Returning to her 2017 live shows proved to be a godsend for Stevie Nicks

Stevie Nicks Can’t Wait for the Magic to Come Back

Nicks discusses her ’24 Karat Gold Concert Film’ and returning to live shows in new interview

By Brittany Spanos - Rollingstone

Photo: Randee St Nicholas

In another life, Stevie Nicks would have been a music-film editor. “I think I’m really good at it,” she says one Friday evening, calling from her home in Los Angeles. Her canine companion Lily is begging for her attention with a toy as Nicks reflects on her second life. “I can only say this about a few things.”

She’s had plenty of experience, working closely with director Joe Thomas on concert films for Fleetwood Mac (2004’s Live in Boston), her late friend Tom Petty (2006’s Live From Gainesville), and most recently, Stevie Nicks 24 Karat Gold Concert Film. Recorded during her 2017 tour stops in Indianapolis and Pittsburgh, the film is getting a special release this month and being screened at select drive-ins, theaters, and exhibition spaces on October 21st through 25th. The set lists featured classic solo and Nicks-led Fleetwood Mac songs along with tracks off her 2014 album, 24 Karat Gold: Songs From the Vault. For the music fans desperately missing live shows in the time of Covid-19, the film perfectly encapsulates the tambourine-banging, shawl-twirling, story-spinning magic that only Nicks can deliver.

Putting the project together with Thomas became one of two pandemic projects for the rock goddess (the other being her new song “Show Them the Way”). She flew out to Chicago in May with her assistant on a “full-on, fogged-out, Covid-free private plane” and lived in a house on a golf course that no one had been in since before lockdown had begun. Nicks would go to Thomas’ studio, masked up alongside everyone else (“I felt imprisoned by the mask, but I love the mask — I felt safe”), and got to work, diligently assessing the footage captured by all 12 cameras from shows in the two cities.

“I’m really the second editor,” she says of her uncredited job. “The fact is that if I don’t like a shot, it’s not going in.” She learned, as she had in past editing-room experiences, that men see women differently.

Stevie Nicks hits No. 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 Songwriters chart

Stevie Nicks Tops Hot 100 Songwriters Chart Thanks to Fleetwood Mac 'Dreams' Resurgence

Xander Zellner - Billboard
October 21, 2020

She solely wrote the 1977 smash.

Stevie Nicks hits No. 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 Songwriters chart (dated Oct. 24), leading for the first time since the chart's 2019 launch, thanks to her writing credit on Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams."

The 1977 classic, and a Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 that June, rises 21-12 in its second week back on the chart, with 16.1 million U.S. streams (up 20%) and 25,000 downloads sold (up 15%), according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. It pushes 3-2 on the Digital Song Sales chart and 18-6 on Streaming Songs.

Even in quarantine Stevie Nicks is not slowing down!

Stevie Nicks is still dreaming

by - Greg Wetherall - Dazed
October 20, 2020

Photo: Randee St Nicholas

She’s just released her first solo single in six years. A new concert film is about to hit cinemas. And a viral TikTok has put the Fleetwood Mac classic Rumours back in the Top 10. Even in quarantine, the rock and roll icon is not slowing down.

Stevie Nicks has had “a hell of a day”. Not only is it 3am at her home in Los Angeles when we first speak on the phone, the power has gone out in her house. “It was out all day until about nine o’clock (in the evening), but we’ve not been here,” she laments. “We got home and it was on. I came in, got ready to do this interview, and the power went out again.”

Nicks, the 72-year-old Fleetwood Mac singer and solo star, is almost entirely nocturnal these days. The coronavirus pandemic and subsequent quarantine has locked her into a diet of rolling news and perpetual worry, and being awake and active during the witching hour has become her normal. Her current lack of electricity, however, is somewhat less so. “We are prepared here, just in case there’s an earthquake,” she continues (the ‘we’ referring to her assistant and two goddaughters, who Nicks has been holed up with ever since the pandemic struck). “We have a lot of lanterns. I’m in a window seat in a swing. We’ve lit the area so at least I can see the papers in front of me.” Our conversation unfurls to breaking news that Donald Trump has tested positive for COVID-19. “When everyone wakes up in the morning and discovers that the whole government has possibly been exposed to the virus, they’re gonna go crazy,” she remarks, adding that Trump contracting the virus proves that wearing a mask is “not political... it’s contagious and it’s dangerous”.

