At 72, STEVIE NICKS is still looking for adventure

Stevie Nicks on art, ageing and attraction: ‘Botox makes it look like you’re in a satanic cult!’

Jenny Stevens - The Guardian

At 72, the singer is still looking for adventure. She talks about her years with Fleetwood Mac, the abortion that made them possible, and her friendship with Harry Styles

Stevie Nicks has been taking the pandemic even more seriously than most. She has barely left her home in Los Angeles this year. “My assistant, God bless her, she puts on her hazmat suit and goes to get food, otherwise we’d starve to death,” she says. She fell seriously ill in March 2019, ending up in intensive care with double pneumonia; after that shock, she fears contracting Covid-19 could end her singing career: “My mom was on a ventilator for three weeks when she had open-heart surgery and she was hoarse for the rest of her life.”

What would it mean to her to stop singing? “It would kill me,” she says. “It isn’t just singing; it’s that I would never perform again, that I would never dance across the stages of the world again.” She pauses and sighs. “I’m not, at 72 years old, willing to give up my career.”

It is nearly midnight in LA when we speak on the phone; not a problem for Nicks, who is “totally nocturnal”. The night she fell ill last year, she had just become the first woman to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice – an honour that reflects her wild success as one of the lead singers of Fleetwood Mac and as a solo artist, as a writer and singer of raw, magical songs about love and freedom, including Dreams, Rhiannon, Gold Dust Woman, Landslide and Edge of Seventeen. Nicks is unabashedly funny, dry as a bone, often sidling into sarcasm.

I ask about her approach to spirituality. She says that, for all her fears about her career, “some people are really afraid of dying, but I’m not. I’ve always believed in spiritual forces. I absolutely know that my mom is around all the time.” Just after her mother died, in 2012, Nicks was standing in her kitchen with “really bad acid reflux”. “And I felt something almost tap my shoulder and this voice go: ‘It’s that Gatorade you’re drinking,’” she says. “I’d been sick and chugging down the Hawaiian Punch. Now, that’s not some romantic, gothic story of your mother coming back to you. It’s your real mother, walking into your kitchen and saying” – she puts on a rasp – “‘Don’t drink any more of that shit.’” She pauses, waiting for me to laugh, then cackles.

Nicks was close to her mother, Barbara, who pushed to get her career back after she had children. “She said to me: you will never stand in a room full of men and feel like you can’t keep up with them. And you will never depend upon a man to support you. She drummed that into me, and I’m so glad she did.”

Women’s rights have been on Nicks’ mind since the death of her “hero”, the US supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, last month. “Abortion rights, that was really my generation’s fight. If President Trump wins this election and puts the judge he wants in, she will absolutely outlaw it and push women back into back-alley abortions.”

Nicks terminated a pregnancy in 1979, when Fleetwood Mac were at their height and she was dating the Eagles singer Don Henley. What did it mean to be able to make that choice? “If I had not had that abortion, I’m pretty sure there would have been no Fleetwood Mac. There’s just no way that I could have had a child then, working as hard as we worked constantly. And there were a lot of drugs, I was doing a lot of drugs … I would have had to walk away.” She pauses. “And I knew that the music we were going to bring to the world was going to heal so many people’s hearts and make people so happy. And I thought: you know what? That’s really important. There’s not another band in the world that has two lead women singers, two lead women writers. That was my world’s mission.”

Stevie Nicks, she reflects on mortality

Stevie Nicks Salutes Lost Friends: ‘I Never Thought Prince And Tom Petty Wouldn’t Be Here In 2020’

By Steve Baltin Forbes

There are certain moments you dream (pun intended ) of as a journalist. Spending 90 minutes on the phone on a Friday night with twice-inducted Rock And Roll Hall Of Famer Stevie Nicks is definitely one of those.

Over the course of the wide-ranging conversation, which will run in three parts, due to the remarkable length, we touched upon a number of subjects, from her brilliant new single, "Show Them The Way" to her influences.

At one point we joked about the viral success of "Dreams." Thanks to the superb original TikTok video from Nathan Apodaca, the song was top five on streaming charts from that day, sandwiched between six or seven Van Halen songs following the death of guitar legend Eddie Van Halen a few days before our conversation.

Of course, Nicks knew Van Halen, who she said she had written a tribute to (as of this publishing it has not been shared). And that set off a conversation about other recent losses, including her friends like Tom Petty and Prince.

Here in part one with Stevie Nicks, she reflects on mortality.

Steve Baltin: "Dreams" is on the charts today sandwiched between several Van Halen songs, which should rightly be in the top 10.

Stevie Nicks: I wrote something about Eddie that I'm gonna put on my website cause I knew him quite a while ago. So when you know somebody fairly well for several years it doesn't have to be just the few years. He was always so nice to me and such a nice person. I really liked him besides the fact he was such an awesome guitar player. But that's really too bad, that's a big loss. One more person that I didn't want to lose.

Baltin: Is there music from friends who have passed you find it hard to listen to?

Nicks: It's mostly Tom's music and I love Tom's music. I listen to Tom Petty Radio [on Sirius XM] and it makes me feel like he's still alive because he spent a lot of time on that radio station to the point where the rest of the Heartbreakers were like, "So you missed your calling. You just really wanted to be a disc jockey." And he did so much work on it they've been able to totally keep the Tom Petty radio station alive and I'm so happy about that because to me I hear him and it's like I'm talking to him while he's talking to us. I forget that he's gone because of that station. And I'm so happy that he actually did piss everybody off and spent a lot of time putting that all together for all of us because it's so special. But I did want to tell you one thing my dad said to me once. He died in 2005. In the last couple of years of his life, at one point he said to me, "All my friends are dead." And I was struck dumb when he said that cause I actually knew a lot of his friends. But then of course there were a lot of his friends that I didn't know or didn't know anything about cause he was 22 years older than me so there were a lot of friends in my father's life that I never even knew. Same with all of us, we don't really know everything about our parents. And the fact is when he said that to me I thought, "That's the worst thing I ever heard." And just in a really quite, somber voice, "All of my friends are dead." I'm like, "I don't want to hear that, that makes me so sad for you." So when my dad died there was a part of me that went, "Farewell, my friend, farewell, my father. Now you're gonna be with all your friends who you obviously were missing so much. And I'm glad you made that final journey and you're up there with them now." When he said that I didn't even get it. And now I'm starting to really understand because just in the time of the loss of Prince, the loss of Tom Petty, the loss of Glenn Frey, the loss of Eddie Van Halen, it's like I knew all these people. And then you can kind of go to the generation that was 15, 20 years older than me and think, "They already went through this. Every generation it goes through." And the people that live to be really old, like hopefully me, there will be a time where a lot of people will be gone. And I certainly never expected for Prince and Tom Petty to be gone in 2020.

