Happy Birthday to Stevie's greatest album

[BombaySapphire3]

I still remember hearing Edge for the first time on the radio the day that Bella Donna was released and I was getting ready to go buy the album.No song has ever blown me away that much before or since. I listened to the album non stop for months.It is still her best.

[Macfan4life]

Before 1981 we all knew Stevie could write amazing songs. But her voice and singing really stepped out on this album. It came in...out of the darkness (pardon the pun). Her voice was so strong and so powerful. Her Mac songs prior to this album were low key whispers compared to this album. Timing was perfect. The 80's had just begun and the hippie 70's style was out of fashion. Stevie looked amazing especially on the back cover with her staring through the tambourine. She was stunning.

[Newzchspy]

I wish I had a THANKS button here as I would thank @The Highwayman for the reminder of how great this album truly is/was. Looking at the dreck that she's put out lately with the likes of Dave S., it makes me appreciate just how good her mid-late 70s and 80s stuff really was. This is the kind of music we'll be hearing another 35 years from now. Her stuff after TISL, meh, it'll be at the Dollar Store in the bargain bin of .99 cents CDs soon!!

[BombaySapphire3]

Originally Posted by Newzchspy

I wish I had a THANKS button here as I would thank @The Highwayman for the reminder of how great this album truly is/was. Looking at the dreck that she's put out lately with the likes of Dave S., it makes me appreciate just how good her mid-late 70s and 80s stuff really was. This is the kind of music we'll be hearing another 35 years from now. Her stuff after TISL, meh, it'll be at the Dollar Store in the bargain bin of .99 cents CDs soon!!

24KG is her best reviewed solo album ever..I am not a major fan of Dave either but he did manage to capture the spirit of the times that the songs were written in IMHO.

[michelej1]

35 Years Ago: Stevie Nicks Goes Solo With ‘Bella Donna’

By Dave Swanson July 27, 2016 Ultimate Classic Rock


Read More: 35 Years Ago: Stevie Nicks Goes Solo With 'Bella Donna' | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/stevi...ckback=tsmclip

Fleetwood Mac pretty much owned popular music during the last half of the ’70s. Album sales in the millions, sold-out tours, hit singles, you name it. The Mac were everywhere. Following the mega-success of Rumours in 1977, the band made a dynamic left turn with Tusk, an album that shook up the formula and is now seen as a masterpiece. As artful as that LP is, sales took a hit, even though the massive tour that followed sold out every place it played. Following the tour, the band needed a break from the road and from each other.

It was the perfect time for the members to explore some individual paths. Mick Fleetwood set out first with The Visitor, and Lindsey Buckingham later had a modest hit with Law and Order, but it was Stevie Nicks who hit the big time with Bella Donna when it was released in July 1981.

“The solo projects the Mac is doing seem to open it up a little more,” Nicks told an interviewer at the time. “Everybody’s less on edge. That’s the theory we’ve been working on, and it works. It makes everybody happier, and nobody’s jealous because everybody’s doing their own.”

Enter producer Jimmy Iovine who, at the time, was coming off a hit record with Tom Petty. “I said, ‘Well, wow, if he’s good enough for Tom Petty, he’s good enough for me,'” Nick said in a 1981 interview. From the start of the project in late 1980, Iovine kept Nicks and her ego in check by telling her “I know that you’re really used to being like the midnight cat queen that comes in whenever you feel like it,” Nicks recalled. “This is not how we’re gonna do this album. First of all, you only have three months, and second, I don’t want to waste my time with a cartoon.”

From Bella Donna‘s opening title track, it’s clear Nicks has something to prove on her own, outside Fleetwood Mac’s shadow. Nicks called in some friends: The Eagles‘ Don Henley and Don Felder lend a hand; so does Petty and most of the Heartbreakers, who contributed to the album’s first single, “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.” The Top 3 hit was co-written by Petty and guitarist Mike Campbell, and is the only song on the record Nicks didn’t have a hand in writing.