To speak with Stevie Nicks is to spend time with one of music’s true greats. Not only is she responsible for writing some of the rock and pop canon’s greatest standards – “Dreams”, “Landslide”, “Edge of Seventeen” – her life has been so eventful that it can include opening up for Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, to turning down Prince’s offer to record “Purple Rain” among its many, many tales. When we talk, she’s just arrived home from the edit suite, where she’s been busy applying the finishing touches to the video for “Show Them the Way”, her first solo single in six years.

Stevie Nicks can’t wait to perform with Harry Styles again when this is all through

Stevie Nicks Just Wants to Keep Telling Stories

by Keaton Bell - Vogue

October 20, 2020

Photo: Randee St Nicholas

Stevie Nicks bought her first copy of Vogue when she was 25 years old. It was 1973, around the time of Buckingham Nicks, the first and only album she and ex-boyfriend Lindsey Buckingham ever released as a duo. Still a few years removed from the fame and fortune that would follow their recruitment into Fleetwood Mac, Nicks was earning just a buck fifty an hour waiting tables in a flapper girl uniform.

“I only had enough money for one magazine at that point, and Vogue was the first one I ever bought,” Nicks recalls. “I would scrape my money together and buy it every month.” 

Five decades later, Nicks—who prefers using a landline and doesn’t own a computer—still finds comfort in her lo-fi rituals. “To this day my favorite thing is getting into bed at five o’clock in the morning with a cup of decaf coffee, playing some soft, groovy music, and reading my Vogue,” she tells me. “Me and my little dog Lily pore over every single page for hours, and it’s been that way since 1973.”

Nicks has spent most of the pandemic in her Pacific Palisades home with two close friends and the aforementioned Lily—a Chinese crested who sits dutifully on her owner’s lap during our call. “She has her back turned to me because she doesn’t really wanna be here. I just know she’s plotting her escape,” Nicks says with a raspy giggle. “It’s fine. My feelings aren’t too hurt…well, they are, but I’ll be okay.”

As Fleetwood Mac’s lovelorn frontwoman, Nicks crafted masterworks out of the sex-and-drug-fueled dalliances that almost destroyed the group (documented in real time on their 1977 breakup opus Rumours). Still one of the 10 best-selling albums of all time, Rumours made stars out of its new lineup, but it was always clear from the outset who the breakout was. With three songwriters fighting for space on each record, it wasn’t long before Nicks needed her own outlet.

“They said, ‘You can make your solo album and have a solo trip, but if we go into work, we’re gonna call you,’” she remembers. “‘Terrific, I’ll be there.’ That was always my promise to them.” 1981’s shimmery Bella Donna set the stage for a second career that made Nicks the first woman to ever be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice (once with the group in 1998 and by herself just last year).

2020 was originally meant to be a year off from the grueling lifestyle that comes with back-to-back arena tours as both Fleetwood Mac frontwoman and solo enchantress. With just one festival show a month, Nicks would slow down. Then the shows—her headlining slots at Jazz Fest and Governors Ball were early casualties—began to be canceled.

FLEETWOOD MAC'S 'DREAMS' TOP SELLING SONG WORLDWIDE LAST WEEK

Fleetwood Mac's 'Dreams' Thunders to Top 10.

Billboard published the Top 10 Global Tracks and "Dreams" bounds from No. 20 to No. 10 on the Global 200, sparked by its TikTok-fueled revival.

The Billboard Global 200 chart is inclusive of worldwide data and ranks songs based on streaming and sales activity culled from more than 200 territories around the world, as compiled by Nielsen Music/MRC Data.

"Dreams" vaults 20-10, with 27.3 million streams (up 36%) and 33,000 downloads sold (up 20%) globally. The classic, which was the top-selling song worldwide in the tracking week, is benefiting from the viral TikTok video in which Idahoan Nathan Apodaca rides his longboard while drinking a bottle of Ocean Spray Cran-Raspberry juice, backed by the Stevie Nicks-penned song; the band's Mick Fleetwood and Nicks have since created their own tribute clips. - BILLBOARD

Fleetwood Mac's Rumours Is Once Again a Top 10 Album in the US

Fleetwood Mac's 'Rumours' Returns to Billboard 200 Top 10 -- 42 Years Later

by Keith Caulfield
Billboard

After a 42-year wait, Fleetwood Mac’s former Billboard 200 No. 1 album Rumours returns to the top 10 this week, as the set jumps 13-7. The album, released in 1977, is basking in the glow of sales and streaming increases spurred on by publicity generated from a viral TikTok video set to the album’s song “Dreams.”