Baltin: I don't think anyone did. But I love what you said about the radio station. And it's funny because when you think back on his relationship with Jim Ladd and "The Last DJ," he did give a foreshadowing he wanted to be a DJ.

Nicks: Well, he never did tell me that and I never even knew he was working on that. But then when he died all the rest of the Heartbreakers told me all of their stories cause they'd be like, "Tom, let's record something." And he'd be like, "I'm going to the station." And he wanted to be there by himself so he could make up all those names. And I just laugh because he had such a goofy sense of humor, dry, but goofy. And it's all there. And I just go, "This is so great that he actually did this." It's too bad all of us aren't obsessed enough with radio we can't go out and actually do what he did because it really had made a difference I think for everybody who misses Tom Petty. You just turn on that station and listen to him, it's like he's back. If anything it proves we need to try to appreciate our friends more than we probably do because we're not gonna have them forever.

Baltin: Is there one Tom song you wish you had written or one that speaks to you the most?

Nicks: That would be a hard question for me because there are so many. I really love "Don't Come Around Here No More," which came basically from Dave Stewart to me. Dave Stewart wrote the track for that for me, for the timbre, timbre was the word he used, of my voice. And then we went into the studio with Jimmy Iovine, me and Dave and Jimmy. Then we started working on it and at some point Jimmy said, "We should call Tom." I said, "Yeah, he can come and help us." So Tom came down and by this time it was one o'clock in the morning and for whatever of my reasons, me who stays up all night every night, I was tired. So I went home to get some rest and said I'd try to be in the next afternoon earlier than usual. So when I came back the next night I walked in and Jimmy was like, "Okay, listen to this." Tom was there, Dave was there, they pushed play and it was the entire song, done, finished. And I was furious, I was so pissed off because I said, "It's done." And Tom says, "Oh, you can change any of it you want." "Thanks, yeah, I'm gonna change your, 'I don't feel you anymore, don't darken my door.' First of all, Tom, I bow to your greatness. And it's amazing. You did an amazing job for this f**king awesome song." Then I said to Dave, "I'm sorry, Dave Stewart that it's now not gonna be my song. It's gonna be Tom Petty's song, the world is gonna love it and you did a great job." And I said to Jimmy, "How could you let this happen?" And I fired him. I was so angry. And then Jimmy sent me a final mix of it and I thought, "This has just become my favorite Tom Petty song. So it really was a collaboration between him and Dave Stewart, who wrote the track. So the track was really as it is now. When Dave does a track for you it's like done. Same with Mike Campbell. They give you the finished track almost. Then it became my favorite song to do with Tom on stage. So as difficult as it was that I didn't get to write it because Dave did write, "Don't come around here no more," just that one sentence. He usually does that. Like "In Your Dreams," he wrote a song for me, just the track. But he did write "Everybody loves you, but you're so alone." So he gives you this little seed of an idea and then you take it from there. And when I listen to "Don't Come Around Here No More" I always think there's a little bit of my vocals because Sharon [Celani] and I did do some vocals that first night on that chorus. But there are so many. If I got a list of all of Tom's songs, there are a million songs he wrote I'd like to actually record and may sometime take four or five of his songs and record them. But I would trade all that just to have him come back.

Part 2 and 3 to follow.

Nothing will slow Stevie Nicks down.

Stevie Nicks: “In Fleetwood Mac, Christine McVie and I were a force of nature”

On the eve of her new concert film, the Fleetwood Mac singer talks new solo material, Trump's response to COVID-19 and the chances of a 'Rumours'-era reunion

By Greg Wetherall 15th October 2020 - NME

Nothing will slow Stevie Nicks down. When Fleetwood Mac concluded their year-long world tour at the end of 2019, the 72-year-old singer songwriter decamped to her Santa Monica home with the intention of taking the year off from touring. Like the rest of us, she didn’t expect to be holed-up for quite so long. “I’ve been quarantined solid since March,” Nicks tells NME. “I figured that I’d probably do about ten gigs and then I was just going to work on a miniseries for Rhiannon but then the door slams and we have a pandemic.”

Out of these dark days, Nicks has kept a busy schedule. ‘Show Them The Way’, worked upon remotely with the help of Dave Grohl, is her first single in six years. She has also helped produce 24 Karat Gold The Concert, a spellbinding concert film from the 2016/7 tour of the same name, which in cinemas for two nights later this month featuring staples such as ‘Edge of Seventeen’ and ‘Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around’ alongside unreleased gems and deep cuts.

Whilst a viral TikTok video may have drawn headlines and pushed her song ‘Dreams’ back into the charts recently, the two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Famer had other things on her mind when we caught up with her, including her issues with Trump, the lost ‘Buckingham Nicks’ album and why she is fatalistic if ‘Rumours’–era Fleetwood Mac are to never play together again.

Your first single for six years and the 24 Karat Gold The Concert film – this is turning into a very busy time for you…

“In a million years, I never thought I’d have two projects coming out within two weeks of each other. It’s been a lot of work over the last two months, let me tell you. I’m pretty excited and really proud of everything. I think the film is the closest anyone is going to get to a real, serious concert until the pandemic is over. And I think the song is ‘right now’ with what’s going on in our country. Our country is so divisive. We have gone back so far. It is very sad and very scary.”

