Rock Chicks

by Alison Stieven-Taylor

  Rumours spawned numerous top ten hits, including Stevie’s ‘Dreams’, which became the band’s only number one hit in the USA and was voted best single in Rolling Stone’s US readers’ poll in 1977. The album’s release was supported by a world tour that took in the USA, Australia and Europe. During the tour Stevie embarked on a clandestine love affair with the then married Mick Fleetwood.

  The success of Rumours meant instant wealth. Stevie went on a spending spree, buying cars and houses in LA and Phoenix. She decorated her mansions with 128 rich fabrics, hundreds of cushions, candles, lamps, dolls and antique furniture. Indulging her passion for all things English, her home in Encino, California, was a mock Tudor sprawl. She believed Anne Boleyn had lived there.

  She evoked the image of a slightly unhinged woman writing songs, painting pictures at all hours of the night—her painting of Rhiannon was sold for a princely sum at a charity auction—and crocheting many-coloured garments surrounded by dolls, dogs and cats. ‘To say that Stevie Nicks is flaky is a mild understatement,’ one journalist said. But her fans loved it.

  While Stevie’s fans found solace in her music, she began to lean heavily on cocaine. Her addiction grew to the point where she was reaching for a line the minute she woke up. Stevie wasn’t the only band member in the clutches of the white powder. It would be the undoing of Mick Fleetwood financially, sending him bankrupt at one point.

  Coke wasn’t the only excess on tour. Stevie insisted her hotel rooms were decorated with her own things. Cushions, shawls, fabrics, netting hung from the ceiling, incense, candles, lamps and her typewriter all had to be set up for her arrival. ‘If Stevie wanted a hotel suite painted pink with a white piano in it, what are you going to do, say no?’ Mick Fleetwood commented.

  A prolific and compulsive songwriter, Stevie carried her journal and typewriter around the world with her, ready to jot down thoughts or poems, many of which she turned into songs. Few of Stevie’s songs were recorded by Fleetwood Mac. With two other songwriters—Buckingham and Christine McVie—she was lucky if three of her songs appeared on an album. So she recorded a solo album, Bella Donna, which was released in 1981 under her own label, Modern Records. Her less-than-thrilled band mates were worried it would be the death knell for Fleetwood Mac, particularly given the bad reception of 1979’s experimental Tusk, which had sold less than The White Album.

  Paul Fishkin, a record executive who became Stevie’s partner in Modern Records, brought in producer Jimmy Iovine on Bella Donna. He enlisted some seasoned musicians, including Waddy Wachtel on guitar and keyboard genius Roy Bittan from Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, and two back-up singers Sharon Celani and Lori Perry, who became Stevies’s close friends (Perry later married Christopher Nicks). Iovine was a hard taskmaster, telling Stevie there was no place for a rock’n’roll diva in his studio. She took up the challenge and in 1981 Rolling Stone magazine crowned her queen of rock’n’roll.

  Bella Donna reached number one on the Billboard charts and spawned three major singles—‘Edge of Seventeen’, ‘Leather and Lace’ with Don Henley of the Eagles and ‘Stop Dragging My Heart Around’ with Tom Petty. But the day the album got to number one, Stevie found out that Robin Snyder, her closest friend who was married to Warner’s promotions man Kim Anderson, had been diagnosed with terminal leukemia. ‘I really didn’t get to enjoy Bella Donna.... It was a very sad, yet balancing, thing for me.’

  despite the success of Bella Donna, it was not mentioned by her fellow band members. It was as if it had never happened

  With her album riding high, Stevie went back into the studio to record Fleetwood Mac’s Mirage. Despite the success of Bella Donna, it was not mentioned by her fellow band members. It were as if it had never happened.

  She was on tour with the Mac in 1982 when she got the news Robin had died. ‘I went crazy. I just went insane,’ she said. In her grief Stevie became involved with her dead friend’s husband, marrying Anderson in January of 1983. Three months later they parted. She has never re-married.

