine other songs I did right in that period of two years, when I was reading the books of Rhiannon.

    Q: You once talked about adopting a child. Is that still an ambition?

    A: I don’t really need children. I have a niece who’s 6, who certainly fills my life up as far as a child goes. I’m going to just work on my work. I don’t think the world is going to have that much of a problem with me not being married or having a family. I don’t think that’s why I came here. I have something that’s really important to do, and I don’t think I’ve done that yet.

    Gary Graff (Special to The Chronicle) / San Francisco Chronicle Datebook / April 26, 1998

  • Stevie Nicks: ‘Angel’ on her own

    Finding inner peace has taken years for Stevie Nicks. She didn’t find it in her longtime base of Los Angeles, which she left after January’s earthquake. She didn’t find it in the later years of Fleetwood Mac, which she left after the group sang at President Clinton’s inauguration.

    Finally, though, Nicks has found a measure of peace from living in the desert beauty of Phoenix — and from concentrating on a solo career that for years she had to juggle with Fleetwood Mac commitments.

    “I gave it the old college try. I gave it everything you could give it,” she said of Fleetwood Mac, for which she sang such hits as “Rhiannon,” “Gold Dust Woman” and “Dreams.”

    Nicks, who headlines Great Woods July 22, is back with a new album, “Street Angel,” which is rich in rock-survivor wisdom and features a haunting version of Bob Dylan’s “Just Like a Woman,” with Dylan on guitar and harmonica. There’s also a passionate tribute to biologist Jane Goodall and several of the straight-from-the-heart love songs for which Nicks is known.

    “I’m a much happier person now,” Nicks, 46, said recently from Arizona. “My life is easier and I’m really looking forward to going on the road this time. Probably that has a lot to do with the fact I haven’t just come off the road with Fleetwood Mac. Whenever I’d come off the road from Fleetwood Mac, I’d be exhausted.

    “Not being with Fleetwood Mac has made more of a change than I ever expected,” Nicks said. “To not be on call to Fleetwood Mac is really something, because up until the inauguration, I was. There was no getting out of a call from Fleetwood Mac. If they needed you, you had to go, no matter what else was in your life or what was planned. There was nothing else that came first. I look at that now and I’m kind of amazed that I let that go on for so long. And I don’t mean `Why didn’t I leave?’ I just mean that I could have been not as wimpy a person.”

    Nicks has a new song, “Greta,” about a restless wanderer who “packs her bags and she goes back to the Valley of the Sun.” Which is what Nicks did after last winter’s quake in LA. “There was no possible way I was going to wait around for another earthquake,” said Nicks.

    Nicks still maintains a home in LA, but her heart is clearly in Arizona. “It’s hot here — it’s 106 degrees today. But when the sun goes down, I sit outside and it’s so beautiful. If you have any problems, you go outside and they disintegrate. I’ve grown to really depend on my desert-sky time. . . . I guess that’s why the Indians became very spiritual, because it’s very easy to get into a spiritualistic kind of mode here.”

    Her more relaxed life has also enabled Nicks to feel better about the aging process. “I’m enjoying the wisdom of getting older,” she said. “I look at it that you’ve become a wiser woman, more of a teacher, more of an adept person. . . . I really dislike all the `I’m getting old’ complaints from people who are bothered by it. In other cultures, the older people were the most revered.

    “Personally, I still feel that I can do all the things I could when I was young and still have just as good a time, like riding around the desert in a Jeep or climbing Camelback Mountain. I can still do all that, but there’s a certain wisdom I didn’t have before. Like the thing about going outside. Rather than going to a psychiatrist, I can look up at this incredible red mountain, watch the sky and feel how good the air feels on my face. And {unlike therapy} it doesn’t cost $150.”

    Nicks’ newfound confidence led her to approach Dylan to play on “Just Like a Woman,” a song she always wished to record, she says. Its verse of “She makes love just like a woman / But she breaks just like a little girl” had long resonated with her.