You have been openly critical of the US administration’s response to COVID-19. You tweeted that ‘Nobody is leading us. Nobody has a plan.’ You called it ‘a tragedy’ and ‘a real American Horror Story’.  

“You know that our President and his wife contracted the virus? It’s like, ‘wear your mask’, you know? It’s a simple thing to ask. Just wear your mask. Especially if you’re the President of the United States. It’s pretty simple. We’ve been told again and again and again that it’s incredibly contagious. I don’t take any chances. Nobody in my world does. For me, as a singer, if I get it and I get that terrible cough that never goes away; if it attacks my lungs and I don’t have my lung power anymore it would kill me. It would destroy my career.”

Do you feel that Trump been irresponsible?

“I think if you don’t wear a mask you’re irresponsible. I’m very sorry that he got it – I’m not saying anything like that – but he never wears a mask. Nobody in his circle does. And now they’ve all got it. It really proves something to the people in the US who view it as some political thing. Well, guess what? It’s not political. It’s dangerous and it’s contagious. But he [Trump] had to get it to know that? He couldn’t listen to the science? He couldn’t listen to all the doctors who probably said in private, ‘you need to take care of yourself and wear your mask’?” 

Why do you think he hasn’t listened to the scientists?

“I think he just thinks he knows better. But what is he going to say now? This is like telling your children to be careful when they go out and then they don’t come home one night. All you can do is tell people and whether they listen or not is up to them. But that’s not my problem. I’m very sorry that they got it. But they knew better.”

You have a reputation for being forthcoming and open in interviews. I presume this is what you’re like in all aspects of your life?

“It’s the only way I can really be. I know that comes from my mum. I just am who I am. I know that sometimes my honesty is a lot for people and that it pushes some away, but if you can’t hear the truth then I can’t really hang out with you!”

In 24 Karat Gold The Concert, you detail difficulties you had making 1983’s ‘The Wild Heart’. You say you were ‘arrogant’ and ‘less of a team player’ than you were on your solo debut, ‘Bella Donna’. Why so?

“‘Bella Donna’ took three months to make. It was the first record in a solo career and I was not stupid enough to waste time and spend too much money. No self-indulgence. Then, after ‘Bella Donna’, I made ‘Mirage’ with Fleetwood Mac. That took a year and we went on tour for about another year. ‘Mirage’ was a big record and had a tonne of singles on it and so, when I came back, I was different. I could not consider myself a cleaning lady and a waitress anymore.”

How did this affect the recording of ‘The Wild Heart’?

“When I walked into the studio I was much more confident. I can call it arrogance or I can call it confidence. It was somewhere in between the two. I was much stronger in my ideas. For example, I wanted to produce. I just wanted to be more involved than I was during the first album. When I look back on that now, that was just me growing as an artist. I didn’t want it all done for me. ‘The Wild Heart’ was different. It needed to be different. Much like how, after ‘Rumours’, we [Fleetwood Mac] made ‘Tusk’ because we didn’t want to do ‘Rumours’ over. Even though the record company said we needed to, we just said, ‘We can’t do it.’”

Was your second album a personal turning point?

“‘Bella Donna’ kicked off my solo career but as I walked away from ‘The Wild Heart’ everybody knew that I had arrived as a solo artist. I was not going to just say, ‘That was fun’ and go back to Fleetwood Mac. I was going to be able to handle being in both bands. When Fleetwood Mac took vacations, I could go and make a solo album and tour. And then go back again. It worked out great for a Gemini: I had two worlds. Never a boring moment.”

Were you ever conflicted about offering songs to Fleetwood Mac rather than keeping them for yourself?

“No, I was never selfish with the songs. If I had ten songs that I had written, I would sit at the piano and play all ten for Fleetwood Mac. I would let them choose because if they chose the songs then they were going to be good. If I tried to shove songs down their throat, they weren’t going to be good. Who they go to is fine by me. It’s never been a problem. It kinda works itself out. The songs that are supposed to be on the record that you’re doing at the time jump out. And the ones that aren’t right for that particular time don’t.”

Thinking of the revelations springing from the #MeToo movement, did you ever experience any difficulties of that kind over the years?

“Honestly… in Fleetwood Mac, Christine [McVie] and I were a force of nature. In the first two months I was in the band, Chris and I made a pact that we would never be in a room full of famous English or American guitar players and be treated like second class citizens. If we weren’t respected, we would say, ‘this party’s over.’ We have stayed true to that our entire career.

In my own career, I didn’t have Christine but I had Lori Nicks and Sharon Celani. My [backing] singers and my best friends. We wanted to be Crosby, Stills and Nash! Sometime we would try not to make my voice louder than theirs, so that we could have that three-part [harmony] going on. I had my girls: the three of us. They were my sound. Together, we were also very much like, ‘don’t mess with us, because we’re really good, we’re talented and we’re really nice women. If you don’t treat us the way we feel that we should be treated we won’t work with you.’”

Was the need for a pact, or strength in numbers, necessary because you witnessed mistreatment, or worse, directly? 

“Sometimes I saw women treated in a way that I didn’t think was great. At 72 years old, I am totally behind MeToo. I support all those women, totally. I joined a famous band in 1975. I didn’t have to move to Los Angeles by myself and try to find a job in a band or try to find something to do with music all alone. I didn’t have to do what women who move to LA to be an actress have to do. I had a team behind me immediately. When I was with Lindsey [Buckingham], I had him. I was never out there alone having to talk to producers or men who were going to try and take advantage of me. I’m really lucky. It’s really unfortunate that most women in showbusiness do experience that, but I seem to have skated through it.”

The film features ‘Cryin’ in the Night’ from 1973’s ‘Buckingham Nicks’. This album has never been released in the CD era and beyond. Due to your fall-out are we further away than ever from a release?