  The constant speculation about her love life drove Stevie to distraction. Lovers were numerous, if short lived. She has been ‘connected’ to Don Henley, Warren Zevon, Jim Iovine, Joe Walsh and others. She is reported to have had a love affair with Tom Petty—twice. Petty wrote her smash hit ‘Stop Dragging My Heart Around’ and has been credited with snapping her out of the blues engulfing her after she left Fleetwood Mac in 1993. Stevie has described Petty as a valued and true friend, a sentiment that doesn’t apply to all her ex-lovers. ‘I especially don’t like men rock’n’roll stars, mainly because of the size of their egos.’ Henley was a renowned womaniser. During their affair, Stevie was spirited away in his Lear jet, making her think that ‘being a rock star really is wild’. She became pregnant to Henley and had an abortion, one of four she endured.

  Stevie’s relationship with Mick Fleetwood is one of extremes—she either loves him or she hates him. The first time she saw Mick, ‘I was awestruck.... I still am ... The whole air around him is power.’ But when his autobiography was published in 1990 her awe turned to fury as he revealed details of their affair. Later, when she had calmed down, she said she thought Mick had dealt with their relationship ‘pretty well’. In a matter of months she was vilifying him when he refused to give up rights to her song ‘Silver Springs’, which was to have been on Rumours but was axed. Fleetwood Mac held the rights and Stevie was refused permission to include it on her solo album Timespace.

  ‘I especially don’t like men rock’n’roll stars, mainly because of the size of their egos’

  Addicted to work as much as to drugs, in the space of three years Stevie had recorded Mirage, her fourth album with the Mac, and put down two solo albums, Bella Donna and 1983’s The Wild Heart, which reached number five on the charts. The Wild Heart featured a similar line-up of artists as Bella Donna with the addition of Mick Fleetwood and Toto’s Steve Lukather. Prince played on ‘Stand Back’, which stayed in the charts for nineteen weeks and peaked at number five.

  In 1985, when she began recording her third solo effort, Rock a Little, her manic pace and escalating cocaine use were taking their toll. Iovine began producing, but Stevie’s drug habit was interfering and he walked out of the production and their relationship.

  Musically, Rock a Little was a departure. It was blacker in content than Stevie’s previous works and her voice was harsher and more raspy. Critics said that Stevie was a relic of the 1970s and no match for the likes of Cyndi Lauper and Madonna, whose upbeat pop tunes were dominating the charts.

  Stevie’s demons finally caught up with her in 1986. She had a hole inside her nose large enough to stick a pencil through. There were rumours she paid someone to blow coke up her arse because she couldn’t snort anymore. What scared her into action was a doctor telling her she could have a brain hemorrhage the next time she did cocaine. She checked into the Betty Ford Clinic.

  Now free from her addiction, Stevie was encouraged to see a psychiatrist to help her cope with her re-entry into the cocaine-fuelled world of rock’n’roll. The psychiatrist prescribed Klonopin, an antidepressant, and so began an eight-year battle with a drug she has labelled ‘horrendous’.

  Stevie’s demons caught up with her in 1986

  Stevie continued to work at a relentless pace. She went straight into the studio in 1987 to record the Mac’s Tango in the Night, an album that clearly showed her voice was in bad shape. By the time the band hit the road for the obligatory promotional tour, they were minus Lindsay Buckingham who had left in a hail of acrimony.

  The tour was a disaster for Stevie. Suffering from Epstein-Barr, a chronic fatigue illness linked to breast implants, and hammered by the Klonopin, she stumbled through. After four months she hit the wall. The last shows were cancelled and Stevie retreated to Phoenix where she stayed for the next eighteen months, a virtual recluse, spending her time resting an
d writing songs.

  the antidepressant wrapped her brain in fog

  Sufficiently recovered, but still hooked on Klonopin, Stevie went back into the studio in 1989 to record The Other Side of the Mirror. But the Stevie everyone had come to know and love was in the main missing. The album reached ten on the Billboard charts, clocking up platinum sales, largely due to Stevie’s massive existing fan base.

  The adverse effects of Klonopin on Stevie were significant. The anti-depressant wrapped her brain in fog, crushed her creativity and pushed her into an apathy that numbed her physically and emotionally. The drug became her worst nightmare—at least when she’d been snorting cocaine she had still been functioning creatively, but now the well had dried up.

  In January 1993 Stevie, who was by that time operating on automatic pilot, performed with the Mac at Bill Clinton’s inauguration, singing their hit ‘Don’t Stop’, which the new US president had used as his campaign song. A month later she officially left Fleetwood Mac and headed back to her sanctuary in Phoenix.