    “Bob Dylan and I met about eight years ago. I went along on a tour he did with Tom Petty when they went to Australia,” she said. “My friend Rebecca and I just decided we were going to watch because we knew Tom wasn’t even going to get a microphone, that anything he sang he’d have to sing with Bob. This was going to be an incredible blending of egos. So I went there for 32 days and became good friends with Bob — as good a friend as you can be with Bob, that is. He’s very much a loner, very much by himself. You don’t run up to Bob and say, `Hi, Bob.’ You kind of wait for him to even notice that you’re in the room. You just let him come to you at his own time.

    “During that period, I told him that I was going to do Just Like a Woman’ one day, and I don’t think he believed me. He just said,Cool. If you can do it from a woman’s point of view, then great.’ So I called him when the song was pretty much done and he came down to the studio to listen to it. I said, You hate it, right?’ And he said,No, I don’t. I really like it.’ I said, Well, would you consider singing on it?’ And he said,No, I won’t sing on it, but I’ll play some guitar and maybe some harmonica if you want me to.’ And I thought, `Well, praise God.’ It was really important to me that he liked it. . . . I never would have put that song on the record if I didn’t think he was pleased.”

    A friend more recently acquired is Jane Goodall, the famed, tireless defender of chimpanzees. Nicks has a new song, “Jane,” which pays this tribute: “She is never gonna feel like she’s done enough.” It sounds like a mystical Van Morrison tune.

    “I met Jane in Dallas at the end of 1991. I came back, got all her books and I was just so impressed. She was a lot like me when she was young. She definitely was going to be devoted to something and so was I. I think that some kids are like that and some aren’t. We were both diligently looking for something to devote our lives to — and we both found something.

    “Her stories of what some people do to chimpanzees are so horrible. They shoot them full of AIDS, put them in a little cell all by themselves and let them die of AIDS, alone. With no human touch, with no love. . . . She told me she would go and visit some of these little monkeys that were dying. And when she would hold them, tears would come down their faces. Actual tears.”

    At the moment, Nicks is rehearsing for her first tour in three years. She’s enlisted a band featuring drummer-musical director Russ Kunkel, who has toured with James Taylor and Jackson Browne. Other notables include guitarist Rick Vito (who was in Fleetwood Mac) and saxophonist Marty Greb, who toured with Bonnie Raitt.

    “I’m getting ready to go out and do a really fun tour. Things couldn’t be any better,” she said. “And they wouldn’t be any better if I was 10 years younger, because physically I don’t feel much different than I did then. If anything, I probably feel better because I’m not so pushed to be going and going every second. I can choose how fast I want to go now.”

    Steve Morse / Boston Globe Newspaper / June 17, 1994

  • Stevie honors WWII vets in TV special

    On June 6, 1994, Stevie Nicks honored World War II veterans in a television program acknowledging their participation in D-Day. During the clip, Stevie shared a special poem, while her 1985 song “Has Anyone Ever Written Anything for You” played in the background.

    Transcription

    “Hi, I’m Stevie Nicks and I’m proud to be an American. I’m also so proud that so many U.S. troops took part in the landing of D-Day. This marked the beginning of the end of World War II.”

    Your heroes are dying ~ the old ones, the great ones ~ the ones that you looked up to aren’t looking so good anymore.

    And the ones that are growing up are crazier than we were. But a war can always be won, well, if there’s a sense in trying. Not much is really secret anymore.

    We all grow up and the veils come down, but the children go on~

  • REVIEW: Timespace: The Best of Stevie Nicks

    Stevie NicksStevie Nicks
    Timespace: The Best of Stevie Nicks. Modern-Atlantic. **

    Stevie Nicks is the most potent distillation of that psychic blend peculiar to pop culture celebrities: titanic ego and an awesomely regrettable fashion sense.

    Both trademark qualities are represented here, the cover photo capturing her in all her mystic, witch-like finery while the breathy solemnity of her notes on each song underlines just how seriously — despite all the magical mumbo jumbo and mawkish sentiments — Nicks takes herself.

    More than any release that comes to mind, this project points to the laughable irony that has made best-of compilations the last resort of faded performers who didn’t have far to fall in the first place — something like “The Love Boat” of pop music.

    But this album is a strikingly apt representation of the Fleetwood Mac superstar-turned-detox gypsy who inspired a generation of teen-age girls to wear silly, floppy hats and way too many scarves.

