Stevie Nicks is being inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in April, making history as the first woman to be inducted twice. And while the last thing I would want to do is rain on the parade of a woman breaking the rock establishment's glass ceiling, I have to admit that when she was nominated last year, I was a little surprised. She doesn't have the least impressive solo career of a double inductee (hi Ringo), but I err on the side of not inducting the less essential solo work from the member of a HOF fame band -- I'd feel the same way if they decided to induct Don Henley or Sting. And I find it hard to separate the Nicks solo legacy from Fleetwood Mac -- I suspect that if people named the 10 songs she's most famous for singing, 6 or 7 would be Mac records. That said, she was an enormous, ubiquitous superstar in the '80s, growing up I probably thought of her as about as famous as Madonna. And her run of simultaneous multiplatinum careers as a solo artist and a band member is a rare distinction, matched only by Phil Collins (maybe Beyonce a little too, but she only did one more Destiny's Child album after becoming a solo star, while Phil and Stevie each did several).

Stevie Nicks deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. Think About It
2. Bella Donna
3. How Still My Love
4. Outside The Rain
5. The Highwayman
6. Gate And Garden
7. Sable On Blond
8. Beauty And The Beast
9. Imperial Hotel
10. Rock A Little (Go Ahead Lily)
11. Fire Burning
12. Cry Wolf
13. Desert Angel
14. Kick It
15. Greta
16. It's Only Love
17. You May Be The One
18. Belle Fleur

Tracks 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 from Bella Donna (1981)
Tracks 6, 7 and 8 from The Wild Heart (1983)
Tracks 9 and 10 from Rock A Little (1985)
Tracks 11 and 12 from The Other Side Of The Mirror (1989)
Track 13 from Timespace: The Best Of Stevie Nicks (1991)
Tracks 14 and 15 from Street Angel (1994)
Tracks 16 from Trouble In Shangri-La (2001)
Tracks 17 from In Your Dreams (2011)
Tracks 18 from 24 Karat Gold: Songs From The Vault (2014)

I liked kicking off this playlist with the words "step into the velvet of the morning," what an opening line. What I really like about Stevie Nicks is that, even though she kind of lives in the public imagination as this ethereal magical presence, all flowing robes and shawls and scarves and that strange voice that almost doesn't work but then totally does, she's also a totally devoted rock and roller. Her solo records progressively got glossier over the course of the big flashy '80s (her third album, Rock A Little, does indeed only rock a little, as the synthy sound of the time started to take over, but she returned to more guitar-driven sounds in the '90s and thereafter). But it makes total sense to me that she remained a member of Fleetwood Mac at the height of her fame, that she still wanted to be in a band. In fact she wanted to be in two bands -- Stevie is a frequent and endearing presence in both the biography of Tom Petty and the documentary on The Heartbreakers, where she claims that she asked many times to become a Heartbreaker.

As a big Tom Petty fan, it's the presence of Petty and the Heartbreakers that really draws me into Stevie's solo records. Even though Petty famously gave Nicks "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around," the song that became her biggest solo hit, and which kind of upstaged Petty's own record at the time, and Petty appeared again on a lesser Nicks hit, "I Will Run To You," I was kind of surprised at just how much the Heartbreakers are all over her records. The whole band is on her first two albums, Benmont Tench plays on most of them, and Mike Campbell plays on every Nicks album, often co-writing songs. "Imperial Hotel," which was only released as a single in Australia, is one of the better Campbell/Tench tracks in her discography.

There's a whole lot of great players on these records, though, Stevie rare playing an instrument (just keyboard on a track here and there) but having great taste and lots of connections means that her albums are full of noteworthy backing performances. Roy Bittan from the E Street Band, Bill Payne of Little Feat, Mike Porcaro of Toto, Bruce Hornsby, David Crosby, various members of Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles. too many famed session musicians to count. Legendary conductor and arranger Paul Buckmaster, who passed away in 2017, did the strings on "Beauty and the Beast," which wasn't a single but does appear on Timespace: The Best Of Stevie Nicks. Sheryl Crow wrote one of her best later songs, "It's Only Love." You really get a sense of her musically going astray when Kenny G shows up on The Other Side Of The Mirror, though.

"Desert Angel" was one of 3 new songs released on Timespace, the compilation that actually led to Nicks leaving Fleetwood Mac in 1991. She wanted to put the Rumours outtake "Silver Springs" on her best-of, and the band wouldn't let her because it was going on a Fleetwood Mac box set. In retrospect it seems like an even more minor disagreement than the one about when to tour that recently led to Lindsey Buckingham's ouster from the band. And of course, Mike Campbell is now playing guitar in Fleetwood Mac, bringing her friendship with the Heartbreakers full circle.

I had low expectations for 1994's Street Angel, by far the lowest charting album of Stevie's career and the only one she released during the rough 6 years when she wasn't in Fleetwood Mac. But it's pretty good, aside from a really bad cover of "Just Like A Woman" that Dylan himself plays guitar and harmonica on -- I wasn't looking at the tracklist when the song started, and I noticed Stevie doing a terrible Dylan impression before I recognized it as a Dylan song. But Mike Campbell contributes heavily to that record to great effect -- not many classic rockers adapted to the '90s well, but Tom Petty's records kept sounding good and contemporary, and Campbell probably brought a little of that with him to Street Angel.