The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. The new Oct. 24-dated chart (where Rumours returns to the top 10) will be posted in full on Billboard's website on Oct. 20. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram. 

Rumours earned 33,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending Oct. 15 – up 15%, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. Of that sum, 23,000 comprise SEA units (up 15%, equating to 30.6 million on-demand streams of the album’s songs, including "Dreams"), a little under 7,000 are in album sales (up 15%) and 4,000 are in TEA units (up 13%).

The TikTok video in question has “Dreams” soundtracking a man in a hoodie (Nathan Apodaca) seemingly being pulled on a skateboard, as he drinks from a bottle of Ocean Spray Cran-Raspberry juice and sings along with Stevie Nicks’ lead vocal. The video became so popular, it moved the band’s own Mick Fleetwood and Nicks to create their own tribute clips.

Rumours spent 31 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in 1977-78 – a record number of weeks atop the list for an album by a duo or group. Rumours was last in the top 10 on the Feb. 18, 1978-dated chart (at No. 10), and last ranked at No. 7 or higher on the Feb. 11, 1978 chart (where it placed at No. 7).

“Dreams” is Fleetwood Mac’s only No. 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart – out of 25 chart hits. “Dreams” spent one week at No. 1 on June 18, 1977. The cut is one of four top 10 hits from the Rumours album. The effort also launched the singles “Go Your Own Way” (No. 10), “Don’t Stop” (No. 3) and “You Make Loving Fun” (No. 9).

INTERVIEW focused on Stevie Nicks superb new single "Show Them The Way"

Sunday Conversation: Stevie Nicks On Why Hew New Single Was A Premonition, John Lennon And More

by Steve Baltin - Forbes

As I started in part one of my marathon Stevie Nicks interview, there was no way to condense 90 minutes with one of the most iconic figures in music to one part. Nicks simply had way too much to offer in the lengthy call.

Part two, below, focuses on her superb new single, "Show Them The Way," which she views as a prayer to lift people up and unite them in these incredibly turbulent and fractured times.

The song actually dates back to 2008, when she had a dream that inspired the lyrics. Looking at how much it fits into our world today she now sees the song and the dream as a premonition.

I spoke with her about the song, the unintentional nod to John Lennon, the powerful video directed by Cameron Crowe and her concert film, 24 Karat Gold, screening in cinemas this week (October 21 and 25).  

Steve Baltin: I love the new single, 'Show Them The Way." And I love the symmetry of releasing it on John Lennon’s eightieth birthday. It came from a your dream and Lennon was one of the best at talking about dreams. So was it just a coincidence that it came out on John Lennon’s 80th birthday?

Stevie Nicks: It kind of was, but I have to tell you that John Lennon was the first shadow and the last verse. And the shadow says, “The dream is not over, the dream has just begun. And the last shadow in the last verse is my mom saying, "Don’t forget what me and your father were fighting for, sweetie. Don’t forget it."

Baltin: You have said the song comes from a dream you had in 2008.

Nicks: The reason that I wrote it, I was back in Chicago for about two months editing a film and when we’d get home at about 10 o’clock from the studio we’d turn on the TV. And they were playing all the documentaries from the late '50s, and all through the '60s, and into the '70s. For two months I watched documentaries because it was also at the same time Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were going back and forth on who was going to be the candidate for the democratic primary. So it was a good way to walk away from what you were doing musically into another world. I had all these documentaries in my head. And towards the end of that two months, I just went to bed one night and had that dream. And the dream was so clear I sat up in bed and reached for my journal and just started writing it down in prose, not as a poem. Just like, "I was invited to be the entertainer for the party in the Hamptons . It was for some really famous political figures and why the hell did they ask me? I don’t play piano that well." I just said in the dream, “Well, sure I’d love to do that, right?” So when I woke up I just started writing it down as a story and I got the whole story written down. And then I stopped and walked away from it and went back to it the next night and made it into a poem because that’s what I do with my writing. I write it in prose and then if I think it’s poetry worthy then I go back and I write it into a poem. So the poem came very fast and then the next day I put it to music. And then it was done and I put it in cold storage because it wasn’t the time for a song like this to come out then. It just wasn’t. I knew a song like this wasn’t going to be a song that would always fit.

Baltin: So what made this the time to release it?