“I don’t know. I think it should be released. It should just be polished up a little bit. I don’t think it should be remixed. I think it should just go out the way it was mixed when we released it. I hope it happens. Owning ‘Buckingham Nicks’ between me and Lindsey is like owning an old Mercedes. One person says, ‘let’s release it!’ and the other person goes, ‘I don’t wanna let it go.’ And then three years later it’s the other way around. That’s what’s been happening with ‘Buckingham Nicks’ since 1975!”

Have you heard back from Lindsey since you sent him a note following his heart attack last year?

“The heart attack was serious. All of us in Fleetwood Mac wrote to him and told him that he’d better get well. Being an ex-girlfriend, I wrote more than that. I said, ‘you’d better stay well and you’d take care of yourself’. The same old thing, right? But we haven’t had any communication. It’s OK. If it’s ever meant to happen, it will. If we’re meant to communicate ever again, we will. It’s not happening right now.”

Did he acknowledge the letter though?

“He’s acknowledged it, yeah. He wrote a kind of group letter to us all. None of us have had any communication with him since. You know, it lasted 43 years, so we had a really, really good run.”

Stevie Nicks 24 Karat Gold The Concert will be in cinemas on 21 Oct. Find your screening at stevienicksfilm.com. The 2CD & digital/streaming releases will be available on 30 Oct.

STEVIE NICKS JOINS TIKTOK "Afternoon vibe. Lace 'em up!"

That's right... Stevie has joined the TikTok universe [ @stevienicks ]... Her first video is her take on the Dreams Challenge first started by @420doggface208 on TikTok... Check it out below.

Within 5 hours the video has views in excess of 5.5 million on TikTok and over a million on her personal Instagram account. At the time I'm writing this she has gained 346,000 followers on the platform.  Amazing!!  Hope she posts more.

Mick Fleetwood [ @mickfleetwood ]is also on TikTok.... He currently has 275,000 followers and over 11.5 million views on the one video he has posted.

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MICK FLEETWOOD AND LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM RECONNECTED RECENTLY OVER PETER GREEN

Mick Fleetwood on viral video and whether Lindsey Buckingham will return 

By Nicki Gostin 

Page Six

Mick Fleetwood thinks it’s “cool” that his band’s classic tune “Dreams” is climbing the charts again.

Last month, Nathan Apodaca posted a TikTok video of himself skateboarding and chugging cranberry juice while lip-syncing to the Fleetwood Mac 1977 hit “Dreams.” The clip has been viewed over 30 million times, resulting in Apodaca being gifted a cranberry-hued truck from Ocean Spray and the Stevie Nicks penned song gaining over 8 million on-demand streams last week.

Fleetwood, 73, even made his own TikTok copying Apodaca and the two met up via a Zoom chat.

The British-born musician is humble about the video’s success chalking it up to a “moment of connectivity” that “just resonated.”

“It was a reach out with a smile,” he told Page Six from his home in Hawaii. “Here I am and here we go. It’s so what we need right now. And how cool is that?”

“It was sort of a huge accident. This is hugely gratifying and it’s fantastic,” he said.

Fleetwood Mac are as famous for their songs that defined the ’70s as much as their internecine squabbling, which has led to members leaving and returning.

The most recent was in 2018 when guitarist Lindsey Buckingham was fired.

Fleetwood, who says he spoke to Buckingham recently, “has no idea” if Buckingham will ever return.

He explained in a not very clear or succinct way: “I think the reality is without going into huge detail, one of the things I always say is that the disconnect happened and there were emotions that were somewhat not removable and there are personal things within the band and Lindsey’s world.

“All I can say is really openly is that Lindsey Buckingham and the work he has done with the band is never going to go away and we have a functioning band with the changes that we made. You know time heals and it was lovely to be able to talk with him.”

Fleetwood said the two spoke by phone after Fleetwood Mac founder Peter Green passed away age 73 in July.

“Lindsey said, ‘I know you’re really sad and of course, I was.’ And that’s what reconnected me and Lindsey. We had the greatest talk. It was like we’d just spoken five minutes ago.”

The drummer  is looking forward to a post-COVID time where he can perform again and “there has to be a positive outcome of stories to be told by all of us.”

 

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Fleetwood Mac's 'Rumours' and 'Dreams' explode on the Billboard Charts!

  

Fleetwood Mac's 'Rumours' is the "greatest gainer" this week on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart as it explodes in sales and jumps up the Top 200 albums chart to #13 from #27 last week as a result of Nathan Apodaca’s viral TikTok video featuring 'Dreams'.  I believe the last time the album was this high on the charts was back in May, 2011 when the entire 'Rumours' album was featured in the Glee episode and it reached #11.

The 1988 Greatest Hits release also sees a major boost on the chart, jumping up to #61 this week from #103 last week.

DREAMS ROCKETS UP THE BILLBOARD HOT 100

'Dreams' re-enters the Billboard Top 100 singles chart at #21 this week based on sales, streams and radio play. The song took off following Nathan Apodaca’s viral TikTok video flying up the iTunes and Spotify song charts. The song is currently No.1 on iTunes in the US and has been for a number of days.  This is the first time the song has been on the Hot 100 since August, 1977!

LIMITED EDITION GREEN VINYL OF MICK FLEETWOOD AND FRIENDS "THE GREEN MANALISHI" OUT NOV 27

Mick Fleetwood And Friends are excited to be releasing a limited edition, green vinyl 12” of ‘The Green Manalishi (With The Two-Prong Crown)’ live from The London Palladium as part of Black Friday on 27th Nov to support independent record stores. This was recorded at the all-star, one-of-a-kind concert honouring the early years of Fleetwood Mac and its founder Peter Green and features Billy Gibbons and Kirk Hammett.

Find a participating record store

FLEETWOOD MAC AND DREAMS ON THE CHARTS

Huge impact on Fleetwood Mac's music particularly in the US but also in other countries (UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada) where "Dreams" is having an impact as a result of the viral video featuring the track.