Previous playlists in the Deep Album Cuts series:
Vol. 1: Brandy
Vol. 2: Whitney Houston
Vol. 3: Madonna
Vol. 4: My Chemical Romance
Vol. 5: Brad Paisley
Vol. 6: George Jones
Vol. 7: The Doors
Vol. 8: Jay-Z
Vol. 9: Robin Thicke
Vol. 10: R. Kelly
Vol. 11: Fall Out Boy
Vol. 12: TLC
Vol. 13: Pink
Vol. 14: Queen
Vol. 15: Steely Dan
Vol. 16: Trick Daddy
Vol. 17: Paramore
Vol. 18: Elton John
Vol. 19: Missy Elliott
Vol. 20: Mariah Carey
Vol. 21: The Pretenders
Vol. 22: "Weird Al" Yankovic
Vol. 23: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Vol. 24: Foo Fighters
Vol. 25: Counting Crows
Vol. 26: T.I.
Vol. 27: Jackson Browne
Vol. 28: Usher
Vol. 29: Mary J. Blige
Vol. 30: The Black Crowes
Vol. 31: Ne-Yo
Vol. 32: Blink-182
Vol. 33: One Direction
Vol. 34: Kelly Clarkson
Vol. 35: The B-52's
Vol. 36: Ludacris
Vol. 37: They Might Be Giants
Vol. 38: T-Pain
Vol. 39: Snoop Dogg
Vol. 40: Ciara
Vol. 41: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Vol. 42: Dwight Yoakam
Vol. 43: Demi Lovato
Vol. 44: Prince
Vol. 45: Duran Duran
Vol. 46: Rihanna
Vol. 47: Janet Jackson
Vol. 48: Sara Bareilles
Vol. 49: Motley Crue
Vol. 50: The Who
Vol. 51: Coldplay
Vol. 52: Alicia Keys
Vol. 53: Stone Temple Pilots
Vol. 54: David Bowie
Vol. 55: The Eagles
Vol. 56: The Beatles
Vol. 57: Beyonce
Vol. 58: Beanie Sigel
Vol. 59: A Tribe Called Quest
Vol. 60: Cheap Trick
Vol. 61: Guns N' Roses
Vol. 62: The Posies
Vol. 63: The Time
Vol. 64: Gucci Mane
Vol. 65: Violent Femmes
Vol. 66: Red Hot Chili Peppers
Vol. 67: Maxwell
Vol. 68: Parliament-Funkadelic
Vol. 69: Chevelle
Vol. 70: Ray Parker Jr. and Raydio
Vol. 71: Fantasia
Vol. 72: Heart
Vol. 73: Pitbull
Vol. 74: Nas
Vol. 75: Monica
Vol. 76: The Cars
Vol. 77: 112
Vol. 78: 2Pac
Vol. 79: Nelly
Vol. 80: Meat Loaf
Vol. 81: AC/DC
Vol. 82: Bruce Springsteen
Vol. 83: Pearl Jam
Vol. 84: Green Day
Vol. 85: George Michael and Wham!
Vol. 86: New Edition
Vol. 87: Chuck Berry
Vol. 88: Electric Light Orchestra
Vol. 89: Chic
Vol. 90: Journey
Vol. 91: Yes
Vol. 92: Soundgarden
Vol. 93: The Allman Brothers Band
Vol. 94: Mobb Deep
Vol. 95: Linkin Park
Vol. 96: Shania Twain
Vol. 97: Squeeze
Vol. 98: Taylor Swift
Vol. 99: INXS
Vol. 100: Stevie Wonder
Vol. 101: The Cranberries
Vol. 102: Def Leppard
Vol. 103: Bon Jovi
Vol. 104: Dire Straits
Vol. 105: The Police
Vol. 106: Sloan
Vol. 107: Peter Gabriel
Vol. 108: Led Zeppelin
Vol. 109: Dave Matthews Band
Vol. 110: Nine Inch Nails
Vol. 111: Talking Heads
Vol. 112: Smashing Pumpkins
Vol. 113: System Of A Down
Vol. 114: Aretha Franklin
Vol. 115: Michael Jackson
Vol. 116: Alice In Chains
Vol. 117: Paul Simon
Vol. 118: Lil Wayne
Vol. 119: Nirvana
Vol. 120: Kix
Vol. 121: Phil Collins
Vol. 122: Elvis Costello & The Attractions
Vol. 123: Sonic Youth
Vol. 124: Bob Seger
Vol. 125: Radiohead
Vol. 126: Eric Church
Vol. 127: Neil Young
Vol. 128: Future
Vol. 129: Say Anything
Vol. 130: Maroon 5
Vol. 131: Kiss
Vol. 132: Dinosaur Jr.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 18, 2019 at 5:01 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.