INTERVIEW Stevie Nicks on book plans, "Show Them The Way" and her style

Stevie Nicks on how she wrote 'Dreams,' her signature style, book plans and not being able to tour: 'This virus has stolen time from me'

By Lyndsey Parker

Yahoo Entertainment

To describe Stevie Nicks as a woman of many words — fascinating words — is a massive understatement. Whether it’s in the cosmic lyrics to classic songs like Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” (which is a bigger hit than ever, thanks to Nathan Apodaca’s TikTok skateboarding video); her eloquent, journal-like social media posts; her new fever-dreaming comeback single, “Show Them the Way”; or her utterly unfiltered interviews like the one below, Nicks is a brilliant thinker, a consummate storyteller and an absolute icon.

Leading up to the release of her film Stevie Nicks 24 Karat Gold The Concert — which will run for two nights only, on Oct. 21 and 25, at select cinemas, drive-ins and exhibition spaces around the world — Yahoo Entertainment spoke at length with the two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee about the secret “magic room” where she conjured “Dreams” in 1975, how she came up with her signature look, her friendship with Harry Styles, her admiration for Ruth Bader Ginsburg, why she’s happy being single, her COVID-era fears about never being able to perform onstage again and her hopes of compiling all her wonderful words into a book one day.

Yahoo Entertainment: Lately, you’ve been writing some very beautiful, heartfelt things on social media, almost like essays. And one that really struck me was you were expressing your fears about being able to return to doing what you love, which is performing live. It must be bittersweet to be releasing a concert film in the middle of a time when there are pretty much no concerts happening at all.

Stevie Nicks: Well, first of all, last February I had a talk on the phone with my friend Harry Styles — I call him “H” — about when we could perform together again, because I had just sung with him at the Forum, and it was so much fun. And he said to me, in all of his 26-years-old-ness, “Stevie, I think it’s going to be a long time before we can walk onstage again. I don’t think that we will walk onstage again until the end of 2021, and maybe not until 2022.” And now I’m like, “Oh my God, this man is more psychic than I am!” Damn, if he wasn't right. So the thing is, is that, are we sad? Yes, we’re devastated. I turn the television on for 15 minutes and it’s showing every single state and the upticks in every single state, still going up. Like, what the hell? This is terrible. We were hoping that by this time we would be at least getting closer to being able to go back out and at least do outdoor festivals. But you know what? We’re not Donald Trump. We can’t put people in danger, and we never will put people in danger because of that. We're not going to take people into a big venue like the Forum and take the chance that they’re all going to come down with this virus in six weeks. So, honestly, I don’t know what the future holds.

Eddy Quintela, second husband to Christine McVie has passed away

Eddy Quintela, second husband of Christine McVie and co-writer on a number of her songs from 1987 through 1997 has passed away.

Song writer, keyboardist and composer of Portuguese origin, Eddy Quintela was also the second husband of Christine McVie, a fundamental element in the formation of Fleetwood Mac. For the North American band, Quintela composed with McVie numerous songs between the years 1987 and 1997 Among them is the hit, "Little Lies" from the album Tango in the Night, published in 1987. The hit helped this LP to become the second best seller in the entire Fleetwood Mac career.

They divorced in 2003 but continued to collaborate on Christine McVie's solo album published the following year. One of Eddy Quintela's themes for the American band, "Nights in Estoril", alludes to the time spent by the couple in Portugal, where the musician established several connections, namely in the Cascais line, with Marita Leon (with whom he maintained a musical project in the 1990s) and Fernando Cunha dos Delfins. The song would be published on Fleetwood Mac's Time album, which came out in 1995. In an interview with the British newspaper Guardian, McVie would say however "he was not happy in love".

Eduardo Quintela de Mendonça, of his full name, will also have collaborated with Adelaide Ferreira, at the time of "Baby Suicida" and Portuguese rock. In a post on his Facebook page, Manuel Falcão, founder of BLITZ, says he met Eddy Quintela through a mutual friend, Pedro Baltazar. "He lived a large part of his life in the United States and Great Britain and returned to Portugal some twenty years ago. He was a creative man, he was engaged in a musical project that he loved, a rock opera about John Kennedy, which he left almost ready, now that's left".

- Blitz Expresso

Little Lies by Fleetwood Mac was certified Platinum in the UK

Fleetwood Mac's "Little Lies" has been certified Platinum in the UK on October 16, 2020 for sales exceeding 600,000 units.

Little Lies was the 3rd single released from Tango In The Night in 1987 and peaked at number 5 in the UK.

