[The Nicks Fix]

Washington Post

June 17, 1998
Stevie Nicks: Beyond Mere 'Rumours'

By Richard Harrington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 17, 1998; Page D07

Last year, Stevie Nicks was enveloped by Fleetwood Mac, touring and recording with the classic lineup on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of "Rumours." This year, she decided to go her own way, touring solo for the first time since 1994 (Nicks will be at Nissan Pavilion Friday) and also serving up a career retrospective, "Enchanted."

A three-CD, 46-track collection, "Enchanted" draws from Nicks's five solo albums (she also had a best-of), and tacks on eight previously unreleased tracks, including studio demos, live recordings and songs she's contributed to various soundtracks. It also features for the first time on CD a track from 1973's forgotten gem, "Buckingham/Nicks," the album she and then-lover Lindsey Buckingham recorded before being asked to join Fleetwood Mac. The collection includes only two Mac songs: a demo of "Sweet Girl," which subsequently appeared on last year's reunion album, "The Dance," and a graceful, solo piano demo of "Rhiannon," the Nicks song that most identifies her with Fleetwood Mac.

Nicks turned out to be the most commercially successful Mac spinoff, starting with this collection's "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" (which cannily teamed Nicks with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers), "Leather and Lace," "Talk to Me" and "Stand Back" (a collaboration with an uncredited Prince).

There are fine live versions of "Edge of Seventeen," "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" with Petty and the Heartbreakers and "Gold and Braid," a 1981 concert track in which Nicks is backed by members of both the Heartbreakers and Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band. Pal Petty also figures in Nicks's cover of his standard "Free Fallin'," from the recent soundtrack to "Party of Five."

Among the solid soundtrack contributions collected here: "Blue Lamp" (from "Heavy Metal"), "Violet and Blue" (from "Against All Odds"), "Sleeping Angel" (from "Fast Times at Ridgemont High"), a cover of Sheryl Crow's "Somebody Stand by Me" (from "Boys on the Side") and the original four-track demo for the title track from "Twister," effectively recast here with the addition of supple mandolin work by former Gin Blossom Jesse Valenzuela.

Among the previously unreleased tracks are an intriguing demo of Dorsey Burnette's '60s country song "It's Late" (Burnette's son, Billy, was a latter-day Fleetwood Macker) and Warren Zevon's "Reconsider Me," a 1985 outtake with new instrumental tracks produced by Andrew Slater (Fiona Apple, the Wallflowers). While fans may quibble over lesser songs included and favorites left off (like Nicks's Top 10 duet with former Washingtonian Walter Egan on "Magnet and Steel"), the ultimate impact of "Enchanted" is to remind doubters that Nicks was always about more than billowing dresses and tambourines.


Thanks to Victoria Herrick for sending this article to The Nicks Fix.
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