"24 Karat Gold: Songs From The Vault" album discussion episode of Phonogenics 101
 

Taking a break from the recent "he said/she said" tea, we went back to 2014 and discussed Stevie's "24 Karat Gold: Songs From The Vault" album. Can you believe it's been 7 years already.

Look forward to reading the additional discussions in the comments!

https://youtu.be/Ec_5hRb1Uuo

Probably my favourite of hers. Sincere work, 100% Stevie being Stevie throughout. Can't wait to sit down and watch this discussion!

The album is clearly a treat for real fans, the general public or casual fans are unlikely to get most of it. As one panelist said, it is honest and there is no grasping desperately for a radio hit and (almost) no cowrites or covers.

The songs are really Stevie and Dave Stewart seems to have let her run free here while supporting the songs with good production for the most part. Listen to some tricks here and there, like the whispered "wrap her in velvet" in the intro to 24 Karat Gold. In some cases, like Blue Water, Lady, She Loves Him Still it sounds like Stevie was working hard on the vocal or they did the vocal in one take, making it seem almost concert-like at times.

The discussion focused on comparisons to old demos a lot, which is typical of fans, but I like to take the finished products as they come.

I love the album, it is quirky and self-indulgent and rambling and Stevie. I always seem to deviate sharply from the majority of fans in this: My favourite thing about it is that it has no less than 4 ballads, 5 is you count Hard Advice. The best non-ballad is, of course, Mabel Normand, which is bat ***** crazy but delivered with such strength and conviction you are yanked hard into the nutso world of Stevie at her kookiest. A roller coaster ride of almost nonsense but sounding oh so important.

And unlike most, I put Watch Devil and Belle Fleur at the bottom of my list, that style of Stevie leaves me bored and cold. Or lying face-down in the rain...

I never heard a whisper in 24 Karat Gold! Was the demo called Watch Devil rather than Watch Chain? I know lyrics from Watch Chain are in the Enchanted booklet.

Watch Chain or Devil... was not in the Enchanted box set at all. The 24 Karat Gold whisper is in the instrumental intro to the song. Sort of a whisper that blends with the music.

Open the booklet within Enchanted and let us know what you see.

Yes a couple of lines are in there. Now go listen to 24KG and see if you can find that whisper.

Too bad Team Stevie didn't include the whisper in this lyric video :mad:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQIk_SOsiys

I keep listening over and over and for the life of me I can't hear that whisper on the album version of "24 Karat Gold" - I was also the guy who never saw the "hidden picture" in those weird paintings back in the 90s lol. Where exactly in the song is this whisper? I've tried like 5 times with no luck!

If you wheel in the same glass table, you will hear it.

In the intro, when the guitar kicks in it has two parts, and it is in the second part before the vocals begin. Hard to describe. But now you guys have me thinking I imagine it but no, in my speakers it is as clear as a bell: "dah dah dah wrap her in velvet dah dah set me free set me free...." It is Stevie's voice but very distant and muffled and it blends perfectly with the music.

i can sorta hear her voice but nothing distinct at all like those words

With the absence of representation from 24 Karat Gold in Stevie's 2023 Tour setlist, I gave this record a listen.

I can't pick up a theme from this record like I could on IYD, which was magical love, loss, and death.

I think All The Beautiful Worlds is the best song on this album. I'm shocked she never performed the title track live.

Stevie only played 3 songs live from this album. One of those had very good lyrics. Starshine is great instrumentally but the lyrics aren't worthy of applause. Belle Fleur is repetitive lyrically but the music is so good I think it was worthy of a live debut.

I don't think Stevie is as proud of this record as she is of In Your Dreams or Trouble in Shangri-La.

Is she really “proud” of any album outside of BD and WH? Other than a select few tunes, she avoids digging too deep on any of her other ones including ignoring relatively popular hits.

That's a good point. She does more Fleetwood Mac songs than songs off of one Stevie album. I.E. she does Wild Heart, If Anyone Falls, Enchanted and Stand Back but for FM songs she does six!

