Stevie Nicks Book: "Visions, Dreams, and Rumors" by Zoe Howe
 

Has anyone else seen this? or have any additional information?

http://www.amazon.com/Stevie-Nicks-V...ZQTTZMC8TCWZGC

I saw this a while ago, and I didn't know what to think of it. I know there are several "unauthorized biographies" but I don't know what new information might be included in this one. So far some of the others haven't been chalk full of information, like Mick's or Carol Ann's book. I'll still buy it probably, but I just don't know what the intentions of this book are. :shrug:

Sirius XM was promoting her new record and also mentioned a new biography "Gold Dust Woman" releasing the same day.

According to my friend at St. Martin's, 'Gold Dust Woman,' has been pushed back to 2015

I received a proof copy of this book and I am supposed to review it. My copy did not come with cover art, so I can't speak to that.

Michele

Are you going to read it? I think fans/potential consumers would be interested in the content more than the cover art. Do you work in the publishing world or the news business? Editor? Writer? Proof Reader? Public/Consumer Relations? I'm intrigued.

I did read it. It is comprised of published interviews woven into a convincing narrative, so that it does read like a biography. I would say that if you haven't read all of the published magazine and book comments about Stevie from the seventies all the way up to Ann and Nancy Wilson's book (the quote about Stevie's home being a shrine to herself is used), then this is a great way to catch yourself up on her history. However, although the descriptions and narrative that connect the quotes seems fresh, there is no original information here.

It will quote from a Stevie interview and then say, "At least Stevie could retreat to her loyal coterie of whispering ladies in waiting, who offered comfort and company which, in turn created an atmosphere that excluded everyone else." So, you get the old comments served up with new observations -- observations that do not come from an inside source.

The book speculates on the same things we do here (Why does Stevie say "Emmaline" in Seven Wonders) but has no answers that we don't also have.

In the acknowledgments people like Waddy, Keith Olsen, Rupert Hine and Dave Stewart are thanked, but you aren't getting fresh insights on Stevie from them. The material from other sources is not clumsily sewn together like it was in the first half of Mick's book, but it's derivative, to be sure.

The proof copy did not have photos, but maybe the finished book will.

Michele

Stevie Nicks - Visions Dreams & Rumours
 

Just wanted to share this. Zoë Howe talking about her new Stevie Nicks book Visions Dreams & Rumours which comes out in a few weeks.

https://audioboo.fm/boos/2379417-zoe...dreams-rumours

There's a discussion here Stevie Nicks Book "Visions Dreams and Rumours" By Zoe Howe if your looking for info...

Thank you for the great review, Michele.:angel:

Stevie seems to be verrry controlling about what gets out about her, even by her associates. If anyone says anything she doesn't like, they hear about it. Remember Waddy saying when he heard The Police's Bring On The Night and his reaction "omg we totally ripped them off" …well he walked that back right quick and has tried to re-state what he said several times since in interviews and my money is for sure on La Nicks having expressed her displeasure. Not the first time. Stevie maintains a firm grip on her image and no one who wants to stay close will dare spill any beans she doesn't want spilled. Jeezus even Lindsey eventually got co-opted into the whole "3 years" thing. If she says something enough times, it becomes de facto reality (because it's hella easier than contradicting her with the truth)

I would love, love, love a REAL bio/autobio of her but it will NEVER happen while she's alive.

One of the most honest comments came from Paul Fishkin in her VH1 Behind The Music when he said they had to "scrape her off the floor" on tour and there were numerous "near overdoses". I think her drug years are full of some pretty sordid stuff and would dismantle her whole delicate, fairy princess act. Fascinating stuff; alas, we'll probably never know a tenth of it.

Stevie and Fleetwood Mac's management have been diligent about protecting her image, despite all the sordid stuff that's happened over the years. When she called herself a spoiled princess in an interview years ago, I interpreted part of that as the Fleetwood Mac management keeping the public away from some of the shadier stuff that happens in the rock scene. I agree that we only know a fraction of what actually happened.

