Stevie Nicks – Paying Down Her Country Debt

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Stevie Nicks is paying down her country debt. I’ve been thinking about this in the aftermath of her performance of “Golden” with Lady Antebellum on the American Country Music Awards (and following their television special on CMT Crossroads). The ACM show also put greater context around Nicks’ ill-fated pairing (though no fault of her own) with Taylor Swift four years ago at the Grammys—something so disastrous folks saw it at the time as a Taylor-made career killer for the young singer.

The lead singer of Fleetwood Mac began her career over 40 years ago with then boyfriend Lindsey Buckingham as a duo called Buckingham Nicks. Their self-titled debut was “dedicated to A.J. Nicks the grandfather of country music” who taught her to sing country classics at age four and, according to lore, was overruled by her parents when he wanted to take her on the road. She discussed her grandfather’s ambitions in an interview with Lady Antebellum on CMT Crossroads and the connection was realized in the beautiful retelling of “Red River Valley,” a country ballad that he sang to her as a child and that she performed with Chris Isaak on his Biography television show, the Chris Isaak Hour.

At sixteen, she wrote her first song “I’ve Loved and I’ve Lost (I’m Sad But Not Blue).” Stevie was more Janis Joplin incarnate than she ever was Loretta Lynn. But her country roots manifested themselves throughout her singing career. It’s instructive to go back to an original demo called “After The Glitter Fades” (a song she recorded on her first solo album “Bella Donna” and later covered by Glen Campbell.) Thanks to the wonders of You Tube, you can go back in time to a coming of stardom tale that could have just as easily been made in the early 20th century when her grandfather was riding freight trains in search of country fame, sending back money to his family from his pool winnings and coming home every few years.

For someone not automatically top of mind when you talk about country singers, Nicks has written an impressive array of songs. They include “Leather and Lace” (penned for Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter and recorded by them), “After The Glitter Fades” by Glen Campbell, “Rhiannon” by Waylon Jennings and “Gold Dust Woman” (also covered by Jennings on the “Waylon & Willie” album). In 2003, BMI awarded her with the Robert J. Burton Award for Most Performed Country Song of the Year for “Landslide” released that year by the Dixie Chicks. (Note to women with recording contracts in the greater Nashville area and are in search of their next hit song: put “Think About It” (searchable on You Tube as Stevie Nicks Country) on your shopping list. And “The Highwayman” may just be right for you.)

On the CMT Crossroads special, Hillary Scott seemingly became “Gold Dust Woman.” It was that once in lifetime moment as she channeled great female rock ancestry in a statement that today’s country-popters (posters) wouldn’t be on the radio today if it wasn’t for their Southern California forebears like Nicks and Fleetwood Mac.

Flash back to the 2010 Grammys…..there was something wholly incongruous about Nicks’ stint with Swift. Scott didn’t experience any of the pitch problems Swift encountered but neither did she have any underlying drama to contend with. The “Today Was a Fairy Tale” segue way in which Swift introduced Nicks to sing “Rhiannon” came off like a high school play—or worse yet a family sing-along in which the benevolent aunt is called to come up to sing with the kids.

To her credit, Nicks defended Swift and wrote a wonderful piece in the 2010 Time 100 about the people who most affect our world: “This girl writes the songs that make the whole world sing, like Neil Diamond or Elton John. She sings, she writes, she performs, she plays great guitar. Taylor can do ballads that could be considered pop or rock and then switch back into country. When I turned 20 years old, I had just made the serious decision to never be a dental assistant. Taylor just turned 20, and she’s won four Grammys. I still walk around singing her song “Today Was a Fairytale.” The female rock-’n’-roll-country-pop songwriter is back, and her name is Taylor Swift. And it’s women like her who are going to save the music business.”

Whether it’s with Hillary Scott, Natalie Maines, (or inducting Linda Ronstadt at the Rock’s Roll Hall of Fame with Bonnie Raitt, Carrie Underwood, Emmylou Harris and Sheryl Crow) Stevie understands her lineage and place past, present and future. “Someday there will be all these new women who will take over and this one is so precious to me…my little song girl, my little song child Miss Vanessa Carlton,” she said on Soundstage before performing the duet “The One.”

The best part of all of this? I forget all about genres and trying to categorize all of this music is a fool’s errand. It’s all folk music with lineage back to the troubadours from the days of A.J. Nicks (and before). I will always revere the way Lindsey Buckingham blended his and Stevie’s voices in a way that is a modern day hybrid of Celtic Americana harmonized with Appalachian and Southern California accents. I’m not quite sure from which side of the ocean it comes but it’s rooted somewhere in another time, that much I know. Or as Stevie once wrote, “I can still hear you saying you must never break the chain.”

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