   

USA

Rumours moves up 20 spots on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart to #27 from #47 last week. Greatest Hits released in 1988 moves up to #103 from #169 last week. The Alternate Rumours limited edition vinyl album released for Record Store Day on September 26th enters the Billboard Top 200 at #164 on sales of 7,000 unit.

Elsewhere on the Billboard Charts:

Billboard Global 200 (popular songs [streams and downloads] on the planet)

#51 Dreams (new)

Billboard Global 200 Excl. US (outside the US, streams and downloads)

#161 Dreams (new)

STREAMING SONGS TOP 50

#36 Dreams (new)

DIGITAL TOP 50 SONG SALES

#9 Dreams (new)

TOP 25 ROCK DIGITAL SONG SALES

#1   Dreams (up from #19 last week)
#10 The Chain (re-entry)
#23 Go Your Own Way (re-entry)
#25 Gypsy (new)

TOP 100 ALBUM SALES

#12 The Alternate Rumours (new)
#29 Rumours
#46 Greatest Hits

TOP 100 CURRENT ALBUM SALES

#9 The Alternate Rumours (new)

TOP 50 CATALOG ALBUMS

#3   Rumours
#19 Greatest Hits

TOP 25 VINYL ALBUMS

#6  The Alternate Rumours (new)
#24 Rumours

TOP 15 BLUES ALBUMS

#9 Fleetwood Mac 1969-1974 Boxed Set

HOT 100 RECURRENTS

#6  Dreams (re-entry)

TASTEMAKER TOP 25 ALBUMS

#6  The Alternate Rumours

BILLBOARD TOP 100 CANADIAN ALBUMS

#19 Rumours (up from #55 last week)

TOP 50 CANADIAN DIGITAL SONG SALES

#11 Dreams (re-entry)

TOP 50 HOT ROCK & ALTERNATIVE SONGS

#8   Dreams (re-entry)
#23 The Chain (re-entry)

TOP 50 TOP ROCK ALBUMS

#3   Rumours

#13 Greatest Hits

#25 The Alternate Rumours

INTERVIEW Stevie Nicks Releases Powerful "Show Them The Way" with Dave Grohl and Dave Stewart

Stevie Nicks on Her Hopeful New Single ‘Show Them the Way’ and Her Fears for the Next Four Years. 

In a conversation with Variety, Nicks describes the new song as "nonpartisan" and "a prayer." But she has strong feelings about everything from Ruth Bader Ginsburg to wearing masks, and talks about her fantasy exit path if we get four more years of the same.

By Chris Willman - VARIETY

Stevie Nicks wrote the lyrics for her new single, “Show Them the Way,” exactly three election cycles ago. But in the Cameron Crowe-directed video for the song, when someone is pictured holding up a sign that says “November is coming,” it’s clear that it’s this year’s election that’s weighing heavy on her mind.

“I did hold it back since 2008, and I just knew that right now, with the presidential election and everything else that’s going on, that this was the time,” Nicks tells Variety. “I hope that this song and its words will be seen as a prayer — a prayer for our country, and a prayer for the world. It’s a pretty heavy song. And,” she says of the newly recorded version, with Greg Kurstin as producer and Dave Grohl on drums, “I think it’s just a spectacular song.”

Is it a political one? “I hope people understand that it’s nonpartisan — that it’s not for Republicans, it’s not for Democrats. It’s meant to be a moment of peace for everyone, and… you know the silly thing where people say ‘Can’t everybody just get along?’ It’s like, can we just figure a way out of this horrific thing that we have walked into? That’s why I released this now.”

But calling the song nonpartisan doesn’t mean she lacks strong opinions about the seismic changes affecting the country, and which way she hopes things swing in a month. Asked what she means by “this horrific thing that we have walked into,” Nicks answers, without ever naming any names: “I just mean what’s happened to the country. Racism in the last four years is so much worse than it was. I’m 72 years old. I lived through the ‘60s. I’ve seen all this. I fought for Roe vs. Wade; that was my generation’s fight. And I don’t want to live in a country that is so divisive. I go, like, well, if this starts over and there’s another four years of this, then I’m going — but we’re not welcome anywhere. So where can I go? And I’m thinking: Oh, space. Maybe I can talk Elon Musk into giving us a jet and letting me pick 50 people, and we’re like the arc, and someone can take us and let us live on another planet until the next four years are over.”

Nicks says she’s releasing two versions of the song. “There’s an acoustic piano version with me and Greg Kurstin, my amazing producer,” she says, referring to the two-time Grammy producer of the year winner famous for Adele’s “Hello.” “And then we did this rock ‘n’ roll version of it too, with Dave Grohl playing drums and Dave Stuart (of Eurythmics fame) playing lead guitar from the middle out. And. Greg is the most amazing keyboardist; I was so blown away.”

The lyrics are, by her account, essentially a transcription of a dream she had during the Democratic primaries leading up to the 2008 presidential election, when she was in the studio and would come home every night and watch news and historical political documentaries on television every night.

“One night I had a dream that was so real, I was pretty sure it had happened,” Nicks says. “It’s a cinematic story; it had a beginning, a middle and an end, and every detail, every color, every smile was there. And I wrote the story when I woke up. The dream was: I was invited to a party to play the piano and sing a few songs. And nobody’s ever really asked me to come and be the entertainment for anything by myself, because I don’t play that well — so that’s how you know this was a dream, right?” she laughs. “But I had done three benefits in the Hamptons before, so that was up there in my brain somewhere. There were all these political people there, in the dream. The next day I wrote down the words, and then I made it into a poem, then I wrote the music the next day. And since I never recorded it till now, I felt that now was its time, its reason. I understood what it meant then and what it means now.”

