Stevie Nicks on her Fleetwood Mac replacement Bekka Bramlett: “She oversings”
In a new Rolling Stone interview, Bekka Bramlett mentioned the first impression Stevie Nicks had of her taking over in Fleetwood Mac. After Nicks’s departure alongside Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie, Bramlett came from Traffic for the album Time.
Bramlett said that she wanted to create a different look and avoid the trope of merely copying Nicks, saying, “I wasn’t a moron. I also knew this was a dangerous job when I took it. I knew I was facing tomatoes. But I didn’t want to wear a top hat. I didn’t want to twirl around. I wanted to be me. I even dyed my hair brown just so people in the cheap seats would know that Stevie wasn’t going to be here”.
Outside of performing songs from her work with Traffic and a cover of John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’, she did not wish to touch Nicks’s catalogue, saying, “There is no replacing Stevie Nicks. Everybody knows that. You can be a fan or an anti-fan. I did choose not to do her signature songs because that would be weird. I was like, “I’m not doing ‘Rhiannon.’ I’m not doing ‘Dreams'”.
Bramlett eventually met Nicks while on tour and mentioned understanding her cold reception, saying, “The first thing she said was, ‘Oh, I didn’t know she was blonde. And she over-sings.’ Everyone at the table said the same thing, so I know it’s true. But it’s OK. I still love her. She probably felt like I pissed on her tree. I can understand that”.
While Bramlett mentioned having respect for Nicks, she was also bitter about the way she was let go of in lieu of the classic lineup, saying, “I felt broken. What you have to understand is that Mick and I were the guys that did all the radio and promotion and TV stuff. We did all of it. I was definitely looking forward to the tour we had already just promoted. Evidently someone said, ‘Get her out of here'”.
Shortly afterwards, Nicks rejoined the group and Bramlett was quickly forgotten about by the famously hectic and tumultuous group.
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