Pumped up Nicks: After a brief hiatus mourning her mother, Stevie Nicks is back on the road

Stevie Nicks to return to PNC Bank Arts Center
By Tris McCall/The Star-Ledger
NJ.com

Just before she died in January at 84, Barbara Nicks had parting words for her daughter.

"She told me to get back on the road," Stevie Nicks says. "She said ‘Don’t give up on your album. This is your little masterpiece.’ "

She was talking about Nicks' 2011 album "In Your Dreams," her first full-length in a decade, and one that plays as a tuneful summary of her career. Many of the singer-songwriter’s famous collaborators appear on the record: guitarists Mike Campbell and Waddy Wachtel both co-wrote songs with her, and her Fleetwood Mac bandmates Lindsey Buckingham and Mick Fleetwood make cameos.

Lovingly produced by Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics, "In Your Dreams" had all the hallmarks of a comeback set. When it debuted in the Top 10, it seemed likely that Nicks was headed for a big year.

Then fate intervened.

"I only really got to tour for two months," says Nicks. "That isn’t that much for a release like this."

She was supporting the album in Australia when she got the news that her mother, who always supported her desire to share her music and poetry with the world, was seriously ill. Nicks flew back to the United States at the conclusion of the tour to be by her side.

She remembers that she was apprehensive but confident. Women in the Nicks family, she explained, are long-lived.

"We knew she had pneumonia and emphysema, but we did not expect her to die. It wasn’t even on the table that we could lose her. When we did, everybody went into shock. I went home and basically went underground for five months."

Even though she knew her mother would have wanted her to keep playing, Nicks was paralyzed with regret. She hadn’t called home very much during the month she’d spent in Australia, and try though she did, she couldn’t absolve herself.

"I felt terrible. My mother always told me never to be guilty, but I couldn’t help it. I was not ready for her to go. And I couldn’t talk to anybody about it, either."

Instead, Nicks coped as she always has: She picked up her pen.

"I wrote about our relationship. Eventually, I’ll be able to share what I wrote, but I really went into her world. I went through scrapbooks of my mother and father, and found out about and thought about the people they were before they got married."

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