Nicks says she doesn't know whether she'll ever be on board with new FM album

[secret love]

Someone said Stevie has it pretty easy because she doesn't have to play an instrument and isn't involved in producing Fleetwood Mac albums.

I just wanted to point out that she played keyboards for Say You Will.

She can and does play an instrument very well: the piano and keyboards.

[BlueDenimLamp]

Originally Posted by secret love

Someone said Stevie has it pretty easy because she doesn't have to play an instrument and isn't involved in producing Fleetwood Mac albums.

I just wanted to point out that she played keyboards for Say You Will.

She can and does play an instrument very well: the piano and keyboards.

Don't forget that Stevie is also in the "Tambourine Hall Of Fame"

[HomerMcvie]

Originally Posted by secret love

She can and does play an instrument very well: the piano and keyboards.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!! What are you smoking? Because I want some!!!!


Stevie plays the keyboards WELL...

[michelej1]

Stevie can play the piano and guitar, but she'd be the first one to tell you that she doesn't play them well.

She did say that she and John played keyboards on SYW. I would have loved to see video of that.

Michele

[Tango]

Stevie's not so much a musician, although she does lay out basic melodies with her limited guitar and piano. Here's a list: Stevie plays a bit of piano, keyboards, guitar, tamborine, a couple of percussion items . . . and the triangle! I know I have a picture of it somewhere, but for now, maybe you'll enjoy Ed;

[bombaysaffires]

Originally Posted by Tango

Stevie's not so much a musician, although she does lay out basic melodies with her limited guitar and piano. Here's a list: Stevie plays a bit of piano, keyboards, guitar, tamborine, a couple of percussion items . . . and the triangle! I know I have a picture of it somewhere, but for now, maybe you'll enjoy Ed;

Stevie's melodies are pretty complete; she's very good at writing melodies and lyrics. Her accompaniments are rudimentary at best, and her arrangements are pretty much nil. She totally relies on others to have a production vision and a sound for her songs-- which is why her music varies so much between producers.

Both Chris and Lindsey could go out onstage (and have) totally alone and entertain an audience with full songs with interesting and full-sounding accompaniments.

Stevie could go onstage and plunk away but you wouldn't sit through a one hour or heaven forbid 90 minute or 2 hour set with just her and the piano. The limitations of her playing would just not make that enjoyable-- it would be super repetitive musically.

She plays just enough to get her melody and lyrics across and a very, very basic chord progression and then she's out of her depth.

[secret love]

Stevie Nicks has probably already heard the 8 new songs Lindsey, Mick and John recorded together in 2012. How do I know this? I know because when we first heard about how everyone just wants two new songs and not a full-length album from Stevie, we also heard from Lindsey that she had chosen one song and he had chosen the other.

For Stevie to choose a song, it would be reasonable to presume that she listened to all eight new songs which Lindsey wrote and recorded with Mick and John who were apparently playing their arses off on all eight of those songs. Ergo, she would be fully aware that Lindsey has at least five or six songs polished and ready to go for the much-anticipated Fleetwood Mac album of 2015 which was indeed announced by Liz Rosenberg (Fleetwood Mac's publicist) before the current tour, with no release date disclosed.

Anyone making excuses for Stevie Nicks at this point is really clutching at straws and probably are blinded by how great they perceive Stevie to be...it is wilful blindness from lifelong Stevie Nicks fans, frankly.

There are six songs out there that Stevie has heard and that she knows were deliberately recorded in her key so that her voice can easily be added in to the mix for that half-dozen batch of new Lindsey Buckingham penned songs.
Her voice was added to Sad Angel very well and also Miss Fantasy, although she was not very prominent in the mix on the latter track.

It is not ignorance of all the work Lindsey and Christine have done that is stopping Stevie from participating in a new Fleetwood Mac studio album.
It is selfishness because she believes that all fans want from the band is a world-wide arena tour and as she said in 2012 or 2013, everyone just wants two new songs, apparently. Now I'm sure there are thousands of fans who want 12 or 14 new songs!

