Stevie Nicks, Lady Antebellum Come Together for CMT's 'Crossroads'
by Chris Willman
The Hollywood Reporter
The idea of collaborating on each others' songs came by way of a dream, the Fleetwood Mac singer tells THR.
If you tune in to the new episode of CMT Crossroads, which has Stevie Nicks and Lady Antebellum as its latest cross-genre pairing, you’ll hear a version of “Rhiannon” that almost sounds more like Fleetwood Mac’s original version than Fleetwood Mac could do.
Perhaps we should let Stevie explain…
“I gave Hillary (Scott) that high part in ‘Rhiannon’ because I don’t sing it that way on stage -- because I can’t reach that note,” Nicks tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I reached it once: the day we recorded the song in 1977. I thought, you know what, if we’re gonna do this, wouldn’t it be great to actually have her sing the real melody of ‘Rhiannon.’ Because it has not been sung since it was written!”
That’s not to say that Nicks took the lazy way out, long-abandoned high notes excepted. CMT producers say they’ve never had a guest from the rock world approach a Crossroads taping with quite as much preparation or work ethic as the FM mainstay. And this particular coupling was Nicks’ own idea, coming out of a dream she had where she was cheating on Lindsey Buckingham, musically speaking.
“The dream was very short,” Nicks says. “And the dream was actually very fun. But I just want to clarify that so that when my other half hears this” (by “other half,” she means her professional partner Buckingham), “he doesn’t get all pissed off, because it wasn’t that kind of a dream. We were just having our usual little disagreement [in the dream], because that’s what we do. And I laughingly said to him, ‘Well, fine. I’ll just go join Lady Antebellum.’ And then the dream ended, and I sat up, and there it was.”
Nicks didn’t think much more about this nocturnal prophecy until three days later, when she went to the premiere of a Led Zeppelin concert movie and was approached by Bill Flanagan, a longtime producer for MTV Networks specials, who asked her for the umpteenth time if she’d be willing to do a Crossroads.
Much to his shock, she said she could fit it in right before rehearsal started for this year’s Fleetwood Mac tour. And before he could start listing potential names, Nicks told him about how Lady Antebellum had just popped up in her rapid-eye-movement revelation.
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