Yep, exactly. She’s so locked in to the same set. I’ll give her some credit for pulling something obscure out like I Sing For the Things but if she’s going to devote 6 slots to FM, pull out something different. Sisters, Angel, That’s Alright, Seven Wonders, would all be preferable to Gypsy or the dull fest Rhiannon has been for decades.

Yes and Angel was on the White Winged Dove Tour Video/cd as well as her 2019 anthology. Around the time of her Crystal Visions The Very Best Of Stevie Nicks, she said she was rehearsing Silver Springs.

She definitely deserves kudos for bringing in an old never played song in her set this year. But of all the songs from Rock a Little...that one?!:laugh: Imperial Hotel, Go Ahead Lily, If I Were You, The Nightmare. And also Trouble in Shangri-La only gets Fall From Grace, which I guess was chosen as a message to Lindsey this tour.

Rosebud 'Rhiannon'
 

[QUOTE=jmn3;1284173]Yep, exactly. She’s so locked in to the same set. I’ll give her some credit for pulling something obscure out like I Sing For the Things but if she’s going to devote 6 slots to FM, pull out something different. Sisters, Angel, That’s Alright, Seven Wonders, would all be preferable to Gypsy or the dull fest Rhiannon has been for decades.[/QUOTE

Personally, I think Stevie's Rosebud 'Rhiannon' performance is hard to top.

It would be great if she could play this on the overheard screen/s instead of singing it now!

[QUOTE=BrownEyedGirl26;1284292]Wouldn't that just highlight the fact that she has a two note range now? Seriously, not being mean... it would show the audience what they could've had, 45 years ago... and here's what we're left with.

[QUOTE=BrownEyedGirl26;1284292]I've posted this thought before but I think this Crystal Visions Tour Rhiannon is great
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sgV5iqtlL0

As far as screen footage, I was shocked to see the Gypsy video playing on the screen behind Stevie on this current tour, especially the cheek to cheek dancing after the personnel change.

I think it's only a treat for fans that want perhaps, cleaner versions of demos that have been circulating for decades. IMO, the album doesn't really offer anything beyond that. It's pretty evident that she instructed the team of Nashville studio musicians to stick very closely to her original demos. Vocally, it's definitely an all time low.

[QUOTE=UnwindedDreams;1284294]compared to.... now? Sure.
Otherwise....for me, at least, it's.....:sorry: I was spoiled by 70s Rhiannon. Which is sadly part of why her voice is so shot now. But it was great while it lasted.
But that's what makes her fandom so great :nod:

I agree.

To me, I sense she doesn't have confidence in these songs. Look at the setlist for her 24 Karat Gold Tour, she did 3 songs off the 24 Karat Gold Album. Then look at the In Your Dreams Tour setlist: 7 songs from the album and Cheaper Than Free and New Orleans at special shows like Wiltern and the AARP Member concert.

Fast forward 8+ years from 24 Karat Gold and she doesn't play any songs from it in concert.

[QUOTE=bombaysaffires;1284299]Rhiannon today should be dropped. I think the Crystal Visions Tour Rhiannon actually had her sing higher to close out the end whereas today she just shouts "to the sky" today and goes back down.

But I think she could swap in great FM songs in place of Rhiannon, Dreams, Gyspsy, and Landslide. Angel, Silver Springs, Beautiful Child, Crystal. But could her band do them justice? Waddy playing the SS solo:eek:

[QUOTE=UnwindedDreams;1284301]She does shout, and sound harsh when she sings..her vocal coach should teach her to use her diaphragm more and quieten her voice down.
She would then look after her voice.

But crikey what do I know she’s the multi millionaire singer..

I do like this album.

I like it too. It's all Stevie, indulgent, whacky, touching, real. For the first time, really. At the age of 66.

Why the completely different tracklistings?

Oh god no...not a Waddified arrangement of Silver Springs. He's an amazing guitarist and his style was perfect for folks like Warren Zevon etc, but his style has never been a a good match for any of Lindsey's work.

Back to 24k Gold...what she did to Twisted and My Heart is a damn travesty.

It’s not exactly Janis Joplin anymore, right? But it’s not even a particularly good ballad anymore. It’s not much of anything these days — maybe a bathroom break.