    It has a few genuinely transcendent highs — “Rooms on Fire,” “Talk to Me” — and a lot of dreadfully misconceived lows. That’s especially depressing when one considers that the lowest of those occur on her new material.

    Tom Maurstad / Lexington Herald / October 18, 1991

  • Stevie Nicks, sounding like a survivor

    Rock’s ‘funny little voice’ sings a strong solo on pains and pleasures of her life

    (ENCINO, Calif.) The French doors leading from Stevie Nicks’ six-story manse to her pool are open to catch a breeze. But dusk’s cool air can’t relieve the singer’s watery eyes.

    “My allergies are killing me tonight,” she sniffles, lighting a cigarette, then dabbing her big baby browns.

    “My feet are killing me, too.” She frowns at her size 6, copper-colored Nickels heels, kicking them off in favor of comfy white Reeboks — “and my white socks.”

    They don’t go with her Betsey Johnson black velvet mini, but “it’s OK,” she quips, “there are no men here.”

    That may be a first for Nicks, 43. Hailed as the queen of mystic rock ‘n’ roll, the lyrical blond muse with the self-described “funny little voice” has had a wild 18-year ride, recording with bigwigs Lindsey Buckingham, Tom Petty, Mick Fleetwood, Joe Walsh and Don Henley.

    Now, it’s time for a look back at her decade as a solo artist. Her new album, Timespace: The Best of Stevie Nicks, is a collection of personal favorites. Among new songs are “Desert Angel,” which she wrote for the gulf war troops, and “Sometimes It’s a Bitch,” by Jon Bon Jovi.

    The lyrics personify Nicks’ pleasure-and-pain life:

    Sometimes it’s a bitch, sometimes it’s a breeze
    Sometimes love’s blind and sometimes it sees
    Sometimes it’s roses, sometimes it’s weeds.

    “I felt that if (Bon Jovi) knew nothing else about me … he knew I had a strong instinct to survive,” writes the former Fleetwood Mac singer in her album’s song-by-song liner notes. Nicks decided to reveal “a lot about my life … things I’ve never told before,” she says, “so that (people) might understand a little bit more why I am the way I am. And why I don’t change very much.”

    Indeed, neither Nicks’ ethereal image nor her wispy, indelible sound has been updated much for the ’90s. She doesn’t fret about the current crop of cookie-cutter female singers.

    “They do what they do and I do what I do. I’m timeless. I got that Dickensian, London street-urchin look in high school. I’ll never be in style, but I’ll always be different.”

    Her trademark collection of chiffon and velvet dresses, platform boots, fringed capes and shawls – all painstakingly mended and cleaned by hand – is kept in an air-controlled closet. “I’ve had this one black skirt for eight years and I keep wearing it,” she says. “I have to. It’s like the ruby slippers.”

    Nicks’ wardrobe was forced into flexibility. In her early days with Fleetwood Mac, she weighed 105 pounds; several years ago the scales shot to 130. “It’s a lot of weight if you have teeny, tiny bones like I do,” says the 5-foot-1 pixie.

    Her fluctuating weight spawned rumors from health problems, to kicking her longstanding cocaine addiction, to simple overeating.

    “I didn’t gain it from (kicking drugs). I gained my weight from pneumonia during the (1987) Tango in the Night tour,” she says. She was given steroid shots to keep her vocal cords from swelling, and to keep the tour going. “And I was on antibiotics the whole time, in addition to serious asthma treatments.”

    She talks softly, curled on a couch with her favorite white blanket. “I’m getting skinny now. I’ve lost at least 20 pounds. The only way you stay thin — and I’m not thin, I’ll never be thin — is to change the way you eat.

    “I haven’t had a hamburger in four years. For me, not to have had a cheeseburger is like an amazing thing ’cause that was probably — sans drugs and everything else — my favorite thing in life.”

    No more burgers. No more drugs.

    When she joined Fleetwood Mac in 1975, drugs were part of the rock ‘n’ roll life. “It was like being swept up on a white horse by a prince. … There was no way to get off the white horse – and I didn’t want to. It took over my life in a big way.”

