It’s not just ‘In Your Dreams,’ Stevie Nicks is back
By: Tom Lanham 05/02/11 9:40 AM
By now, you’ve probably heard the — cough, cough — “Rumours.” And rest assured, they’re pretty accurate.
The most unexpected comeback of 2011 — indeed, in many a moon — is the sucker-punch return of ex-Fleetwood Mac faerie queen Stevie Nicks, with a rock-solid new seventh solo set, “In Your Dreams,” which hits stores tomorrow.
Recorded in her own home studio and shrewdly produced by Dave Stewart and Glen Ballard, the album features her longtime guitarist Waddy Wachtel, plus the Heartbreakers’ Mike Campbell and
her two daughters, Sharon Celani and Lori Nicks.
It’s her first new material since the Grammy-nominated “Trouble In Shangri-La” a full decade ago.
And from the spooky-synth opener “Secret Love” (a track penned way back in 1976 about an unspecified celebrity beau), Nicks’ voice is as lissome and smoke-plumed as ever. She adeptly dips into country (“For What It’s Worth”), the “Twilight” phenomenon (the piano-based ballad “Moonlight (Vampire’s Dream)”), sparse-gravely blues (“Soldier’s Angel”) and, of course, her traditional gauzelike sound (the 5½ minute “Wide Sargasso Sea”). She even morphs Poe into pop, singing the verses of his forlorn “Annabel Lee.”
Nicks says the record is the first since “Rumours” where she’s felt so at home in a collaborative environment, which she attributes to Eurythmics mastermind Stewart. Naturally, tracking everything in her own house certainly helped, as well.
We happily doff our plumed fedora to this Rock and Roll Hall of Famer — welcome back!
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