Stevie's voice
 

Is the fact that Stevie's voice declined so much in so little time not a tragedy - when I listen to post Bella Donna I can't help feel sad that the sweet innocent Stevie from 1973 with her faultless voice didn't stay with us for longer...

Does anyone else feel this way?

But her Bella Donna voice was already very different from her 1973 voice....

I agree, but I'd argue that her voice on the Wild Heart is almost recognizable from Buckingham Nicks.

Stevie's voice changing is one of the biggest "what if" questions. Although her younger voice was gorgeous, I can't help but wonder... would songs like Seven Wonders, TISL, Fall From Grace, Annabel Lee or 24 Karat Gold sound as good with that young girl voice?

I think in the period RAL-SA she didn't know WHAT the hell to do with her voice. It wasn't what it once was, but she wasn't sure what it could do. TISL onwards I feel that she's comfortable with her voice and knows how to use it. I still think she can use it effectively and as much as I love her young voice, I don't think I'd want her to change.

This is Stevie's fans favourite topic, I've been here for 6 months and there have been at least three thread about it.
I think that Stevie's voice has always been in costant change, her voice wasn't the same not only between albums but also between different legs of the tours.
I feel that, with small exceptions, all of her voices had different purposes and expressed well different things that were in her life at the time.
So we have the sweet unripe mid seventies voice, the very powerful and raspy 1976-1977 voice, the hoarse and fragile 1978-1979 voice etc.

Perfectly stated...I feel exactly the same.

I agree with this. She has so much more control over her voice now and seems more confident in it.

I like what you wrote here.
I think all these voices give fans an abundance of pleasures to choose from—kind of like the abundance of styles of Fleetwood Mac albums since 1968.

I thought her Mirage voice was the perfect mix of pitch and rasp.

Yes, I think so, too! Today I listened to the album version of "Gypsy" and was once more totally in awe of her diverse singing style. There's a little bit of everything in it.

I've always loved her Mirage-era voice, too. I recently stumbled upon a copy of the Mirage Tour DVD at Amoeba and snagged it. I found it interesting that my husband (also a big Stevie fan), found her voice unlistenable - completely off pitch.

All that said, I love her voice from every era - and am glad that she finally knows how to control and use in effectively in concert. :thumbsup:

When you first responded you made me think about an intimate analysis I read once about Stevie's voice but couldn't find it anymore. Now by chance I stumbled across it again:


Stevie’s Tusk voice

“[On Tusk, Stevie] turned in a clutch of her most powerful songs yet, with ‘Storms’, 'Sara’ and 'Beautiful Child’. Across all three, her voice resonated with emotion, following on the path she had started in Fleetwood Mac, but more confident now, and stronger. In the old days, she admits, she almost wrecked her untrained voice, trying to keep things going onstage every night. Now she knew precisely what she was doing, and how she would do it, and while she would, of course, lose some of the natural beauty of her natural tones, replacing it perhaps with a more studied approximation, the alternative would have been disastrous.“

From ‘Fleetwood Mac - Never Break the Chain’ by Amy Hanson, Goldmine magazine (November 1997)

*****

I wonder what 'natural voice’ Amy Hanson means?

Stevie’s Buckingham Nicks voice is very nasal, heavy vibrato, massive breath control. Kind of a Baez-style foghorn. Take, for example, the end of the 'Sorceror’ demo. Her voice is huge there, and always makes me smile when I imagine that booming out into a deserted coffee factory in the middle of the night.

Her voice on the white FM album is shedding its folk/country blare and morphing into something altogether sweeter. There’s intimacy in the almost spoken quality of 'Landslide’, and a lovely crooning quality to parts of the studio cut of 'Rhiannon’ that makes it into the soft vamp of the legendary live renditions. But otherwise her live voice in 1975/76 was quite different: more reedy and, yes, at times raucous.

Rumours captured the Nicks voice that endures in the popular consciousness, and the one people mean when they claim she’s 'lost it’. The flipping into her head voice in 'Dreams’; the sinewy control and soaring sustain on 'Gold Dust Woman’; the agility of her harmonies on 'I Don’t Want To Know’ and 'Second Hand News’. The vibrato is under control and she hits the highs without fear - despite how roughed up her voice was by the rigours of the road.

On Tusk, though, it’s not just her voice that’s been roughed up. Stevie herself, as a woman, as a human being, is almost on her knees during this album. And her voice is the voice of someone who knows her best bet for survival is to let this stuff bleed out of her, don’t fight the feelings, sit with it and let it pass.

The result is something extraordinary: a voice that gets stronger the more passive it is. Like when you’ve been trying to hurry home through pouring rain, but then realise you’re not gonna make it, and you’re soaked to the skin, can’t get any wetter, and suddenly - it doesn’t bother you any more. In fact, if you’ve been drenched and dried out again before, you can even find it darkly pleasurable.

http://366daysofsara.tumblr.com/post...ies-tusk-voice