That means a new album, Stevie! If you think we only want 2 new songs, that's fine. You can contribute the bare minimum of 2 new Stevie Nicks-penned tracks to Fleetwood Mac's next studio album and you can add your voice in to the mix on Lindsey's six new songs and Christine's four new songs. Then we will have 12 songs and you can put the three-quarters done already Fleetwood Mac album out by May 2015! Sheesh! It only took one or two days for Stevie to complete her contributions to Extended Play...she has plenty of free time over the festive season to meet Lindsey and Christine and to fill in the gaps on the three-quarters done new studio album by Fleetwood Mac.


These things are obvious to most fans and music critics, but somehow Stevie's arrogance is blinding her to the true wishes of her loyal fans who helped her to make her fortune and to find her fame in the first place.

[Say You Will]

Anyone making excuses for Stevie Nicks at this point is really clutching at straws and probably are blinded by how great they perceive Stevie to be...it is willful blindness from lifelong Stevie Nicks fans, frankly.

I seem to remember when Christine wasn't around Stevie would say she would never make another FM record without her. Now that she is back I don't understand why she is so reluctant.
Over the last several years she always seems to be the one dragging her feet and derailing a new album.

I agree, it is time to stop...

[secret love]

Originally Posted by Say You Will

Anyone making excuses for Stevie Nicks at this point is really clutching at straws and probably are blinded by how great they perceive Stevie to be...it is willful blindness from lifelong Stevie Nicks fans, frankly.

I seem to remember when Christine wasn't around Stevie would say she would never make another FM record without her. Now that she is back I don't understand why she is so reluctant.
Over the last several years she always seems to be the one dragging her feet and derailing a new album.

I agree, it is time to stop...

If our suspicions are true and Stephanie Lynn really does not want to participate in her band's studio work, the least she could do is be honest and publicly admit it.

She went on and on in 2012 and 2013 about how "everyone just wants two new songs, so we're giving them 2 songs"...despite her belief that fans of the band do not appreciate new music being erroneous ...she could quite easily record 2 or 3 new songs with Mick, Christine and John in the space of two weeks probably.

Look how fast she recorded 24 KG for crying out loud! She is a prolific writer who confesses to writing in her journal every day since age 14 or thereabouts.

I believe that it is highly likely that Stevie has written new material. The potential names of her two new tracks were revealed on Fleetwood Mac News blog for a fleeting moment and I think that was before Christine rejoined. One song was called My Mother's Rings. I wonder about Carousel if she wrote it and gave the song to Vanessa, or if it was the other way around.

Anyway, I Don't Care was all written in 2014 apart from the chorus and the Mike Campbell instrumental track.

She has Mike Campbell of all people sending her instrumental tracks, she writes new stuff every single day of her life apparently and still she doesn't know if she'll ever be on board for a new studio album by Fleetwood Mac?

Give me a break. It is time she showed some loyalty to Mick and John for taking her in, even when they only wanted Lindsey and some loyalty to Lindsey for talking Mick and John around. Not to mention Christine who had the final say on Stevie joining the band at the very end of 1974.

Also there are the thousands of fans who pay good money for her records and her concerts who feel like chopped liver the way she treats us, expecting our loyalty while giving us no brand new product since 2011. 24 KG was great but we had already heard 14/16 songs online before its release.

[Macfanforever]

This thread reminds my of my issues on that last job.

I had a chat with my ex boss last night and I think he wants me to return to my warehouse job.

He wants to meet up with me for coffee maybe over the weekend.

My issue there was a few of the clowns that I always had issues with.One retired .One other is still there.

[twinmatrix]

Originally Posted by bombaysaffires

Stevie could go onstage and plunk away but you wouldn't sit through a one hour or heaven forbid 90 minute or 2 hour set with just her and the piano. The limitations of her playing would just not make that enjoyable-- it would be super repetitive musically.

I have to disagree. I could easily sit through 2 hours of her talking about her life, let alone with some singing added.

[bombaysaffires]

Originally Posted by twinmatrix

I have to disagree. I could easily sit through 2 hours of her talking about her life, let alone with some singing added.

Bless you. I love her as well, but after half a dozen or so demos of just her and the piano I need a break. They're best in small doses as far as I'm concerned. God help me having to sit thru a 90 minute 'concert' just playing. Talking is a different thing altogether and not what I was referring to.