The album’s other collaborations were just as striking, particularly “Think About It,” co-written with the E. Street Band‘s Roy Bittan, and “Leather and Lace,” a duet with Henley that reached the Top 10. And then there’s “Edge of Seventeen,” which became one of Nicks’ signature songs, and “After The Glitter Fades,” “How Still My Love” and “Outside the Rain,” which all apply new twists to Nicks’ trademark vibe and vision.

Nicks assembled a band, which included many of the musicians who played on the album, for a tour. Bittan, Waddy Wachtel, Russ Kunkel and Benmont Tench joined her for a relatively short, 10-date run. By the end of the year, she was back in the studio with Fleetwood Mac working on their next LP, Mirage.

Bella Donna was an important step for Nicks, one that proved she stand outside the confines of her superstar band. “I wanted my whole life … to do this album,” she noted. “I wanted to do a few of my songs that I loved for all the people in the world that I loved.”


Read More: 35 Years Ago: Stevie Nicks Goes Solo With 'Bella Donna' | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/stevi...ckback=tsmclip

[pryderi]

So many good memories with this album.

[Macfan4life]

I bought my Bella Donna album at Woolworths in the spring of 1983. Even though the Wild Heart was just released, I bought Bella Donna before Wild Heart. I had purchased the Stand Back 45. I played Bella Donna over and over and my mini-stereo preparing for the Wild Heart concert.

Anyone under 30 is like...what was Woolworths and what is a 45

[twinmatrix]

I'm not a big fan of the Bella Donna album. Except the title track and Leather and Lace I don't feel connected to any of the songs. Outside the Rain and After the Glitter Fades have beautiful lyrics but I can never remember the melody and also I think the production is a bit lack luster. But I love all her albums though.

Is it true that Stevie wrote most songs on Bella Donna and 24 Karat Gold purely by herself? That's really amazing...

[mitzo]

Originally Posted by twinmatrix

I'm not a big fan of the Bella Donna album. Except the title track and Leather and Lace I don't feel connected to any of the songs. Outside the Rain and After the Glitter Fades have beautiful lyrics but I can never remember the melody and also I think the production is a bit lack luster. But I love all her albums though.

Is it true that Stevie wrote most songs on Bella Donna and 24 Karat Gold purely by herself? That's really amazing...

Amen. Harsh and ragged production and mostly forgettable songs. I remember being shocked at the way the magical Stevie from FM had seemingly thrown a bunch of "whatever" at a team of producers and musicians who proceeded to scrub away almost all of what made her music attractive.

Somehow it ended up selling millions. Imagine if it had actually been good!

Interestingly, the tunes on 24KG are mostly from the same era, and for the most part come out beautifully.

[Newzchspy]

Originally Posted by mitzo

Amen. Harsh and ragged production and mostly forgettable songs. I remember being shocked at the way the magical Stevie from FM had seemingly thrown a bunch of "whatever" at a team of producers and musicians who proceeded to scrub away almost all of what made her music attractive.

Somehow it ended up selling millions. Imagine if it had actually been good!

Interestingly, the tunes on 24KG are mostly from the same era, and for the most part come out beautifully.

Really, How many has 24K sold??? There's no substitute for taste and BD is/was loved by millions . Most of her memorable hits post FM Rumors/Tusk came from that album, so I don't get that its just a "meh" album to you. OTR is one her true classics that will live on for years.......

[Artemis]

Bella Donna is an album that I continue to fall deeper in love with every year. Her voice was perfect, the style was perfect, the writing was pretty perfect.

I'm currently utterly obsessed with The Highwayman. Such an underrated gem of a track and the perfect album closer.

Bella Donna is definitely her strongest album.

