Husband Comment

[michelej1]

[We talked about this comment about Quintela a few weeks ago, but I couldn't find the interview then. Here it is

San Francisco Chronicle (CA), August 11, 1991

Section: SUNDAY DATEBOOK

NICKS-MICK BATTLE TARNISHES FLEETWOOD'S SILVER STEVIE SAYS SHE'S GONE FOR GOOD BECAUSE OF FIGHT OVER SONG RIGHTS

BARR NOBLES, CHRONICLE STAFF WRITER

WELL, old Mick Fleetwood's really put his foot in it this time. Stevie Nicks, who announced she was leaving Fleetwood Mac (along with Christine McVie , the band's other female vocalist) last fall, now says she's really leaving the band.

The music industry figured -- as did Nicks -- that both women singers would return to the ever-changing Mac fold (there have been 14 members so far) when the band celebrates its silver anniversary 18 months from now. But Nicks now says no. It's all band founder/drummer Fleetwood's fault, she says. And not because of his naughty little kiss-and-tell-all autobiography last fall that treated Nicks in a less-than-gentlemanly fashion. This to-do is all because of a spat over "Silver Springs," a 14-year-old song written by Nicks.

Composed for the huge 1977 hit album "Rumors," Fleetwood bumped "Silver Springs" at the last minute in favor of the song "I Don't Want to Know." You'd think the song was dipped in gold considering the tug-of-war going on between Nicks and Fleetwood.

She wanted to put the song on "Time- space," her new album, a "best-of" compilation due out next month. Fleetwood is hanging onto it just in case he decides to include it in a four-CD 25th anniversary collection he's assembling.

Why all the fuss? Well, Nicks long ago assigned its copyright to her mom, and was looking forward to her mother collecting revenues from it. "I can't believe he's stupid enough to break this band up for a song he dumped in the garbage can," Nicks complains. "I fought like a dog to keep this band together for 15 years. I didn't have to because I had my own solo career. I have always loved Mick, and I have always done everything I could to keep him going. It's a pretty sad way to end Fleetwood Mac. This is going to be a shock to the rest of the band when they see the stupidity of Mick's decision.

"It has nothing to do with all the other things we could have broken up over. I didn't even get mad at him about his book. Last December, as we were wrapping up the tour, when I introduced the band, I would say 'the fabulous Mick Fleetwood, drummer extraordinaire and best-selling author!' I was trying to help him sell the damn book!"

Nicks, however, says she hasn't read it. And "I won't write a book like Mick's or Kitty Kelley's. That kind of book shouldn't be written until everyone involved is either about 90 years old, dead, or too tired to care. My book will be full of poetry and photographs, the good things and some of the tragedies."

It's been a long haul for Nicks since she joined her boyfriend Lindsey Buckingham's Bay Area band Fritz in 1968. With her degree in theory of speech communication from San Jose State in hand (the Phoenix, Ariz., native had spent her senior year at Menlo-Atherton High School), Nicks immediately found herself opening for Jimi Hendrix in front of 50,000 people. It was a crash course in rock and roll.

In 1972, Nicks and Buckingham moved to Los Angeles where they made a ripple or two with their debut album "Buckingham Nicks." The ripple reached Fleetwood Mac, one of Britain's best blues bands of the late '60s, and a band in dire need of a lead guitarist.

Mac already had burned through several guitarists, had imported Christine Perfect as vocalist (she later married and divorced bassist John McVie), and on New Year's Eve 1974 made its offer to Buckingham.

Nicks says she knew that Fleetwood Mac wasn't interested in her. "They didn't need another girl singer -- at all," she says. "They only wanted Lindsey . . . Herbie Worthington, whose photographs are the covers for the 'Fleetwood Mac' and 'Rumors' albums and who still lives in the guest room above my garage, was at Mick Fleetwood's house when Mick walked in and said, 'Well, I've found our guitarist. There's only one problem. He has a girlfriend, and he isn't leaving her for us.' Then, he told Herbie, 'But, if she doesn't work out . . .' and then he made the sign of a throat being sliced. Herbie told me it was the coldest thing he's ever heard anyone say.

"So, I knew they didn't want me. I did everything I could think of to make them like me. Since I'd had three years onstage, they began to realize that I might be an asset. Christine was stuck over there behind the Hammond organ and that gave me the freedom to take center stage."