I'm curious about the Miss Piggy and Stevie comparisons. :laugh:

I was thinking exactly the same thing as I was reading your post.She must have some REALLY heavy stuff to hide .IMO, she is just way too protective about "inside" stuff,almost to the point of paranoia.The countless sex partners and drugs have been discussed openly by madame so what else is there?ALOT!Like unbelievable,ungodly stuff.Maybe the coke - up - the - butt story has some truth....:shrug:

I think you never know with things like this, with any rock and roll star. I mean today in the Daily Mail, Marianne Faithfull said her ex-boyfriend supplied Jim Morrison with the heroin he used when he died. So for many many years we will probably never everything about anybody. I think what she's doing is really very smart. People know enough about her to know she's had a wild past, but not enough to be completely taken aghast, which is beneficial. At least she has the magic of time's mystery on her side to shroud the complete truth. But at least at this point, I think her plan is smart.

you know, seriously, I've always thought it just might be. She talked about waiting until she finished her tour to go to rehab, and that she went on the road trying to do as little as she could….but let's face it, when you're THAT addicted that you are (as she has said) going in the other room to do more coke every 15 or 20 minutes, you're doing a sh&tload of coke and even trying to do "as little as possible" is still a considerable amount. Yet she didn't want to make the hole in her nose bigger or have the dreaded brain hemorrhage. So what do you do? You get the coke in however you can to keep the addiction happy.

I know it totally freaks out some people but addiction is U-G-L-Y and makes people do sh*t they never would imagine they'd ever do. Which is why I'm sure she doesn't want any of it getting out, straw up the bum or not. Can't say I blame her; but it's one thing to all be aware of the pink elephant in the room and just discretely not mention it versus living in a fantasy cloud.

I'm just glad she kicked it.

Reading this I realized that it really could be true... The surgeon told her that one more hit of anything could be her last. Technically she could not have a brain hemorrhage if they went the "other way."

The audio promo from the writer made it sound like a waste of time.
Juvenile garbage.

https://audioboo.fm/boos/2469041-zoe...o-tony-gillham

Zoë Howe talking to Tony Gillham about the book

What 3 year thing?

During her In Your Dreams album promotion, Stevie repeatedly said that 3 years was the right amount of time for Fleetwood Mac to stay off the road so that people would be excited to see them play again.

I would put coke up her ass if she asked me to. I'd be the first to volunteer

i'd make her hash brownies ... if she asked ... and i knew how to bake :lol:

just out of curiosity , in your OPINION

How Much Privacy Is She (should be) Allowed ?

...and Don Henley blowing the lid on her abortion. MAJOR fireworks. They didn't speak for a lot of years, IIRC.

Thank you!

New biography "Stevie Nicks: Visions, Dreams and Rumours" by Zoe Howe
 

The new biography by music journo Zoe Howe went on sale today via Amazon. It's titled "Stevie Nicks: Visions, Dreams and Rumours"

Just bought it and downloaded to my Kindle.

Who else plans to read this?

Please give us your review! If you would recommend it, I might consider purchasing it.

She's being doing plenty of press for it - her website and mixcloud is pretty good at uploading the interviews she's done thus far:

http://zoehowe.com/web/news/

Personally, I AM quite interested in the top item which is her appearance at a Word in your Ear event (with David Hepworth & Mark Ellen). I always enjoy/ed their podcast and, though they're far more sporadic now the magazine has ceased production, they're always a good listen.

Here's a BBC 2 radio piece with the author.

https://audioboom.com/boos/2571062-z...johnnie-walker

I've managed to order the hard cover book from amazon. It's available in the UK.

Closer Weekly Jan 31, 2015 5:45PM By Closer Staff

http://www.closerweekly.com/posts/st...the-tale-50690

Stevie Nicks Lived a Life Fueled By Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll – And Survived to Tell The Tale

These days, Stevie Nicks goes her own way.

“She loves her current, quiet life,” a friend tells ‘Closer.’ “Her days consist of taking long walks on [LA] beaches, reading, crocheting and watching soap operas like The Young and the Restless’ and ‘Days of Our Lives.’

It’s a long way from the young and restless days of her life as a rock star with the ‘70s supergroup Fleetwood Mac, as documented in her new biography, ‘Stevie Nicks: Visions, Dreams & Rumors,’ by Zoe Howe.

"She nearly lost her life on more than one occasion,” Howe tells ‘Closer’ of the singer, who battled drug addiction. “There were times she would fall off the stage and have to be rescued.”


“All of us were drug addicts, but there was a point where I was the worst drug addict,” Stevie, 66, says of her band. “I was doing a lot of coke, and I had a [dime-sized] hold in my nose, so it was dangerous.”