[michelej1]

Anti Music 08/11/2016

http://www.antimusic.com/news/16/Aug...iversary.shtml

Stevie Nicks In The Studio For 'Bella Donna' 35th Anniversary


ITS) The latest episode of the syndicated radio show In The Studio with Redbeard: The Stories Behind History's Greatest Rock Bands celebrates the 35th anniversary of Stevie Nicks' solo debut 'Bella Donna'. The show sent over these details:

Summer 1981 Stevie Nicks launched a major new chapter in her long-storied career with her first solo album Bella Donna, spawning three Top 15 hits including the Tom Petty-penned duet "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around", the Don Henley duet "Leather and Lace" and the ageless "Edge of Seventeen". Bella Donna quickly shot to # 1 in America and Australia, # 2 in Canada, and # 11 in the UK, resulting in sales in excess of six million copies.

Long before she became a star as a solo performer; before she and her musical performer (then lover) Lindsey Buckingham helped to transform the British blues rock band Fleetwood Mac into one of the top-selling groups of all time; even before her professional recording debut in 1973 on the album Buckingham Nicks, Stephanie Lynn Nicks was living a real-life version of the Glass Menagerie. Stevie Nicks shares her thoughts with In The Studio host Redbeard.

"I remember exactly what it was like to be 20. I mean, I was a cleaning lady, I was a waitress. I had problems... Every time I do a solo record I get more...convinced that the more honest I am with everybody, with what happens in my life and what has happened and what has gone on and how I've managed to get to this point and still have my sanity... the better."

[ViscountViktor]

My favourite Stevie album. All the songs are great to listen to, and I love the pacing, How Still My Love following Edge of Seventeen is genius, and Bella Donna is a great opener, singing in harmony with the girls.

[Jondalar]

It is her best and I think captures the classic rock sound better than any other female album.

Gotta keep in mind though that it is only 10 tracks long and very hard to criticize.nIts a perfect gem.

[michelej1]

Yahoo Music, Shannon Shreibak August 22, 2016

https://www.yahoo.com/style/why-stev...024041031.html


Why Stevie Nicks’ solo debut, “Bella Donna” still matters to me — and to music — today

Comfort kills careers; the working man adage even applies to shawl twirling seraphs like Stevie Nicks.

In 1981, as Fleetwood Mac recovered from a failed album, Tusk, and toyed with respective solo projects, feather-haired, lace-yoked Stevie Nicks was conjuring up what she expected to be her first and last solo effort. Bristling with country-tinged melodies, lush pop arrangements, and her now-trademark mysticism, Stevie Nicks’ Bella Donna was a grand entrance by an artist who needed no introduction.

“I can sit and look at my album for the rest of my life and say ‘Here it is. I did it. And whatever that had to go before is all right, because I did this,’” Nicks said in an interview with Canadian Television in 1981.

Truer words couldn’t have been spoken — 35 years and seven solo albums later, Bella Donna endures as Nicks’ legacy piece, for herself, for me, for flocks of women who can only dream of living in a world as magical as the one that exists within Bella Donna.

The day I stumbled upon the album, I was barely as tall as a doorknob, thumbing through my parents’ musty record collection. When I slid some love-worn record out of its resting place to reveal a heliotropic cover, a batty-eyed beatnik, and her fowl friend, I knew that I had discovered something I had waited my whole life for.

I’m sure that Stevie Nicks was gnarled by the same air of anticipation while creating the album. With her Fleetwood Mac songwriting credits teetering around 50 percent per album, critics and fans alike were unsure if she possessed the brio and musicality to carry an album without her Fleetwood Mac bandmates. Would she harness the hushed vulnerability “Sara”? Can the bedroom eye allure of “Gypsy” be recreated?

The brazen piano chords and dense harmonies that crowd Bella Donna‘s first ten seconds laid all doubts to rest, and it left me spellbound as a child.

The album’s title track, a dulcet tale of Nicks seeking stability amidst the cocaine haze and bright lights of fame, became a scarf twirling ballad for woolgathering young’uns across the world. Years after its release, I was one of them — head in the clouds and hand in lace glove.