He would butcher it. But he’s been butchering “Dreams” for forty years and everybody’s used to it, so we’d probably get used to a degenerate “Silver Springs.” That poor song got kicked around in 1976, so it seems inevitable that it would still get kicked around today.

What saves it for me is the presence of so many good relics. There’s no way to ruin songs as good as “All the Beautiful Worlds” and “Belle Fleur” and “The Dealer.”

It was my fault and my move and my wine

You cannot ruin a song with a line that good.

I was always curious how Stevie so quickly gravitated to Waddy as somebody who had to be accustomed to Lindsey's style of playing etc. When she heard Waddy chomping through Dreams, Sara, Gypsy, or Angel for the first time did she hear that and go "Oh yeah, that sounds spot on..I love it!" She used to talk about being intimidated to find a drummer like Mick for her solo bands, but doesn't seem to blink at guitar players half-a$$ing it.

Even in 2018, how anyone in the band heard that rendition of Gypsy and thought they were ready to go on national TV (Ellen) and perform, is beyond me.

Waddy has always been a hit-or-miss with me in a Stevie context. He power-chords through a lot of delicate studio work when it’s a Fleetwood Mac song. But I know he also used his style to excellent effect on studio songs like “If Anyone Falls” and live songs like “Outside the Rain” (he always gave it a lot more vitality and balls than Campbell did on the record), “How Still My Love” (in 1983, the song was incredible — a macabre highlight of the night), “If Anyone Falls,” “Stand Back,” “I Can’t Wait,” “Rock and Roll,” and “Fall from Grace.”

I was watching live footage from 1977 of Andrew Gold doing “Lonely Boy” and there is Waddy, working with the drummer to give that song onstage propulsion and elation. Then I went back and listened to the studio track. I had forgotten that Waddy played on that, too, and helped as much as anyone make it a hit for us kids in summer camp who were running around the pool with that song playing on the speakers. Back in the day, Waddy really helped drive home tons of songs. He had great ideas and a style that may not have been subtle but was a bolt of lightning when he and the song melded together, whether it was Ronstadt or Jackson Browne or Andrew Gold. Stevie knew Waddy even before that, as we know, and she must have felt as musically comfortable with him as with Lindsey’s zappier, quirkier playing. On acoustic guitar, Lindsey leaves practically no space because of his Travis thumb constantly going, but on electric guitar, Lindsey leaves a lot of space by letting the rhythm section build tension by sudden shifts of dynamics (listen to his punctuational style on “The Chain” from Wembley). I think Waddy was used to playing with drummers who were more traditional and busier than Mick Fleetwood — and we first got used to hearing the Mac songs with Mick as metronome (kick and snare, kick and snare, high hats down low).

You are preaching to the choir David. How Still My Love was definitely the highlight of 1983. I loved the dance she would do with Benmont's solo towards the end. But you are right, Waddy's guitar on that song was impeccable. Also during the bridge when Stevie had passion, grabbing the mic, "STANDING IN THE DOORWAY..........YOU GO YOUR WAY. BUT YOU DONT FORGET ME,"
The highlight for me too!

The quality of this video is not great but this is one my all time Stevie performances. Her band is tight with Waddy and Benmont adding their own licks to the song. Stevie is so high but rocking it. Notice how the band slowly slows waiting for her to get back to the microphone for the second verse as she fetches a hat from the audience. We get some side kicks here and there. But after the singing, her dance and her clapping off beat is just too much. These were the days Stevie was so playful with the audience.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if0lkSZM8Ag

I definitely agree he brings it 100% on a lot of her live solo material! Without a doubt his guitar work is the highlight of the RAL tour for me (in addition to crazy Stevie)

I really liked Frank Simes on Enchanted Tour when Waddy was found to have child pornography on his computer.

Les Dudek rocked the house down on the Whole Lotta Trouble Tour. I never cared for her 1989 band when Carlos Rios took over the guitar. He is a fine guitarist but Waddy and Les have a rock edge to them that is really good on stage.

I am still hoping for Volume 2 so we can finally get Sanctuary, Forest of the Black Roses and Julia