McVie, Nicks says, turned out to be her ally in the band and continues to be her best friend. "If she was ever jealous, she never once showed it to me."

In fact, Nicks says, it was McVie's decision that led to the two women announcing last year that they were leaving the band. "She was the one who said, 'I will never tour again.' She'd long had her eye on this estate outside London, and I think her new husband had said something to the effect of, 'You come home or I might not be here when you do return.'

"It was hard for me to believe. I figured she would go to England and get very very bored with the horses and cows and chickens. She and I had both agreed that either we'd both leave Fleetwood Mac or that we would both stay with it. We both agreed to work on the next album. But, right now, I'm in the middle of a very big fight with Mick . . . This is all so underhanded.

"I called him on a Friday, and said, 'If I don't have that tape ("Silver Springs" by Monday, I'm out.' He had three days and didn't deliver. What did I ever do to him that he would do this to me and my mother?"

The battle with Fleetwood is small potatoes compared to the successes and the heartaches of the '80s for Nicks. There were hits on top of hits, both fronting for Fleetwood Mac and on her solo projects. There were Stevie Nicks wanna-bes long before Madonna donned her first bustier.

Then her relationship with Buckingham broke up, and he left Fleetwood Mac in 1987. Nicks suffered from drug abuse, she says, until she entered the Betty Ford Clinic seven years ago. "I wrote down, 'I am not special. I am not infallible. I am dying.' It sunk in, and at that point, it was all over. I decided I had so many important things to do. All this music, the children's stories to write, my drawing and painting and hand-printing, my college lecture tour (on how to write songs to do." She laughs at herself. "I realized that I would follow in the footsteps of Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison and I did not want to do that.

"I didn't want all that grief and sadness wrapped around me. I would like to be remembered as a happy entertainer and as someone who did something good for the world."

[David]

Originally Posted by michelej1

Nicks, however, says she hasn't read it. And "I won't write a book like Mick's or Kitty Kelley's. That kind of book shouldn't be written until everyone involved is either about 90 years old, dead, or too tired to care. My book will be full of poetry and photographs, the good things and some of the tragedies."

I'd rather read Mick's book. Oy. I'm glad Stevie was on drugs when she said this -- it may have helped her forget the idea. Who needs more Stevie "poetry"? I know I don't. Any of you? How about it? And photographs? Taken by Stevie? I bet those are good.

PLEASE DON'T misunderstand me. I LOVE Stevie.

[petep9000]

Originally Posted by michelej1

my college lecture tour

College tour? Would that be 'Belt Parkway Community College' here in Brooklyn? Or, has she edged Dr. Condoleeza Rice out of the commencement address at Stamford this year? Will she deliver her noted discussion
'Surface area in ecological analysis: quantification of benthic coral reef algae'?

[Gailh]

Originally Posted by michelej1

[We talked about this comment about Quintela a few weeks ago, but I couldn't find the interview then. Here it is

In fact, Nicks says, it was McVie's decision that led to the two women announcing last year that they were leaving the band. "She was the one who said, 'I will never tour again.' [B]She'd long had her eye on this estate outside London, and I think her new husband had said something to the effect of, 'You come home or I might not be here when you do return.'

In view of this I suppose the marriage must have been over by the time they toured with The Dance? Or maybe she didn't care any more?

Gail

[macfan 57]

Originally Posted by Gailh

In view of this I suppose the marriage must have been over by the time they toured with The Dance? Or maybe she didn't care any more?

Gail

Chris did some early Dance interviews(before the tour) in which she talked a little about Eddy(in a nice way). I think I read somewhere that she found out about his affair early on in the Dance tour. That's when she ended things.

[Gailh]

Originally Posted by macfan 57

Chris did some early Dance interviews(before the tour) in which she talked a little about Eddy(in a nice way). I think I read somewhere that she found out about his affair early on in the Dance tour. That's when she ended things.

I didn't realise that. I kind of assumed that the "I might not be here when you get back" still stood and she knew that the marriage was in trouble so she thought "stuff you mate, I'm off on tour and I don't care whether you're there when I get back or not"

Gail

[jbrownsjr]

Great article!! I remember that one!! Thanks...