Bella Donna - the Silver Anniversary

[Nixxxed]

Bella Donna turns 25 this Thursday, July 27!

This is an appreciation thread of sorts - but instead of the same ole song-by-song like/disike listing, tell us about your first time. Your first time getting the album that is...

I've also included a poll. I like polls. Click on everything you've ever owned or currently own. If there are any interesting stories involved in your obtaining or receiving said treasures, please share. Was it a gift? Did you save up your allowance or babysitting money? Did you steal a copy? Find one in the street? (Yes, a friend of mine did!) Did you have to sell a kidney or your first-born child to buy the Edge 12" promo at a record show or on eBay?

And lastly: Don't you know that the stars are a part of us?

[David]

Originally Posted by Nixxxed

Bella Donna turns 25 this Thursday, July 27!

This is an appreciation thread of sorts - but instead of the same ole song-by-song like/disike listing, tell us about your first time. Your first time getting the album that is...

Happy anniversary, Bella Donna!

I remember going to the record store the day of the release, some time in July, & hearing Stevie singing a rockin' song on the store speakers (it was Edge of Seventeen). I thought, "Now that is very cool--this should be a good album." There was "Stop Dragging" on the radio, but that sounded like Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, & there was "Blue Lamp" on the soundtrack, & I wasn't quite sure what to make of that. I bought the BD vinyl, loved the cover, took it home & listened. I liked "Bella Donna" the title song, & then just sort of listened to the rest of it all the way through. Thought parts of it were interesting, but being the music person that I am & being so used to Fleetwood Mac's very special musical sound, I didn't think the musical style of "Bella Donna" was impressive. It was certainly polished, but I remember thinking that it sounded slightly retro, even back in 1981. It sounded like mid '70s MOR, which is really what it was. I didn't really know that the guys who played the music on the album were the same guys who played the music on all the '70s Linda Ronstadt & Jackson Browne & James Taylor albums, but I knew the sound was the same. I was expecting something more singular & sort of high-priestess archaic & something more harder rock even, so I guess I was disappointed in the sound of the album from the first day I heard it. I didn't think it would be a huge hit because it did not sound like Fleetwood Mac, with their oddities. But I loved the cover photo (it was like seeing "The Chain" photo from the Tusk tour) & I also loved the inside photo of the bedroom & all the black & deep royal blue all over the album. It was cool.

That was my first day's impression of BD.

[rbs3676]

My parents live in Colorado during the summer, so as kids and teenagers, we pretty much did the same unless we had summer school or camp or something. For me, the summer of '81 was just one huge antici - SAY IT! - pation of Stevie's solo debut. In Estes Park, there was only one record store and everyday I would go to see if - by chance - they had gotten any advanced copies (this was WAY before Amazon or the internet...) and I remember this Bob Seger-looking guy telling me, "Stevie Nicks is not doing a solo album".
I was 16 years old and I told the man, "I'm serious....it's coming out ANY day now" and he just laughed and shook his head. So, it was REALLy nice to purchase BELLA DONNA from that very same guy two days later.
I didn't say anything rude to him because I just could NOT believe how gorgeous she looked on the front and back covers (dont you miss albums???). I ran up the hill to my parents house...and BELLA DONNA came true. I think I stayed up for 2 days straight just listening to it over and over again. I also remember during this time when Joan Lundan iinterviewed Stevie on Good Morning America. I still have that on video tape, somewhere.
Whenever I am in Colorado, I listen to BELLA DONNA a lot...

Bruce

[Nixxxed]

I received the album on LP from my grandmother for Xmas of 1982. My first Stevie experience was seeing the "Gypsy" video on MTV that summer, and I ran out to by Mirage right away. Once I figured out that Stevie had a solo album (after seeing the SDMHA video...) I put Bella Donna on my Xmas list.

The first time I listened to it was Xmas night, once we'd gotten back home from Grandma's. She wouldn't allow "rock" music played in her home, and I'd gotten in trouble trying to sneakily play a few songs when she was in the kitchen cooking lunch.

It was about 9PM and very cold outside. I listened to the album on headphones while wrapped in a blanket and sitting on the floor in front of my turntable. I was 13. Maybe that's why even today listening to it makes me chilly and starts me thinking about winter.

[amber]

I just got the LP and the 45 of Edge of Seventeen about a month and a half ago. I got the album on my computer about a year ago, year and a half? but not by buying the CD.

[vermicious knid]

I bought Bella Donna in 1998 or 1999. That was the beginning of my fandom. I had wanted the song "Stand Back", so I considered having my first buy be Timespace, but I just had to have that beautiful cover!