    In 1986, a doctor friend scared her so straight she immediately checked into the Betty Ford Center. “Oh yeah,” she recalls. “I made the famous pact with God.”

    She confesses she sometimes misses the drug lifestyle, “how crazy it was.”

    But she’s proud to have stayed only 28 days at Betty Ford. “That’s not very long to break a 12-year habit.”

    She does have an occasional drink. She offers wine while rummaging through cupboards for a little rum, which she can’t find. She won’t drink much, she says, ” ’cause it’s too fattening. I’d rather eat a piece of cake.”

    Dinner this evening is buffet style, chicken or steak. “Where’s mine?” Nicks asks the five women — ever-present friends and aides — already at the rough-hewn kitchen table. “Get up and get it yourself,” teases Wendy, the cook, and Nicks does.

    Talk turns to the videos on a nearby TV. “Cher looks terrible in that red wig!” someone says. “But Madonna, she looks great,” says another.

    So does Nicks, in the many pictures that adorn her castle walls — portraits, paintings, family snapshots, album covers. On one wall of her white-on-white living room is a huge print of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours album cover. It features Nicks and Mick Fleetwood, for whom she wrote “Beauty and the Beast.”

    After 15 years, her split from the band was less than amicable. “Mick and I are not speaking,” she says, still miffed over a business dispute. Never, she says, will she record with him again.

    She denies the rift occurred because of Fleetwood’s tell-all 1990 autobiography, which detailed his liaison with Nicks. “I didn’t read it,” she says crisply. “I don’t need to read about something I lived.”

    She lived, too, with former Mac member Lindsey Buckingham, for almost seven years. “I cooked and cleaned and took care of him. I mean, my mom and dad considered Lindsey and I married. So did I. So did he.

    “(Now) Lindsey and I don’t speak at all and I wouldn’t bother to call because … if he did pick up the phone and it was me, he would hang up.”

    “It’s a sad way to end a long, wonderful relationship,” she says. (Neither Fleetwood nor Buckingham could be reached for comment.)

    Nicks is used to endings. “In almost every relationship I’ve had, my career has ruined (it). I will never be able to stay with anyone really long, because there will come a point when they say ‘I can’t deal with your life.’ ”

    Maybe that’s why she has considered adopting a baby girl. “I could do that on my own. I could spend a lot of time with her. Just because I have those shows at night doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t take all my other time and put it into that baby. This would never be a lonely or unhappy baby.”

    She concedes that adopting as a single parent is hard. “I don’t know if it’s possible,” she sighs. “If I wanted to really have one, I could do that, too. But I’m booked up for the next couple of years. So someone would have to come into my life that is so intense that I’d be willing … to make serious changes.”

    Her work future is easier to predict: a new solo album; possibly more touring; and a book of letters, poetry and photos. She’s saving “the really serious biography for later. It’s a little bit much now.”

    Still, Nicks isn’t likely ever to swap her cape for a pen. “I love making people happy with music. I don’t know what I’d do without that. You give up a lot to get a kingdom, but you get an awful lot back.”

    Shawn Sell / USA Today (Life)/ October 16, 1991

  • Stevie Nicks fans get more than a greatest hits album

    Stevie Nicks fans get more than a greatest hits album with Timespace. They get an explanation.

    In the liner notes, the ever-mysterious Nicks reveals, finally, where her biggest hits (and there are some outstanding ones) came from and what they mean. “Stand Back” is about a “crazy argument,” “Edge of Seventeen” is about the death of Nicks’ uncle, and “Has Anyone Ever Written Anything for You” was written to soothe the soul of Joe Walsh, who lost his 3-year-old-daughter in a car accident.

    Casual listeners may not care, but the rabid fans of the bewitching Nicks can finally put meanings to her obscure lyrics.

    In addition to the above, Timespace includes the stellar tracks “Talk to Me,” “If Anyone Falls,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” “Leather and Lace,” “I Can’t Wait,” “Rooms on Fire” and “Whole Lotta Trouble.”

    Also included are three unemotional new songs — comparatively awful against these illustrious hits. Without the new tracks, Timespace would be a tremendous chronicle of an intriguing, distinct and important pop icon.

