Stevie Nicks talks Crow

06.10.2008 9:29 am
Stevie Nicks talks Crow, Winehouse on way to Chaifetz Arena Friday
By: Kevin C. Johnson

Stevie Nicks has somehow managed to escape my interview clutches these past 20 years I’ve spent writing about music, and my chat with her last week was worth the wait.

Nicks, a longtime favorite of mine who performs at Chaifetz Arena on Friday, called my home office last week in the midst of a tornado warning that made national news. She was watching the news reports while at a tour stop, asked if I was OK, and said if I needed to hurry off the phone at any point because of the weather, it was cool.

She was a great interview, chatty, revealing and forthright. The interview runs in the Post-Dispatch in Thursday’s Get Out, and will be online at http://www.stltoday.com/, but her comments on Sheryl Crow and Amy Winehouse are only found here.

Crow made some headlines recently when she suggested she’d fill in for Christine McVie on the Fleetwood Mac tour next year. But Nicks shot down the idea of her friend joining her on the road with the veteran band.

“Sheryl and I discussed this in the nicest of ways. Sheryl has a new baby, and a new baby is all encompassing. We decided it wasn’t the best idea,” says Nicks. “I had to explain to her the ups and downs of being in a band like Fleetwood Mac. You sign your name on the contract and it’s like being in the Army. You don’t have your own life anymore. That’s why I went solo.”

There will be no second female vocalist with Nicks on the Fleetwood Mac tour. Instead, a backing singer will step up to the plate. “We’re excited about this, because now there are five or six songs we love that we can put back into the show,” says Nicks.

Nicks, whose past problems with substances are well known, has words for the constantly troubled Winehouse about getting her act together before she’s forgotten. Nicks’ advice comes from a loving place, she says.

“I will always think of myself as a drug addict, and it’s hard to tell a drug addict to stop doing drugs. They have to wake up and say I’m done, have that epiphany, get on a plane and go to rehab and stay there for two months,” says Nicks.

You gotta love Stevie Nicks.

Tickets to her concert Friday are $45-$95, available through MetroTix outlets, www.metrotix.com, and by calling 314-534-1111 (go to MetroTix’s web site and get half off lower level tickets using promotional code MAC, up until 5 p.m. Tuesday).

Peter Cincotti was just announced as Nicks’ opening act.