Bella Donna

by

Stevie Nicks

Edit

Throughout the 1970s Stevie Nicks was among the "golden line up" of the legendary Fleetwood Mac, and her lyrics and vocals did much to fuel the band's remarkable success on such releases as RUMORS. Still, when Nicks announced that she was going solo, there were naysayers aplenty. Many felt that Nicks' success with Fleetwood Mac rested in part on the musical settings created for her by various band members; others felt that she lacked the business know-how to put a solo deal together.

But Nicks proved much more artistically resourceful and a much tougher deal-maker than her critics expected. Released in 1981, BELLA DONNA exploded to the top of the charts. Throughout the 1980s Nicks would score further solo successes with THE WILD HEART and ROCK A LITTLE; at the same time she remained a mainstay of the on-again-off-again Fleetwood Mac. And she would become one of the most admired performers of the decade.

Whatever the merits of her other work, BELLA DONNA remains Nicks' single best selling solo effort, a release beloved by fans and admired by critics alike. And it isn't hard to see why. Although Nicks had done some very tough rock and roll with Fleetwood Mac, and had often performed folk and country-flavored songs with the band, BELLA DONNA extended her range in both directions. At the same, however, she did not make the mistake of doing material so completely different as to alienate her core fans, preferring instead to elaborate her previous work than to dismiss it completely.

The result is a series of songs that are very clearly by the same Stevie Nicks who performed with Fleetwood Mac--but which don't simply repeat the sound she acheived with that band. Perhaps the most obvious example is the opening title cut, which sounds very much like something Fleetwood Mac might have done, but which gradually turns in a number of directions that one would never expect from that band--a sort of fusion of Nicks' previous work and the new music she is about to present.

Nicks had done some fairly hard rockers with Fleetwood Mac, but with "Edge Of Seventeen" she takes her skills in that direction to the max, creating a hard, hard, hard rock vocal to a driving beat against a background of some the tightest back-up vocals you've ever heard any where. Her duet with Tom Petty, "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around," is done at a slower tempo but still creates a hard rock sound, and Nicks and Petty's voices are remarkably well blended. Nicks also veers more significantly toward a country music tone than she had in the past with "After the Glitter Fades," which proved a cross-over hit on the country charts, and her duet with Don Henley, "Leather and Lace," mixes pop and country idioms to tremendous effect.

If these cuts at least reference her original sound with Fleetwood Mac, the remaining cuts might have been written with Fleetwood Mac specifically in mind--and very likely were, songs that were probably never recorded for lack of space. "Kind of Woman," "Think About It," "How Still My Love," and most particularly "Outside the Rain" are very much in the Fleetwood Mac style, all of them expertly done, and all of them memorable.

In spite of her success as a solo artist, Nicks would continue to work with Fleetwood Mac--and fortunately so, for whereas her work with Fleetwood Mac would still find her in top form, her post-ROCK A LITTLE solo releases became increasingly problematic until her stunning TROUBLE IN SHANGRI-LA. But whatever her ups and downs, Nicks has remained one of the most interesting performers of her generation, a woman with a unique voice, a talent for creating unusual lyrics, and a powerhouse presence. It's hard to imagine any other performer quite like her. And BELLA DONNA remains one of her best. Recommended.

--GFT (Amazon.com)--