    Chuck Campbell / Denver Rocky Mountain News / October 5, 1991

  • Violet & Blue (Chris Lord-Alge Remix)


    Unused remix intended for Timespace: The Best of Stevie Nicks (1991)

  • N.Y. State Fair cancellation mars successful Nicks tour

    Stevie Nicks’ solo tour has done solid business since it opened Aug. 16 at the Pine Knob Music Theatre, Clarkston, Mich., with grosses at or near capacity at most dates.

    The numbers show strong interest on the part of fans, but one venue is seeking restitution for an apparent no-show situation.

    Nicks canceled three shows in the first month of the outing, citing illness each time.

    She was to appear Aug. 31 at the New York State Fair, Syracuse, “and we had nearly 8,000 tickets sold,” said the fair’s Joseph LaGuardia. “With the walk-up business, it probably would have drawn 10,000, which would have been our highest-grossing show. It was a major setback from a grandstand point of view.

    “The disturbing thing is that we were not notified of the cancellation,” he continued. “None of her trucks and gear were here for the 10 a.m. load-in. Of course, her management and booking is on the West Coast, so we had to wait until noon to find out what was going on. The only tip we got was that her road manager called at 1:15 and said, `I don’t need the limousine and the van.’

    “We had to call management; we had to ask them. They dropped the ball miserably on this. We intend to get full restitution — the stage-hands were here, everything was all set to go.”

    LaGuardia said the date will not be rescheduled, although the fair tried to arrange a make-up performance.

    As the fair begins refunding tickets, he termed the whole experience “very disturbing. When illness does occur, obviously the performer can’t go on. We understand that. But her management team has got to let us know.”

    Personal management of Nicks is handled by HK Management, Los Angeles, and media information comes through Levine-Schneider Public Relations.

    Syracuse’s misfortune was a boon to Buffalo until that date was canceled, too. Irwin Pate was promoting Nicks’ Sept. 11 show at Buffalo’s Memorial Auditorium, which was canceled reportedly because Nicks suffered an allergic reaction to an insect bite.

    Pate told AB that 5,382 tickets were sold in advance, and said the Syracuse cancellation had helped those sales. “That’s how we got so many; we advertised in Rochester (midway between Syracuse and Buffalo) after the fair had come and gone.”

    Informed of the cancellation the day before the show, Pate had an experience substantially more pleasant than the state fair’s.

    “It was kind of hectic, but I won’t fault anyone with that. With a $100,000 guarantee, I don’t think she’d want to cancel if she didn’t have to. And it certainly wasn’t due to lack of ticket sales.”

    Pate said he did not have an exact accounting on the number of tickets refunded. He is currently working with Creative Artists Agency to reschedule the date.

    Promoter Frank Russo, whose Aug. 23 show at the Seashore Performing Arts Center (SEAPAC), Old Orchard Beach, Maine, was also canceled, termed his experience pleasant considering the circumstances. He was informed of the cancellation at midnight before day-of-show.

    “It was selling rather well for us, a half house or better,” said Vince Longo, director of SEAPAC, which seats 15,000. Tickets were $18.

    A LOOK AT GROSSES

    Grosses reported as AB Boxscores show Nicks has drawn well in major markets. Among the reported dates:

    • $157,380 (U.S.), Canadian National Exhibition grandstand, Toronto, 7,855 of 10,000 capacity, Aug. 17;

    • $203,660, Jones Beach Theater, Wantagh, N.Y., sellout at 10,183, Aug. 25;

    • $108,230, Bally’s Grandstand Under the Stars, Atlantic City, N.J., sellout at 3,807, Aug. 26;

    • $201,025, Mann Music Center, Philadelphia, 10,698 of 13,243 capacity, Aug. 28;

    • $157,246, Pittsburgh Civic Arena, 9,168 of 12,223 capacity, Sept. 1;

    • $203,660, Jones Beach Theater, sellout, Sept. 9.

    The two Jones Beach dates came about when the first booking went SRO while the remainder of the tour was still being put together. The venue had already booked Don Henley and Edie Brickell & New Bohemians for Aug. 26, so Nicks was booked for Sept. 9, just two weeks later.

