Not being able to play music with a band is never an easy thing to tell them. It’s one thing to say you and your partner are growing apart.
But abruptly saying you don’t want to record music together anymore? That’s like telling your partner you want a divorce out of the blue. Stevie Nicks received support from Fleetwood Mac members for her solo career. But she said she drew inspiration from Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Tom Petty. She said this inspiration lasted her entire career.
This is peculiar because, at the time of her first album’s release, Bella Donna, in the early 1980s, the heyday of CSN was long gone. Neil Young had already been a part of the group’s ups and downs. However, it was becoming impossible to overlook the severe effects that drugs were having on David Crosby.
Fleetwood Mac was doing a better job than their heroes of the past of occupying that vacuous, rootsy rock and roll niche. Even though they were just as volatile as their heroes, albums like Rumours and Tusk were still enjoyable to listen to. This was especially true if you understood the drama that went into songs like “Dreams.”
But when Lindsey Buckingham started controlling the studio while Tusk was being recorded, Nicks realized. She needed a better platform to release her songs. When she was assembling her first album, she was still thinking about her vocal idols. Despite this, she had seen what Tom Petty had been doing and wanted to do something similar.
Nicks recalled telling one of her bosses during her Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction speech. She expressed her desire to create an album that could rival that of her heroes. “We went to Doug Morris at Atlantic, and I said, ‘Doug, what I want to do is make a Tom Petty album,” Nicks recalled. A pure rock and roll sound. We’re going to be Crosby, Stills, and Nash, and I have two incredible girl singers, Laurie and Sharon, who are incredible. I will be the Stills. “Fan-fucking-tastic,” is how Doug puts it.
Hearing those harmonies is much more in line with the 1960s sound that CSN was always so good at. Stevie Nicks had the greatest producer in Jimmy Iovine. She even had a token song from Tom Petty in “Stop Draggin‘ My Heart Around.” Even though the bulletproof chorus and nonstop guitar line are the focal points of a piece like “Edge of Seventeen,” it was impossible to ignore the wall of voices. These voices surrounded Nicks as she sang.
Nicks’s solo endeavors are probably among the few that have succeeded in surpassing the success of her previous band. Whatever you think of the solo albums released by each other member of Fleetwood Mac, the public is likely more familiar with Lindsey Buckingham’s work. This familiarity comes from Fleetwood Mac classics. Additionally, they may know him from “Holiday Road,” the song he wrote for National Lampoon’s Vacation.
While Buckingham’s solo catalog includes some amazing songs, it’s not exactly fair, but Nicks was more focused on creating something larger. She would always be an artist, even outside of Fleetwood Mac, and that meant never compromising the piece’s power.