  It wasn’t until Stevie fell and smashed her head that year—and didn’t feel a thing—that she realised she was in deep trouble. She took herself off to rehab, checking into hospital for forty-seven days to go cold turkey. Then she retreated to Phoenix to work on songs for Street Angel, released in 1994 and the worst of her albums to date.

  The album’s chart performance wasn’t her only concern. Stevie’s weight had been creeping up, after years of drug abuse, prescription medications and an erratic lifestyle. On her 1994 Street Angel tour, she was fourteen kilos heavier than she had ever been. The media had a field day and endless jokes about her weight added to her distress.

  Upset by the lacklustre performance of Street Angel and the constant media bashing, Stevie took herself out of the spotlight, resolving not to perform in public again until she had lost weight.

  In 1997 she went back into the studio with Fleetwood Mac to record The Dance album, which saw Buckingham return to the fold. By the time The Dance tour hit the road she had regained her figure and the band had reclaimed its position at the top of the charts.

  The following year Stevie, along with the original Fleetwood Mac lineup, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. When the three-CD box set Enchanted was released, Rolling Stone magazine commented that ‘you can hear how faithfully Nicks has followed her vision’.

  For her next solo album, 2001’s Trouble in Shangri-La, she teamed up with Sheryl Crow, who produced five of the album’s tracks and challenged Stevie to play with her voice and expand her range. Crow and Stevie clicked musically and personally. The album also featured the talents of Macy Gray, Sarah McLachlan, Natalie Maine from the Dixie Chicks, some of the Heartbreakers and old flame Lindsay Buckingham. The album reached number five on the Billboard charts. Stevie Nicks was back.

  In 2007 Crystal Visions: The Very Best of Stevie Nicks reached number 21 on the Billboard Top 200, her highest position since 1989. In 2009 she performed across the USA, Europe, Australia and New Zealand with Fleetwood Mac. At the Grammy Awards in 2010 she sang ‘Rhiannon’ with Taylor Swift.

  The lyrics to her songs are like a map of Stevie Nicks’s life. ‘Rhiannon’, ‘Gold Dust Woman’, ‘Stand Back’, ‘Edge of Seventeen’, ‘Landslide’, ‘Dreams’ describe what life has been like for this extraordinary performer who has sacrificed much for her art.

  DEBBIE HARRY

  I Want that Life

  On the way to stardom, she stopped off to visit the land of the junkie for a few years, working at any dead-end job to get enough money to score. When the party became old hat, Debbie moved on, dropping bad habits and acquaintances as quickly as she procured them.

  The Debbie Harry story begins in 1945 in Miami, Florida, where a three-month-old baby girl was adopted by Catherine and Richard Harry and christened Deborah Ann.

  The Harry family lived in Hawthorne, New Jersey, a typical suburban enclave where Debbie’s parents owned a gift shop. By the age of eight Debbie was singing in the Hawthorne Church Choir, which kept her amused until she hit her early teens. At this point she left behind the gawky kid who didn’t think she was pretty and evolved into a head turner. She learned the power of sex appeal early and used it to her advantage.

  Entertainment in the 1950s came largely through films and via the radio, Debbie’s lifeline to the world of music. The airwaves heralded a new era, in which Elvis Presley, Bobby Darin, Bill Haley and the Comets and the Platters were changing the face of popular music.

  Debbie and her younger sister Martha grew up in an extremely conservative environment where girls were expected to get married and have babies. It was a scenario Debbie rejected, and she felt this made her weird. But what she was experiencing was happening in homes around the Western world, as teenage girls of the 1950s began questioning their place in society.

  she was sent to an all-girls finishing school in New Jersey. There she studied art but was more creative with the colours she dyed her hair

  School held little interest for Debbie, who lacked any real ambition—although she was a reasonable student and stayed out of trouble. She had a vague idea she’d like to be an artist, maybe a painter. Her parents had other ideas and after high school she was sent to an all-girls finishing school in Hackettstown, New Jersey. There she studied art but was more creative with the colours she dyed her hair.

  As the 1950s morphed into the 1960s, Debbie was grooving to the New York City girl group the Ronettes, along with the Crystals, the Shangri-las, the Supremes and R&B artists like Smokey Robinson. She was itching to cross the Hudson River to Manhattan. She would sneak over on the weekends and walk around the city, fantasising about the future when she could live in New York.

