IT HAPPENED: On This Day in 1981... Bella Donna Tops Billboard

Bella Donna is the debut studio album by American singer-songwriter and Fleetwood Mac vocalist Stevie Nicks. Released on July 27, 1981, the album hit #1 on the U.S. Billboard charts dated September 5, 1981, remaining there for one week. Bella Donna was awarded Platinum status by the RIAA three months after its release on October 7, 1981, and has sold over 4 million copies in the U.S. and remains her best-selling solo album to date worldwide.

The album spawned four substantial hit singles during 1981 and 1982: the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers-penned duet "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" (#3), the Don Henley duet "Leather and Lace" (#6), the iconic "Edge of Seventeen" (#11), and country-tinged "After the Glitter Fades" (#32).

Bella Donna would mark the beginning of Nicks' trend of calling upon her many musician friends and connections to fully realize her sparse demo recordings. Along with friends Tom Petty and Don Henley, Nicks brought in famed session musician Waddy Wachtel, Bruce Springsteen's E-Street Band pianist Roy Bittan, and Muscle Shoals session man Donald "Duck" Dunn of Booker T. & the MGs. Though Bella Donna's personnel list includes some 20 musicians, the album is very much Nicks' own work, with all but one of the songs on the record written by her.

The album also marked the first recording featuring Nicks' backing vocalists, Sharon Celani and Lori Perry, who still record and tour with Nicks today.

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