[crtrofthenight]

I was 21 when Bella Donna came out. I vividly remember running home with it that afternoon (late afternoon) and being so blown away by the photographs and the white on black page of lyrics! the words on Outside the Rain blew my mind as did Edge of 17.....all of it was just unbelievable to me because I loved Stevie's Mac material so much and I knew she was going to go solo one day and there it was! The sound was so incredible....I looooved The Highwayman.It just lifted my spirits this great album....God bless Stevie for sharing her soul like no other.....Boo Hoo to Madonna...that faker/songwriter wannabe....sorry but i just can't believe people actually like Madonna. Is that even music?
Words don't matter, they don't matter at all anyway...lol

[BombaySapphire3]

I was 19 that summer and had been down at The Wherehouse record shop pestering the staff for a release date for 6 months prior to the album's release .I had heard Blue Lamp on the Heavy Metal soundtrack which proceded Bella Donna by a couple of weeks and thought it was a cool vibey song and different from her work with FM .I also liked SDMHA but what blew me away was hearing Edge on the radio as I was getting ready to go buy the album on the day of it's release.I just stood there in the lving room kind of in awe and was saying to myself 'thank you Stevie 'as the incredible song unfolded.When I got to the record store they were playing the title track and I thought it sounded like a good song too,and dicussed it briefly with the guy at the counter who knew me from my previous visits.When I got it home my first impression is that it was a very good album and not exactly like her work with FM.I was just slightly disappointed that there was not another song like Edge on it but was thrilled to have it and played it incessantly.A quarter of a century later I think it still holds up as a classic piece of California rock on a par with Rumours ,Fleetwood Mac Fleetwood Mac ,or Hotel California.

[pattymarkle]

I remember that Leather & Lace was HUGE here in Dallas and at times you could hear it on two or three stations at once. Country, Rock & Top 40. I bought that 45, and then bought the album once I heard Stop Draggin My Heart Around. I wish we could keep purchased music credits. Not only did I check many of the album, tape, cd, etc. purchases, I've purchased the album three times. One melted after being left in a car. One was lost in a custody battle over albums, and I recently purchased one from e-bay because I consider it to be a "must have" for any Stevie collection.

Since this is the 25th anniversary of the release of her first solo album, she is now eligible for her personal induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. We should start making some noise.

Patty

[ELIUD]

It was Senior Week at South Padre Island in 1982, Shellie-one of my best friends, and I were sitting on the balcony listening to her copy of Bella Donna on a cassette player. Throughout high school, I had a hard crush on a beautiful asian twirler and the song "Leather and Lace" always made me think of her. She was the object of my obsession at the time, having just gotten over my previous fixation with the rock group KISS in Junior High. I was not a Fleetwood Mac fan, and in my eyes they were the drunken hippies who stole all the Grammies from KISS when I was a kid. I told Shellie how much I loved Leather and Lace and how I thought of the asian girl when I'd listen to it. She told me I should just keep the cassette since she was not enjoying it very much anymore and didn't want me to have to buy the album for just one song. Later when I went off to college, it was the only music I had brought with me and before the semester was over, I felt emotionally tied to every song on the album and was "in love" with Stevie Nicks. Today, I'm in my early forties and I can say I've attended every Stevie or Fleetwood Mac tour since 1982 and most of them with my friend Shellie and my partner Troy. And, unlike Stevie, the asian girl is just one of my many obsessions I had growing up that have passed with time.

[jean-mariecowl]

well... i was away at college out of state. didnt know what saving any spending money meant, at the time. and i wanted to buy the cassette. cause at the time i had this huge boom box . my first college roomie had the cassette. she let me listen to it, until i could go home and work in the pool store to scrap up some money. and of course , the album changed my life, my career, changed my self-esteem, got me out of a horrible time in my life.

[DavidMn]

I didnt think they still made 8 tracks when Bella Donna came out.

[estranged4life]

the cassette & CD, along with CD's of unreleased master reels of basically all the songs on Bella Donna.

I will always remember Deb's late Mother thinking Bella Donna was an album by the Dixie Chicks...And yes, she liked that album.

[bellaillume]

i bought it the day it was released (tower records) i remember the store having this HUGE promo poster and i SO wanted it...alas, someone else had their name already on it! this is back in the day where you could ask the manager to hold any promo item...if it didn't have a name on it, you could write yours on the backside and within a couple of weeks it'd be all yours...ah...the good ol' days...

but seriously...this was the lp that nailed it for me...she had me since '75 with rhiannon...but this was like...whoa...this woman knows everything about love and relationships...bella donna was my mantra, for many years...and remains one of my all time favorites...

now why didn't they release a newly remastered editon with outtakes for the occassion? hmmmmm????? i'd really like to know....

[BlackWidow]

Bella Donna is very special and very personal to me. That summer my girlfriend was killed in a car accident. The day I found out was one of my darkest hours. I used to always sleep w/ my radio on. I had stayed out til 4am..came home went to bed.An hour later..I woke up to the Edge Of 17 playing on my Stereo. I had never been so haunted in my life.From that moment on...it was Kathy's song and her message to me.Stevie had always been my favorite singer..so to hear that song from that voice at that exact moment of my existence was INTENSE! I was no more than a baby then..and I was all alone on the edge of seventeen.It still haunts me to this very day.
There really is much to be said about really being there at the time. It was more than just a song..she placed her boot on my chest and hasn't let me up yet!