    Other dates remaining on her itinerary, with more to be added later, are as follows:

    Lakewood Amphitheatre, Atlanta, Sept. 27; Orlando (Fla.) Arena, 29; Miami Arena, 30; Sun Dome, University of South Florida, Tampa, Oct. 1; Stephen C. O’Connell Center, University of Florida, Gainesville, 3; Mississippi Coast Coliseum, Biloxi, 4; Starplex Amphitheater, Dallas, 6; Summit, Houston, 8; Frank Erwin Center, University of Texas, Austin, 9; McNichols Arena, Denver, 11;

    Compton Terrace, Phoenix, Ariz., Oct. 13; Pacific Amphitheater, Costa Mesa, Calif., 14; Concord (Calif.) Pavilion, 17; Cal Expo Amphitheater, Sacramento, 18; Shoreline Amphitheater, Mountain View, Calif., 20; Aladdin Amphitheater, Las Vegas, Nev., 21; Greek Theater, Los Angeles, 23-24.

    © 1989 The Nielsen Company.

    Zhito, Lisa. “N.Y. State Fair cancellation mars successful Nicks tour.” Amusement Business 30 Sept. 1989.

  • ALBUM REVIEW: The Other Side of the Mirror

    ALBUM REVIEW: The Other Side of the Mirror

    Stevie Nicks The Other Side of the Mirror 1989The Other Side of the Mirror (Modern/Atlantic)
    Stevie Nicks

    The title’s allusion to Through the Looking-Glass is no coincidence. This album also includes a tune called ”Alice,” and it’s not that hard to think of Nicks as the little blond from the Disney cartoon 20 years and some measure of frowsiness later. Nicks’s lyrics, too, often have a surreal quality. Line by line, they don’t add up to much. Read the title of ”Doing the Best I Can (Escape from Berlin)” and try to make sense of it. But Nicks knows which words can carry a serious burden, and her impressions do create vivid images: ”And the angel said, ‘Well you must have had a dream . . . / And you remember it . . .’ Till the dream followed through . . . / Till the — end of the dream . . . and the dream came true/ When I want something . . . I get it.” (Nicks has a Cheshire cat sense of punctuation; all those ellipses and dashes are hers.) She continues to sound darker and more substantial on her own than she does with Fleetwood Mac, and her nanny-goat-with-a-head-cold voice, while it’s nobody’s textbook instrument, conveys the passion, anger and persistent curiosity of her language. It’s hard to imagine, say, Judy Collins singing most of these songs without sounding silly. Nicks makes them both poetic and musical. Bruce Hornsby sits in (and sings in) on a couple of tracks, to the best effect on ”Juliet,” where his jangly piano complements Nicks’s vocal. There’s also a reggae-ized version of the Johnny Cash standby ”I Still Miss Someone (Blue Eyes)” on which Nicks succumbs to blatant romanticism. Most of the time the images are less sweet, as in ”Rooms on Fire” or ”Fire Burning,” which make Nicks seem to be someone interested in neither lighting any candles nor cursing the darkness, though she might be talked into sitting down and spending some time discussing the topic ”All Right, Just Exactly What Is Going on Here?”

     Ralph Novak / People Weekly Vol. 32, Issue 1 / July 3, 1989

  • Nicks flies a lead balloon

    STEVIE NICKS: Rock a Little (Modern Records)

    If there is an album with more hands in its making, it doesn’t come to mind. More than a dozen studios were used. Six different production credits grace the 11 indifferent tracks. So many engineers worked on the project, a separate list is included in addition to the track-by-track list.

    The whole album has the sound of a labored work, pieced together over a long period of time. The heavy-handed production practically swamps Nicks’ tiny voice, virtually a croak of its former self. The dreamy voice that lit Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours album sounds a little tattered around the edges.

    The songs, too, have little to recommend them. Nicks’ turgid writing leaves scant room for a crisply turned phrase or a pungent line, and would be more appropriate for greeting cards than rock songs. She casts herself as the girl who has everything, but has lost her lover, time and time again. The routine is getting tired by now, and even Nicks can’t disguise her boredom.

    Joel Selvin / San Francisco Chronicle / November 24, 1985