Stevie Nicks talks Harry Styles, Christine McVie and the Pandemic

Stevie Nicks talks Harry Styles, pandemic fears and her Fleetwood Mac pact

Bree Player, Stellar Magazine
The Daily Telegraph (Australia)

Rock’n’roll royalty Stevie Nicks talks to Stellar about her fear of the pandemic, her close friendship with Harry Styles and the pact she made with bandmate Christine McVie at the beginning of their run with Fleetwood Mac.

How are you going in Los Angeles?

I’m as good as you can be in these circumstances. I really have been locked down because I truly believe that should I contract this disease it would kill me, or it would at the very least knock me down so bad I wouldn’t have a career anymore.

And at 72 years old, I may have my freedom but I don’t have much time, as Mick Jagger would say. So, even if this takes another year-and-a-half I’m going to get through this without getting it because I want to go back to work. I want to go back on tour. I want to come back to Australia, for god’s sake!

Your natural space is the stage. How are you handling not performing live for such an extended period of time?

Well, this was meant to be a year off for me, but I was still performing six shows and we probably would have added six more. I do miss it – I don’t feel like myself.

I look at these next six or so years as my last youthful years, when I’m going to feel like putting on six-inch heels and dancing across a stage for the world. Because, really, at some point you have to go, “OK, you’ll be 80 – just exactly how long can you cartwheel across the world?” I don’t have that much time left to be a rock star.

Although you can’t perform now, you’re releasing your most recent solo tour 24 Karat Gold The Concert in cinemas next week, so you’re still managing to keep busy…

Yes, this film was so lovingly made and I’ve also just released a song called ‘Show Them The Way’. These are projects I’m so proud of and in this time of strife for all of us, I’m hoping that both the film and the song might be something that will make people feel better and give them some hope.

I made a video for this song that’s mostly photographs but I shot a small portion of it in my entryway. I put on my boots for a couple of hours and for those hours I felt like myself again. I feel like Cinderella putting on her glass slippers.

At five-foot-seven, I feel incredibly powerful, at five-foot-one in a pair of bedroom slippers or tennis shoes, I don’t feel so powerful.

FLEETWOOD MAC ALBUMS CHART UPDATES - US, UK AU & NZ

Fleetwood Mac makes some significant moves on the albums and singles chart in these selected countries.

 

AUSTRALIA

Fleetwood Mac's 'Dreams' enters the Top 10 in Australia for the first time jumping 10 spots this week to number 4 from number 14 last week.  'Rumours' climbs up the Top 100 albums chart to number 11 from number 17 last week.

NEW ZEALAND

'Dreams' remains in the Top 40 in New Zealand on the singles chart moving up 4 spots this week to number 6 from number 10.  'Rumours' jumps into the Top 10 at number 6 this week up from number 10 last week on the Top 40 Albums chart.

UK 

In it's 100th week on the UK Top 100 albums chart, Fleetwood Mac's "50 YEARS - DON'T STOP" climbs back into the UK Top 10 at number 10 this week up from number 17 last week. 

- 100 weeks in the top 75
-  95 weeks in the top 40
-  69 weeks in the top 20
-  14 weeks in the top 10

'Rumours' moves up to number 18 from number 22. 

Finally, Fleetwood Mac’s Dreams re-enters the Official Singles Chart Top 40 for the first time since 1977, climbing 18 places to Number 37. The feat follows a surge in streams and downloads following the viral TikTok video of user Doggface208 skating to the track while drinking cranberry juice. Mick Fleetwood and Stevie Nicks have each since responded with their own TikToks paying homage to the clip.

Dreams only peaked at Number 24 upon its original release in August 1977, however its success has endured over the years, racking up just shy of 100 million streams in the UK since streaming was introduced in 2014.

Dreams is Fleetwood Mac’s first UK Top 40 entry in seven years. In 2013, their 1988 hit Everywhere re-entered the Top 40 at Number 15 following its use in a TV advert.

IRELAND

In IRELAND Fleetwood Mac’s discography is being streamed strong, leading to a new peak for the band’s 2018 box set '50 Years – Don’t Stop'. Peaking at #5 previously, the collection advances to #4 this week. 'Rumours' returns to the Top 10, climbing to #6. 

USA / CANADA

Fleetwood Mac's 'Rumours' is the "greatest gainer" this week on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart dated October 17, 2020 as it explodes in sales and jumps up the Top 200 albums chart to number 13 from number 27 last week as a result of Nathan Apodaca’s viral TikTok video featuring 'Dreams'. 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 number 11.

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

DREAMS ROCKETS UP THE BILLBOARD HOT 100

'Dreams' re-enters the Billboard Top 100 singles chart at number 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!

Other Billboard Charts: