http://www.forbes.com/sites/brianher.../#460c7dea2015
Like when Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks decided to go her own way in the 1980s, Charles Kelley has gone solo this year, taking some time away from his Grammy-winning trio Lady Antebellum to release new music individually.
Nicks, 67, and Kelley, 34, recently combined their solo powers to record a cover of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ rawly reflective “Southern Accents” for Kelley’s debut album, The Driver. Kelley flew from Nashville to Los Angeles to meet Nicks at The Village, a famous recording studio with early 1900s stained-glass windows leftover from its Masonic temple days. Once inside a room, Kelley remembers Nicks saying, “Tom used to record in here a lot.”
“It was the same exact studio Tom Petty cut his version of ‘Southern Accents’ — it was so eerie,” Kelley told Forbes. “What a wild coincidence. It was a cool moment, man. She added this really cool element of vulnerability and haunting thing because the verse she sings is ‘There’s a dream I keep having where my mama comes to me,’ and who better than Stevie Nicks to sing a line like that.”
Her distinctive pining paired with his gravelly modern country vocals give the Southern roots ballad a refreshing twist, one not even Johnny Cash could provide when he covered it live in concert 10 years ago. Maybe it was the storied history of The Village, where Nicks and the rest of Fleetwood Mac famously in 1979 recorded the most expensive albums ever at the time (Tusk), that elevated the duet. Back then, the room was decorated with animal tusks and beads, exuding the hippie, rock-star vibe that defined Fleetwood Mac’s compelling aesthetic.
Nearly 40 years later, getting Nicks into the room with Kelley came together smoothly. Kelley’s producer Paul Worley was collaborating with Chris Isaak, who is managed by Nicks’ manager, Karen Johnston. “Paul played Karen a couple things and ‘Southern Accents’ was one of them and she was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’ve got to play this for Stevie Nicks’ because she’s a huge Tom Petty fan and they’re friends,” Kelley remembered. “Southern Accents” is the title track from Petty and the Heartbreakers’ sixth studio album, which also spawned “Don’t Come Around Here No More,” a song about Nicks breaking up with Eagles rocker Joe Walsh.
“Stevie came back to me and said she’s so proud of [my rendition of ‘Southern Accents’] and loves how I did it, so I used it as an opportunity to ask her if she’d like to sing harmonies on it,” Kelley added. “I’m hoping Tom Petty gets to hear the song because I’m proud of it and maybe having Stevie Nicks on there will give him more incentive to listen to it.”
Kelley originally recorded his verses for “Southern Accents” and other songs on his debut solo album in a modest Nashville basement setting, which reminded him of the non-gaudy Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama.
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