  She got her chance in 1965 when she was twenty. Setting up camp in Greenwich Village, the centre of cool, Debbie was in her element. But the reality was not quite what she’d imagined. She battled just to pay the rent. Poverty was an integral part of an artist’s struggle for greatness and there was much struggling going on in the Village in the mid 1960s. The city was a writhing mass of pent-up desires, full of young people from the suburbs looking for a new way to live. Like her contemporaries, Debbie lived in dingy walk-ups, with urine-soaked stairwells, leaky plumbing, no heating and rats the size of cats. Wanting to explore everything that life had to offer, she experimented with drugs and bisexuality and in the process shed the remnants of her suburban upbringing.

  Debbie lived in dingy walk-ups, with urine-soaked stairwells, leaky plumbing, no heating and rats the size of cats

  Debbie landed a secretarial job at BBC Radio, which gave her an entrée into the music scene. One of the musicians she met was Paul Klein, who was singing and playing guitar in a seven-piece folk ensemble, Wind in the Willows. The band needed another female singer. Debbie joined in 1967.

  Wind in the Willows released one record, produced by Artie Kornfeld who worked for Capitol Records and later went on to co-create Woodstock. The self-titled album was a mix of psychedelic pop and folk tunes. A dark-haired Debbie can be seen on the classic hippy cover among a swirl of multi-coloured paisley patterns. The band hit the road, playing support to acts like Melanie. By the end of 1968 they had disbanded.

  Debbie and the band’s drummer Gil Fields became lovers. The pair moved in to a typical cheap, slummy East Village apartment. Fields was into heroin and it didn’t take long before Debbie got involved. She was waitressing at Max’s Kansas City, a restaurant and nightclub that had opened in 1965 and quickly became a hang-out of artists and writers. Andy Warhol could often be found there holding court, along with Lou Reed, Allen Ginsberg and Larry Rivers.

  Hedonism ruled at Max’s. Customers snorted cocaine on the tables and blew joints while quaffing $200 bottles of French champagne. It wasn’t unusual to find couples copulating in the restrooms and even the phone booths. Debbie waited on Hendrix and Joplin, Jane Fonda and her th
en husband, avant-garde French film director Roger Vadim. ‘What an education I got!’ she told Penthouse. She lasted at Max’s for less than a year before taking off to Los Angeles on the spur of the moment. But within a month she was back in New York.

  she waitressed at Max’s Kansas City, a restaurant and nightclub that was a hangout of artists and writers. Hedonism ruled at Max’s

  To make ends meet she took a job at the Playboy club, strapping on a fluffy bunny tail to serve drinks. Tips were generous and you could earn good money without having to put out, money that Debbie used to feed her habit. She was stoned most of the time now.

  Living in an almost derelict apartment on the Upper West Side near 107th Street and Manhattan Avenue, a decaying neighbourhood frequented by drug dealers and addicts, Debbie was engulfed in drug culture. Being an addict impacted on everything in her life. Any ambitions she may have held were sucked up into the needle along with the harsh brown liquid. The rush of the hit extinguished the desire to do anything else.

  Then Fields overdosed and died. Debbie dropped heroin like a hot potato, replacing it with vitamin shots laced with speed, which she got from a neighbourhood doctor. But she knew she was just transferring dependencies. It was time to get out.

  Around 1971 she moved up to Woodstock in upstate New York—she’d been to the festival two years earlier—to hang with a group of artists for a couple of months. Then she headed home to Mom and Dad in New Jersey. She knew she needed to stay away from the city and all its temptations until she felt strong enough to cope without drugs. She got a job as a beautician and tried to knuckle down to life in the suburbs. But Manhattan was magnetic, calling her back.

  In the early 1970s the New York music scene was exploding. Bands like the New York Dolls, fronted by smack freak Johnny Thunders, were leaving the hippies behind in the wake of a new sound. Free from dope, Debbie started hanging out at Max’s again. In 1972 she met singer Elda Gentile. They formed the Stilettos with Rosie Ross. The Stilettos, wearing evening gowns and backed by a four-piece band, modelled their music on the girl groups of the 1950s and added rock attitude. They played sporadically at clubs around the city for a couple of years before musical differences, and egos, split them apart.