Stevie Steps Mac In Time
 

Mainly rehash of previous UK article.

STEVIE STEPS MAC IN TIME
Sep 16 2007
http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0100n...name_page.html

by James McCarthy, Wales On Sunday

FLEETWOOD Mac rock goddess Stevie Nicks is set for a comeback with a project based on ancient Welsh stories.

The star is interpreting 12th Century tales of the medieval Mabinogion and has hinted the work could be transformed into a cartoon.

The Mabinogion is a collection of stories from medieval Welsh manuscripts. They are partly based on early medieval events, but almost certainly hark back to older Iron Age traditions.

And Stevie, 59, says she can’t wait to rewrite ancient Welsh history for the modern age.

She said: “It’s almost like this has been laid out for me by the Gods – or whomever – that this will be the next 20 years of my life.

“It could be a movie, it could be a record. It could be a couple of records. It could be a mini-series. It could be an animated cartoon. There is no end to what this could be because the stories are so fantastic.”

It’s not the first time the singer/songwriter has dabbled in things Welsh.

Nicks’ 1976 song Rhiannon, from the album Fleetwood Mac, was inspired by a novel featuring two characters named Branwen and Rhiannon.

She later bought an Afghan hound and named it after the Branwen character.

Stevie, who is working hard on her Welsh project but says she was recently interrupted by a call from her manager.

She said: “We started in that totally scholarly ‘you-are-a- student-of-Welsh- mythology place’.

“And then I got a call from my manager saying, ‘I need you to come to Vegas right now because Celine Dion and Elton John are playing back-to-back at Caesar’s Palace, and they want you to do a week there.

“He told me, ‘It’s really good money and you don’t have to travel very far’. And I’m, like, ‘I’m on a spiritual quest here. I really cannot come to Vegas’. And he’s like, ‘Stevie, you have to, please, just come tomorrow’.”

So did Nicks stick to her spiritual guns? Nope.

“We went to Vegas,” she said.

Here's what I would like to see it become: How about a major stage production in Las Vegas? Stevie has been moving in that direction with her stage show the past few years. That Celine Dion stage needs to be filled up with intricate planning of space & time. You can't just bring your band up there & start rocking because the stage is huge. What about a big production where you have the entire stage dressed like ancient Wales, & you have professional dancers & actors in enormous costumes (like the peach orchard segment of Kurosawa's Dreams) interspersed with Stevie & her band performing her Rhiannon song cycle, all arranged for full rock band with traditional instruments like flute, fiddle, tin whistle, Uilleann pipes, mandolin, harp, dulcimer, bodhran, &c., interspersed with cosmic film projected on the backdrop. (Stevie was dumb to do her songs with a standard European-instrument orchestra because her songs would have sounded more mysterious & prettier with Celtic & Gaelic instruments.)

A real multimedia event, live music mixed with a show like the planetarium show at Balboa Park or the Cirque du Soleil. I picture this as being a gesamptkunstwerk, a total art work incorporating music, drama, dance, film, painting & sculpture. Make it as lavish as possible, thanks to the stability offered by a stage in Las Vegas -- say, at Caesar's Palace.

The event might run for weeks or even months, depending on Stevie's stamina. It could even be filmed creatively by multicamera setup for 5.1 DVD.

Stevie, you'd better start reading Graves & Harrison & Fraser & Squire & all the major myth works.

So it was a dog? And here I was thinking she had a blanket named Branwen :shrug:

wow, couldnt you just see Ian Anderson in that mix somewhere?

She could hire The Corrs :laugh:

Are those those faky Irishy girls who can't sing?

No...that would be the SPICE GIRLS (and they aren't particularly Irish :D)
The Corrs can sing and actually play things, oh, and theyr'e quite cutey looking (so is their bro!)
Good luck to Stevie with this project, I'm sure it'll keep her busy!