A doctor warned Stevie that if she did cocaine once more she might suffer a fatal brain hemorrhage, so she checked herself into rehab in the early ‘80s.

But she got hooked on the Klonopin she was prescribed to help kick the coke. “It was actually much worse and stopped her creativity for a while,” Howe says.

She finally got off hard drugs 20 years ago – although she admits to smoking pot occasionally during songwriting.

To read the full story on Stevie, pick up the new issue of ‘Closer Weekly,’ on newsstands now!


Keep up with Stevie Nicks in the pages of Closer Weekly by subscribing now!

Reading, crocheting and watching soap operas.:rolleyes:

I know she used to crochet, but recently?

Michele

when I hear stuff like that I always imagine it as something she does to occupy some of the long stretches where she isn't needed say in the studio or during rehearsals while maybe equipment is being set up or lights rigged/tested or whatever. A lot like many actors/actresses on movie sets who knit or sketch or play cards or something while they wait around for a shot to be set up. [ I think of the scenes in parts of the Tusk documentary where engineers and so one would be hovered over the sound board or setting things up in the studio and she's on the couch drawing or writing in her journals. She does the same in SYW doc with her own little sitting room area with her drawings and such while they recorded-- sh&t she's even sitting on the couch in the "control room" flipping thru magazines]

If she crochets as well as she draws, not sure I'd wear one of her creations!! :lol:

Daily Mail Article on 'Visions, Dreams, and Rumours'
 

VERY interesting article in the Mail today... It's all about the new book. Some interesting things in there, but of course drugs drugs drugs "omg a cocaine o no" drugs drugs drugs
This one also specifically mentions the abortion
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-new-book.html

EXCLUSIVE: Stevie Nicks' $1million cocaine habit, fueled by her wild affair with married Mick Fleetwood, burned a hole in her nose so big she took the drug through her private parts, reveals new book

Stevie Nicks was 27 when she became the ‘Queen Bee’ of the British-American rock band, Fleetwood Mac.
Up until that time, writing songs and singing with her longtime sweetheart, Lindsay Buckingham, she hadn’t indulged in drugs. But that was all about to change.
She quickly descended into drug hell and became addicted to cocaine, alcohol, Quaaludes to sleep, and cigarettes – until her system broke down and she started having nosebleeds, falls on stage, blackouts and near overdoses.
She bought $1 million worth of cocaine and it burned a hole in her nose the size of a dime. Rumors spread that she had to have the drug blown up her derriere by an assistant.
‘There was no way to get off the white horse and I didn’t want to,' the now 66-year-old Nicks said.

She only slowed down her drug consumption when her doctor warned her she was risking permanent mental and physical damage as well as heading for a brain hemorrhage or an early grave.
The group called for an intervention and saved her life by urging her to check in to the Betty Ford Center.
Stevie got cleaned up from one drug and went into therapy, but for the next nine years she became dependent on another drug prescribed for anxiety that plunged her into years of depression and weight gain.
‘But I got through it, I was so lucky’, Zoe Howe quotes Nicks in her new book, Stevie Nicks: Visions, Dreams & Rumours, published by Omnibus Press, 5 February.
Nicks fell madly in love with Mick Fleetwood two years after she joined Fleetwood Mac, while she was dating the Eagles' Don Henley in 1977.
She called Mick one of her ‘great great loves’.
Fleetwood, in his own biography, writes they secretly began seeing each other in Los Angeles while on a break from a tour, the clandestine nature of the meetings accelerating their passion.
‘I was in love with her, and she loved me, and it was not something passing in the night’.
‘It was a proper Hollywood affair on a par with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor’.
But the complications with significant others and band-mates made it feel like ‘utter madness’.
Mick was still married to model Jenny Boyd at the time.