[secret love]

Originally Posted by HomerMcvie

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!! What are you smoking? Because I want some!!!!


Stevie plays the keyboards WELL...

People might not realise this if they failed to pay attention during music class at school, but here's a home truth.

The vocal track for most songs consists of just three chords...therefore, when Stevie wrote songs like Belle Fleur, she repeats the same three chords over and over again on piano and harmonises her voice along to that three chord combination.

One song that Stevie regularly publicly performs on piano in Rhiannon, another is Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You, both of which sound quite charming when Stevie performs them and accompanies herself with her own piano playing.

Look, it is quite clear that Stevie Nicks cannot play keyboards to the same standard as Christine McVie. Still, she is credited on Say You Will as having shared keyboards duties with Lindsey Buckingham and also Sheryl Crow.

As a side note, I think Sheryl Crow would have made an excellent addition to Fleetwood Mac for the 2009 tour and it easily could have been billed as a one-time only thing, thus allowing Christine the freedom to return when she did without getting in Sheryl Crow's way.

Sheryl Crow is one of my favourite musicians and she can really sing, as well as play guitar and keyboards.

By the way, people who takes themselves seriously as singers will almost inevitably end up playing keyboards or piano at some point in their musical careers. There is an exercise you can do as a singer to find your vocal range, using a keyboard or a piano. I have an 11 note range that I can sing comfortably for example. I would consider myself a baritone, a mid-range male voice. Stevie Nicks is a contralto, a low-range female voice equivalent to the male countertenor voice range, if memory serves correct.

A mistake people commonly make is that singing is a genetic talent given to you as a present from a grandfather or grandmother who was an excellent folk singer. While this may be the case with Stevie Nicks and her grandfather Jess Nicks, it is more often than not, different to this for a great array of singers.

It is a great mistake to believe that singing or playing an instrument should come naturally to anyone. It is a skill and like any skill, singing and musicianship requires constant ongoing practise to fines those skills. It is the great tragedy of compulsory education that at most, two years are dedicated to learning musical knowledge and developing practical skill, normally on a recorder in primary school, then keyboards and guitar in high school.

The reason some people are better than others at singing is because some people work harder at it than others. Think about it really, just think how much time Stevie and Lindsey spent honing their craft before and most definitely after the release of Buckingham Nicks...

If you can talk, then you can sing. If you have the time to practise, then you can sing well eventually. Same goes for instruments, if you have hands and a mouth and they both work, then you can play any instrument well with practise.

Stevie does not get credit for how great those three chords she came up with the idea to combine for Dreams are...nor does she get any credit other than "Music and Lyrics by Stevie Nicks" for songs like Angel, Sisters of the Moon, Say You Will, Without You and so on. People praise her singing while forgetting that she single-handedly created the catchy tune on Dreams, Say You Will and perhaps even Without You...Lindsey came in afterwards and built on the catchy melodies Stevie made up on her own.

[secret love]

Originally Posted by michelej1

Stevie can play the piano and guitar, but she'd be the first one to tell you that she doesn't play them well.

She did say that she and John played keyboards on SYW. I would have loved to see video of that.

Michele

John McVie is credited with black keys for Say You Will, meaning he played the sharps and the flats, presumably while Stevie played the notes.

I don't know how that would have panned out to be honest...was Stevie sitting behind the keyboard with John leaning over her shoulder to press the black keys intermittently?

[BaronVonBielski]

Originally Posted by bombaysaffires

Stevie's melodies are pretty complete; she's very good at writing melodies and lyrics. Her accompaniments are rudimentary at best, and her arrangements are pretty much nil. She totally relies on others to have a production vision and a sound for her songs-- which is why her music varies so much between producers.

Both Chris and Lindsey could go out onstage (and have) totally alone and entertain an audience with full songs with interesting and full-sounding accompaniments.

Stevie could go onstage and plunk away but you wouldn't sit through a one hour or heaven forbid 90 minute or 2 hour set with just her and the piano. The limitations of her playing would just not make that enjoyable-- it would be super repetitive musically.

She plays just enough to get her melody and lyrics across and a very, very basic chord progression and then she's out of her depth.

Exactly. Good post. Accurately conveyed. I give her all the credit in the world as a great lyricist. Very poetic. Powerful.