The album Stevie Nicks said was her most authentic
The magic of an artist like Stevie Nicks isn’t something that can be accurately described by musicians.
She might not have had the same musical chops as Lindsey Buckingham in Fleetwood Mac, but no one else in the band could have possibly brought the same depth to their songs that she did half the time. But that kind of voice didn’t happen without a fair bit of hardship coming beforehand.
Because looking at the way Nicks and Buckingham went about becoming one of the greatest songwriting duos of all time, it wasn’t like everything was smooth sailing. They had their fair share of disagreements when making their own debut, Buckingham Nicks, but since they were living on little to no money, Nicks was the one who took it upon herself to make the money for the household while Buckingham could focus on refining the songs at every opportunity.
It probably didn’t feel good to stay over at their engineer’s house and get called “the maid” as she straightened up his house, but when Buckingham got the call to join ‘The Mac’, it was a no-brainer to bring Nicks in with him. They were both responsible for their classics tracks, but it’s not like getting famous came without a few problems along the way. No matter how much people like to play up the soap opera angle of Rumours, it’s another story having to live it every single day.
And for an artist looking to express herself, it was always going to be tricky for Nicks to work alongside Buckingham all the time. He had strong opinions about how he thought the songs should go, and even if Nicks came up with a great idea, it didn’t take long for Buckingham to either structure it into a tune that he liked or openly say that he didn’t like where it was going half the time.
Given that kind of situation, it’s almost shocking that she waited as long as she did to release a record like Bella Donna. She had finally found a way to express herself that didn’t need to rely on the rest of the band, and when looking at the layout of tunes, Nicks felt that she finally had the kind of record she could stand behind.
She had spent years trying to figure out how to find a voice without Buckingham, but with the help of Jimmy Iovine, she made the record that was the most authentic version of her, saying, “On Bella Donna, Jimmy Iovine, the producer left the songs as close to the demos as possible, so it was really just me-which is what I’ve always wanted. Sometimes I don’t mind my songs being changed around; sometimes it makes them better. But often, I would rather they stayed real simple, like ‘Leather and Lace.’”
And it’s that simplicity that gives a lot of the songs their power. Buckingham could have easily come in and sweetened up any of the tunes if he wanted to, but when listening to how sparse a tune like ‘Kind of Woman’ sounds in the context of the record, it does manage to have a certain emotional weight to it that nothing on Rumours or even the band’s later triumphs would have had.
It may have been slightly tainted by Tom Petty gifting her ‘Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around’, but one song shouldn’t dictate a record’s identity. This was Nicks branching out on her own, and while she had taken the delicate approach on many Fleetwood Mac ballads, it was much easier for her to express herself with as little adornment as possible.