But the greatest love in Nicks' life was keyboard player and guitarist Joe Walsh of the Eagles. She still carries a torch for the musician.
But Walsh believed one of them would die from a drug overdose if they stayed together so he walked out the door.
‘There was no other man in the world for me. And it’s the same today’, Nicks confessed.
Fleetwood Mac was ‘a fairytale on acid’ to Stevie Nicks, and Mick Fleetwood was like ‘an English king’ to her when they first met in Los Angeles.
‘I was awestruck. I still am to this day of Mick’s presence’.
Endless days recording in the studio with Fleetwood, cocaine now became a daily indulgence for Nicks – as well as Courvoisier, Heineken beer, honey and hot tea and marijuana.
She consumed so many drugs that weeks went by without sleep.
Nicks wore a little gold and turquoise bottle inlaid with diamonds of coke around her neck so she would never be without the drug.
While the guys did rails of coke, the girls daintily inhaled tiny spoonfuls of the drug.
Crystal balls, knick knacks, dolls, gypsy chic chiffon dresses, shawls trinkets, feathers, lace, twirling on stage – and mountains of drugs defined her rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle.
They were the world’s most hedonistic band, the author writes.
To avoid body searches by customs in Europe, they hired a private train to travel through Germany, and into France and Holland. The luxurious lounge car with its gold light fittings and velvet drapes had once belong to Hitler – including the elderly attendant who had once served the Fuhrer and was still on board.

Every whim of the band members was met.
While on tour, all Nicks wanted was the presidential suite at hotels.
‘We were elegant people and we wanted a place to sleep after the show that was beautiful’.
Before falling into the arms of Mick and Joe Walsh, Nicks had an affair with Eagle Don Henley, founding member of the group, drummer and singer. She was romanced by the Maseratis, the mansions, the destroyed hotels, the parties that defined the Eagles lifestyle.
She became pregnant with his child and chose to have an abortion. The affair was quickly over but she wrote a song, ‘Sara,’ for their unborn girl.
With Eagle Joe Walsh, ‘it was love’.
‘We were busy being superstars, and everyone was doing way too many drugs. But I was so in love with him’, Nicks is quoted.as saying.
Of all the men she had been involved with, Joe was the one man she wanted to marry.
‘There was nothing more important than Joe Walsh, not my music, not my songs, not anything’.
‘I remember days of misery waiting by the phone. Me in my house, with him saying ‘I’m going to visit you’. I would kick everyone out because I just wanted to be with him, and not a phone call. [I put up with it because] I was in love with him’.
With all the drugs, ‘we were a couple on the way to hell’.
‘It took me a long, long time to get over it’.

She was caught up in depression for nine years that resulted from long-term use of the tranquilizer, Klonopin prescribed for her anxiety while recovering from cocaine dependency.
She supplemented the Klonopin with barbiturates.
After having her breast implants removed in December 1976, she was diagnosed with Epstein-Barr, a viral infection that causes crippling fatigue.
She underwent plastic surgery to change the proportion of her body after soaring up to 175 pounds on the drug.
The drugs were killing her and she admitted herself to the Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital in Venice Beach.
This detox was harder than kicking her cocaine addiction.
Her last tour with Fleetwood Mac with in December 1990 until the group decided those were the best years of their lives. They mended old ills and jumped back out on tour late in 2014.
In those intervening years, Nicks, put out quadruple platinum solo albums.
‘I believe there have been angels with me constantly through these last twenty years, or I wouldn't be alive’.
Her one big regret however was not the drugs, not the affairs, but not stopping to have a baby.

I just read this, Stevie should sue. The only book I want to read would be one from Stevie herself. I know it aint gonna happen anytime soon, but oh well. xx

So so many things wrong in this article...

I like that the writer leaves in the detail that there was indeed an intervention by concerned people around her to get her to go to rehab. She chooses to spin this that she decided on her own to go to rehab. She chose to go along with the intervention and go to rehab, so technically she isn't exactly lying about it, but doing her Stevie spin of the story. But it's important that if left to her own devices, she would NOT have chosen rehab-- despite the bleeding noses and near overdoses (which Paul Fishkin talks about). She was a total MESS-- addiction is very, very ugly.

However, the writer gets some things clearly wrong. No way she had her implants OUT in 1976-- that's about when she got them. She had them out in like the late 80s or early 90s.

She has had other plastic surgery besides the implants, but we don't know just what. To me she's clearly had her nose tweaked, but who knows.

This rag is known as the daily fail here in the U.K. Gutter press at its very worst. xx

Exactly.. I read the 'fail' for the gossip pretty much, because respectful, accurate journalism is apparently non-existent to them!

I saw the picture of Stevie and I panicked... I'm like "oH SH!T DID SHE DIe!?! And then I remembered every so often they run an article about the millions FM spent on snow and I calmed down a little.