Nicks hopes that it is a balm amid one of the most turmoil-fueled times the nation has known — but admits she finds little reason for abject calm with the coronavirus still running rampant. “I would never have put this song out if I didn’t hope that it might put some hope out into the world,” she says. “Because I think that everybody is very afraid and nervous, and we’re all locked in and can’t go anywhere and can’t do anything. People aren’t paying attention with their masks, and other people are getting it. And this virus has never going to go away if the whole world doesn’t get in the game and start wearing their masks and start doing everything you have to do. It’s like a creeping fungus. And it’s going to keep us all locked in our houses and it’s not going to help the economy. Nobody’s ever going to be able to really go back to full-on work, and nothing’s ever going to be the same unless we can get ahold of this thing.”

To her, this is still nonpartisan talk, though it may not be taken as such by all. “The whole thing has become so political. It’s not political, everybody! It’s not. It’s a virus. It doesn’t care what side you’re on. It’s going to kill you. And I’ve said that if I get it it’ll kill me. I have compromised lungs. I was really sick last year. The night of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame [which she was inducted into in 2019 as a solo artist after previously being in as a member of Fleetwood Mac], I knew before I went on stage that something was off, so I had to really like pull it together. The next day I got really sick, and I ended up going into the hospital in Philadelphia for a week in ICU with double pneumonia and and asthma. And talk about your oxygen levels going down — my oxygen levels were hardly existing. If I was to go on a ventilator… My mom was on a ventilator for a month, and she was hoarse for the rest of her life. All the other side effects that come along with this virus… You may get over it and just be like, ‘Great, I’m good. It’s gone.’ It’s not gone. It comes back in little ways to attack you forever.

“So you don’t want to get it. It’s like I’ve built a thin shield of magical plastic around me, you know? Because I don’t want my career to be over. I don’t want to not pull on those leather boots again.”

The “Show Them the Way” video includes a brief glimpse of the Ruth Bader Ginsburg. To many of the rest of us, she may be “RBG” for short, but to Nicks, “I just call her Ruth. Ruth — oh my God, I was just so sorry she couldn’t have hung on for a couple more months. But God bless her. I think she had pancreatic cancer about five different times. It’s the worst cancer you can get, and how she did it, and worked out with her trainer every day — how in the world did that little lady do it? Because she knew how important it was that she stay on this earth as long as she could. And she did her best. She’s our little icon. We’ll never forget her.”

Nicks was speaking with Variety not just about her new studio single, but about her live concert film, “Stevie Nicks 24 Karat Gold The Concert,” which will be hitting theaters and drive-ins — the ones that are open, obviously — for a two-night engagement Oct. 21 and 25, to be followed by a live audio album of the same material Oct. 30. For an in-depth interview with Nicks about that project, look to Variety next week.

Stream | Download "Show Them The Way"

OFFICIAL VIDEO

Stevie Nicks has released the powerful rock ballad “Show Them the Way.”

Stevie Nicks Asks Spirits for Guidance on Powerful New Song ‘Show Them the Way’

Rock star’s ’24 Karat Gold’ concert film will screen in select cinemas and drive-ins for two nights later this month.

By BRITTANY SPANOS - Rollingstone

Stevie Nicks has released the powerful rock ballad “Show Them the Way.” This is Nicks’ first new solo song since releasing her 2014 LP 24 Karat Gold.

Greg Kurstin produced the anthemic new track. Two official versions have been released: an acoustic, piano-only take and a full-band recording that features Dave Stewart on guitar and Dave Grohl on drums. Citing Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis and John F. Kennedy, Nicks looks for guidance from great leaders while looking to the future. The song is inspired by a real dream Nicks had where she was playing a benefit in the Hamptons, preparing herself to sing for the likes of MLK Jr., Lewis and the Kennedys. “Someone said, ‘Sing us a song, there’s a piano’/And handed me a drink/The room was full of hope/A song would set them free,” she delivers on the vivid tune.

In an interview arriving at a later date, Nicks revealed to Rolling Stone that she had originally penned the song in 2008. She was in St. Charles, Illinois editing a concert film at the time and returned to the house she was staying in to flip through the TV channels. Over the course of the two months that she lived there, she ended up watching several historical documentaries about the same figures that inspired “Show Them the Way.” 

“I watched it all,” she tells Rolling Stone. “Then, what happened was, one night I went to bed and I had this dream. I dream a lot, but I almost never remember the dreams. I’ll wake up and I’ll go, ‘I remember a train with some people smiling and waving at me that went by really fast,’ and that’s it. This dream was so really real that there was a little bit of me, for a minute, when I sat up was like, ‘Did that just really happen?’ So I wrote it down just in prose. I didn’t write it down in a seven verse poem. I wrote down what had happened.”

Towards the end of “Show Them the Way,” Nicks meets a shadow who represents her mom, who worked at a prisoner of war base outside of Phoenix. The figure reminds her: “Don’t forget what we were fighting for,” a quote the singer’s mother had repeated throughout her life. 

She considered putting “Show Them the Way” on her 2011 album In Your Dreams, but had presented it to her collaborators at the time too late. “I said, ‘OK, I totally get it, and it really doesn’t go with the rest of these songs, it would be an outlier on this,'” she explains, adding that she wanted it to feel like the right time for the song to be out in the world. “I think the world is calling for it right now.”

Later this month, Nicks’ 24 Karat Gold concert film will screen at select cinemas and drive-ins for two nights only.

Stream | Download the single 

Stevie Nicks may not be able to tour but she’s been working hard on a new TV miniseries.

Outtakes: Stevie Nicks on Petty, Prince, Beyoncé and Harry

By MESFIN FEKADU - Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Stevie Nicks — who is releasing a new song Friday and a concert film later this month — discusses the TV miniseries she’s working on as well as her relationships with Tom Petty, Prince, Beyoncé, Harry Styles and the members of Fleetwood Mac in outtakes from a recent 90-minute-plus interview with The Associated Press.

PETTY and PRINCE

When editing her concert film “Stevie Nicks 24 Karat Gold The Concert” — recorded over two nights during her 2016-17 tour — Nicks had a realization: “Tom was still alive when we did this, wasn’t he?”

“Honestly, as I was watching the show, for me, he was just alive again,” she continued. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, he didn’t die until after that.’”

Petty died in Oct. 2017. Just months before he passed, the pair got together at the British Summer Time at Hyde Park in London to perform their 1981 hit “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.”

Fleetwood Mac’s recent tours wrap up with a cover of Petty’s “Free Fallin’” and Nicks said that was always hard to perform.

“It was between Michael (Campbell) and I — it was incredibly difficult for us to even look at each other. I would stand up next to him at the very beginning when it was starting and if I even put my hand on Michael’s back, it was like both of us just started to wither,” she said.

The late icon Prince also has a presence in Nicks’ concert film. She dedicates her performance of “Moonlight” to the Purple One and his photo is above her as she sings the classic “Edge of Seventeen.”

“He was inspired by ‘Edge of Seventeen’ to write ‘When Doves Cry.’ That’s really when he and I started to sort of be friends,” she said. “From that moment onward at the very end of ‘Edge of Seventeen’ I go, ‘I know what it sounds like, I know what it sounds like, I know what it sounds like when doves cry. It sounds like you.’”

BEYONCÉ and BOOTYLICIOUS

Speaking of “Edge of Seventeen,” Stevie Nicks let R&B girl group Destiny’s Child sample the song for their 2001 smash “Bootylicious.”

Nicks even appeared in the video, and remembers meeting Kelly Rowland, Michelle Williams and Beyoncé — who was just 19 at the time.

“I got to sit there with them and hang out with them all day long. ...Then I did my guitar playing part, which was totally fun and so when I left there, I felt like I knew them. I never really saw them again. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Beyoncé since. We had a great day,” Nicks said.

“Bootylicious” not only topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart, it was so popular that the word was added to the dictionary thanks to the song’s success.

“Without all the makeup and everything, they just looked like three really cute, little teenage girls. Then of course, they’re just like me, they put on those — whatever it is that makes them — them. Whether it’s your boots or your jacket or whatever, then they became Destiny’s Child, and I saw it. It was really a marvel to see,” Nicks said. “I always feel like I know them, even though I really don’t. I feel like I know Beyoncé even though I really don’t know her at all. I feel like I know her because I was with them for a long time that day. They gave me a chance to pretend like I was playing guitar. I don’t think anybody ever gave me that chance ever again.”

WOMEN WHO ROCK

Speaking of Beyoncé — who has a chance of matching Stevie Nicks by becoming a two-time member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — Nicks says she’s sort of bummed she’s the only woman to achieve the feat.

Nicks was first inducted into the Rock Hall in 1998 as a member of Fleetwood Mac, and she made history when she became a member as a soloist last year. Twenty-two men have been inducted twice, including Michael Jackson, Paul Simon, Eric Clapton, Lou Reed and all four members of the Beatles.

“I hope that I will be the catalyst for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame allowing some other women to come in because they should. They absolutely should,” Nicks said. “We are just as good as they are... That’s why there should be more women in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because we worked just as hard.”

Artists can become eligible for induction 25 years after the release of their first record. Beyoncé will qualify for induction as a member in Destiny’s Child in 2023 and as a soloist in 2028.

Nicks’ advice to women to wanting to be inducted twice: “If they’re in a band, well, just make a quickie solo album somewhere in there. You never know. That’s the only way you’ll ever get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice. Both careers have to exist for a really long time.”

One of her favorite moments during her second initiation last year? Harry Styles inducting her.

“I loved it and everything he said helped me with my speech, which went on way too long. Probably the longest acceptance speech ever at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,” she said.

WHEN HARRY MET STEVIE

Speaking of Harry Styles, Nicks has become close friends with the former One Direction member since he invited her to perform at one of his concerts in 2017.

Since, they’re performed several times together and Styles even previewed his latest album, “Fine Line,” for Nicks and some of her friends before it was released in December.

“He’s watching me to learn, just like I watched Jimi Hendrix to learn or I watched Janis Joplin or I watched Buffalo Springfield or I watched all the different bands that Lindsey and I opened for,” Nicks said of Styles.

Though they haven’t written or recorded together, Nicks admits “we will.”

Styles topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart this year with the sweet pop song “Watermelon Sugar” from his new album. But Nicks says she feels “so bad for him that this stupid pandemic had to happen right as ‘Fine Line’ was coming out.”

She gives Styles credit with warning her about the serious impact the pandemic would have on touring.

“This is before they locked us down, I said to him, ‘You know, it’s going to be a long time until we actually walk onstage again.’ ... In all of his 26-ness to a 72-year-old he said, ‘I don’t think that we’ll be back onstage until the end of 2021.’ This was February. I said, ‘Are you serious? Are you kidding? Really? That’s what you think?’ He goes, ‘That’s absolutely what I think.’”

“He became like this sage, man of wisdom, I was like, ‘Wow! I hope you’re wrong.’ But he’s absolutely right.”

CALL ME MAYBE

Speaking of friends Stevie Nicks have been in touch with — don’t count the members of Fleetwood Mac.

“I haven’t talked to anybody in Fleetwood Mac. I haven’t even talked to Mick. I’m really, really good friends with Mick,” she said. “Not only did I not call them, but they didn’t call me either. It seems like everybody is very much existing in their own bubble. It’s like there are people that I really need to call that are important to me that I have not called.”

Fleetwood Mac wrapped a yearlong tour in December, just months before the pandemic hit.

“Whenever I feel really guilty, then I say to myself, ‘Well they haven’t called you either.’ That’s your excuse out. Soon as somebody calls you, then you have to call them back,” Nicks continued. “It’s society of pandemic. We’re all going to be so excited when it’s over that we’re all going to be over-friendly and calling people all the time and people are going to be like, ‘Back off. Stop.’ I think that hopefully we’re all going to get through this and please God will show us the way and we’ll be OK.”

STEVIE TV

Speaking of the pandemic, Stevie Nicks may not be able to tour but she’s been working hard on a new TV miniseries.

The show is based off the Welsh goddess Rhiannon, which inspired Nicks to write the 1975 Fleetwood Mac hit of the same name. After learning more about Rhiannon, Nicks bought the rights from author Evangeline Walton’s adaptation of the ancient British Mabinogion, which includes the Rhiannon story.

“I was in meetings for that in January and February before this thing happened,” she said. “It’s one of the few kinds of work that actually can go on in a pandemic.”

Nicks has also been bingeing TV shows with her two goddaughters and assistant, naming favorites like “The Last Kingdom,” “Outlander,” “The Crown,” “Victoria,” “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “Law & Order,” “Chicago P.D.” and “Chicago Med.”

“I think it’s creative for me to watch all that good TV because it is good and it’s fun. And it takes your mind off of everything that’s going on. We’re watching movies for ‘Rhiannon,’ we’re watching the old Excalibur movies and the King Arthur movies. All the medieval movies, even the really old ones. That’s really good too because that kind of keeps you in sort of that mindset also,” she said.

“We don’t seldom just sit around at night and talk, because there is nothing left to talk about. We’ve told every story that any of us have ever heard 50,000 times over the last 30 years. So, we’re done talking.”

"This song is a prayer for people to unite" - Stevie Nicks

On edge of 72, Stevie Nicks just wants to sing a song live

By MESFIN FEKADU - Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — It’s Saturday at 9:30 p.m. and Stevie Nicks is singing on the phone.

The rock icon is at her Los Angeles home, where she’s been cooped up since December after wrapping the “An Evening with Fleetwood Mac” tour. She arrived there at first to relax after spending a year on the road and to celebrate the holidays. But then the coronavirus pandemic hit.

Stuck at the house is both good and bad for Nicks. The good news? Her house is a creative oasis where all her favorite musical instruments live. It’s where she spent a year recording her 2011 album “In Your Dreams” with Dave Stewart and Glen Ballard.

Her current 10-month stint — and counting — at home even fueled her to record the new single “Show Them the Way,” out on Friday.

“It’s beautiful,” she says after singing the song’s chorus at the end of a 90-minute-plus interview, where Nicks excitedly discussed everything from her admiration for late icons and pals Tom Petty and Prince to her relationships with Harry Styles and Beyoncé.

The bad news? Nicks is 72 and doesn’t want to be homebound when she prefers to be singing live on the road.

“This pandemic is more than just a pandemic for me. This is stealing what I consider to be my last youthful years,” Nicks told The Associated Press. “I don’t have just 10 years to hang around and wait for this thing to go away. I have places to go, people to sing for, another album to make. With every day that goes by, it’s like taking this time away from me. That I think is the hardest thing for me.”

“I have a lot of friends that are 60 and they’re going, ‘Oh I’m so old, I’m 60.’ I’m like, ‘You know what, the violins of the world are playing for you. You’re going to really appreciate 60 when you turn 72,’” she continued. “I don’t feel like the whole world is really getting behind getting this to go away. I feel like people are just thinking it really is just magically going away. All it takes is a few people that don’t wear a mask to spread. Just let one person catch it from you and there it goes — it’s like the never-ending story. That worries me because I’m going, ’Will it really be gone by the end of 2021?

“Will it be safe next year for us to walk into Madison Square Garden?’ I don’t know that it will,” she said.

Nicks is hoping to satisfy fans she would typically see in-person on tour with the new concert film “Stevie Nicks 24 Karat Gold The Concert.” It was recorded over two nights during her 2016-17 “24 Karat Gold” tour and will be available at select theaters and drive-ins on Oct. 21 and 25. A CD and digital album of the concert will be released Oct. 30.

“As we started to understand that this COVID thing was not a joke, I started going to myself, ‘Well, you know what? This may be the closest to going to a big, big concert that’s actually not from 1977 that is new,’” Nicks said. “It’s brand new and it’s fantastic.”

The only time she left her West Coast home was to edit the film in Chicago. She took a private jet to the home on a golf course that had been vacant for some time, spending a month there and editing down hours of footage to create the 140-minute film.

“They can’t do it without me. I won’t allow it,” Nicks said. “We got it all done. It was really fun. We were really safe.”

But at the end of the trip, Nicks tripped in the snow and fractured her knee: “I was like screaming as I went through the air and saw the gravel driveway coming toward my face and just made a quick turn. So, I didn’t fall face down and caught myself. Because of my strong, tambourine arms, I was able to stop myself from crashing even worse. It was a really bad fall, but it’s OK.

“It’s had a hard time getting better,” she continued. “I hurt this knee really bad, my left knee, before, years ago. I had been dealing with it and fixed it. ...I had just really gotten it to be to the place where it was totally better, then I fractured it. So now it’s almost better,” she said.

Apart from producing her concert film and recording “Show Them the Way,” Nicks has been busy in the home where she’s been creative in the past: “Another famous rock ‘n’ roll star, who will not be mentioned, sent me a song that he wants me to sing on,” she revealed.

Though “Show Them the Way” arrives Friday, Nicks said the song came to her in a dream in 2008 when Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were competing for the Democratic Party nomination for president. In the dream Nicks is performing at a political benefit where attendees include Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., John Lennon, John Lewis, John F. Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy.

Dave Grohl plays drums on the new song, which was produced by Greg Kurstin (Sia, Adele, Beck). Cameron Crowe is directing the music video.

“This song really is a prayer. This song is a prayer for people to unite. A prayer for people to get together,” Nicks said.

“I didn’t really realize that until just the last few days. The chorus was written a week or so later,” she continued.

“The chorus, and I can sing it for you, it goes, ‘Please God show them the way/Please God on this day/Spirits all give us strength/Peace will come if you really want it/I think we’re just in time to save it/Please God, oh please God, show them the way.’”