Review Stevie Nicks In Your Dreams 4 out of 5 by Indie London...

Review by Jack Foley
IndieLondon
Rating: 4 out of 5

STEVIE Nicks’ In Your Dreams is the singer’s first LP of new material for a decade and, for fans in particular, it’s well worth the wait.

Nicks’ distinct vocals retain the same power as her Fleetwood Mac days, while her song-writing demonstrates a wealth of ambition, taking in everything from New Orleans and Twilight tributes to tracks inspired by the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Edgar Allan Poe.

In doing so, she’s also amassed a strong army of supporting talent, including Mac band-mate Lindsey Buckingham, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers’ Mike Campbell, long-term guitarist buddy Waddy Wachtel and Dave Stewart.

In truth, it’s debatable whether Nicks will win any new fans, such is the classic (and familiar) traits she brings to proceedings (there are moments this could pass for a Fleetwood Mac record). But given the length of time it has taken to emerge, In Your Dreams has to go down as a welcome comeback for the artist.

And there are plenty of highlights among the 14 tracks, starting with the opener, Secret Love, an oldie she wrote way back in ’76 and which could easily have ended up on a Fleetwood LP. It’s steeped in classic values… guitar backing, strong sense of melody, folk-rock tendencies and a notable chorus. And it gets things started in suitably assured fashion.

Nicks herself describes the LP as “a full blown rock ‘n’ roll album with some beautiful ballads’ but early on it’s more ballad driven. Secret Love isn’t really a rock song, while For What It’s Worth is a Dylan-esque folk ballad with country elements that showcases a tender side to the singer that’s welcome, but perhaps too early. It does, however, mark one of Campbell’s contributions.

Fortunately, that rock vibe drops with the rousing foot-stomper that is title track In Your Dreams, the sort of offering that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Petty record. It’s a real good time.

The ambition of her song-writing then becomes evident on Wild Sargasso Sea, a song that is based upon the novel of the same name that Jean Rhys wrote as a prequel to Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. It’s a brooding slow-burner that contains plenty of atmosphere and some cracking lyrics. And yes, it has to rate as another highlight.

(Photos) More of Stevie Nicks at Hard Rock Calling.... Stevie basking in the sun shades and all + Setlist

For more photos - check out MusicPics 

(Photos) Stevie Nicks Hard Rock Calling London

Stevie Nicks: On the eve of her first solo album release in 10 years, the Fleetwood Mac songstress talks to Simon Price

Stevie Nicks: 'Love is fleeting for me...in my life as a travelling woman'

On the eve of her first solo album release in 10 years, the Fleetwood Mac songstress talks to Simon Price

The Independent

It's a summer evening in a classy London hotel.

The first thing you notice entering the suite Stevie Nicks calls home ahead of her first British solo show in two decades is a scattering of large, lit, white candles. It's daytime, but in terms of ambience they speak volumes. Because if Stevie Nicks, poet-sorceress of the popular imagination, is ever off-duty, she won't let it show.

From a young age, Stephanie Lynn Nicks was a dreamer. Even when working as a waitress or a cleaner in Hollywood to fund the failed debut album she recorded with her lover Lindsey Buckingham in 1973, Nicks was already imagining herself a romantic gypsy princess. This persona took flight in 1975 when the Buckingham-Nicks duo were recruited into Fleetwood Mac, transforming the washed-up British blues band's fortunes. Despite legendary narcotic excesses and mind-boggling inter-band relationships, Fleetwood Mac reached unimaginable heights with the sensual, scarf-swirling singer Nicks as their talisman. Their 1977 record Rumours remains one of the top 10 biggest-selling albums of all time. And, as she launched a parallel solo career in the Eighties,

Today, all the accessories you'd expect are present: the crescent moon pendant, the lacy black blouse, the ankle-snapping stiletto boots (a habit adopted so she wouldn't look so tiny sharing a stage with the giant Mick Fleetwood), and, on the third finger of each hand, a ring encrusted with dazzling diamonds. At 63, she remains a rare beauty: that silky blonde hair, those sultry eyelids, and those flared nostrils into which she once joked that she'd shovelled "so much cocaine you could put a big gold ring through my septum". Sometimes she'll speak a syllable which flutters into the honeyed vibrato you've heard on "Sara", "Seven Wonders", "Rooms on Fire" or "Dreams". When you meet Stevie Nicks, she doesn't disappoint.

Curling into an armchair draped with a sheepskin rug, she begins to explain why her new album, In Your Dreams, comes 10 years after her last. In 2005, she spent a long, difficult day at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington DC, to which badly injured soldiers from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan are invalided. Her eyes well up at the memory. "I can honestly say I walked in there, Stevie Nicks, a rock'n'roll star, without a care in the world. And I walked out of there a mother. With a whole lotta children."

Full Interview

Stevie Nicks In Your Dreams Tour Australia with Dave Stewart - 9 Shows Announced

AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL TOUR DATES: 

STEVIE NICKS AND DAVE STEWART 

MaxTV.com
McManus Entertainment is thrilled to announce the return to Australia of the legendary Stevie Nicks, who will be touring throughout Australia in November and December this year. Tickets go on sale on Wednesday 6th July.

Stevie's “In Your Dreams” tour will hit Australia in November. She will play shows in Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Sydney, Newcastle, Brisbane, Wollongong and Canberra. Joining Stevie for these special shows will be celebrated musician and songwriter Dave Stewart from Eurythmics, who co-produced Stevie's new solo album,In Your Dreams. Fans of both Fleetwood Mac andEurythmics will be thrilled to know that Stevie Nicks and Dave Stewart will be performing their greatest hits from their respective bandsas well as highlights from their solo careers.

MELBOURNE - Saturday 19th November Sidney Myer Music Bowl
theartscentre.com.au 1300 182 183

MELBOURNE - Sunday 20th November Mornington Racecourse
ticketmaster.com.au 136 100

ADELAIDE - Wednesday 23rd November Entertainment Centre
ticketek.com.au 132 849

PERTH - Saturday 26th November nib Stadium
ticketmaster.com.au 136 100

SYDNEY - Tuesday 29th November Entertainment Centre
ticketmaster.com.au 136 100

NEWCASTLE - Wednesday 30th November Entertainment Centre
ticketek.com.au 132 849

BRISBANE - Saturday 3rd December Riverstage
ticketmaster.com.au 136 100

WOLLONGONG - Monday 5th December WIN Entertainment Centre
ticketek.com.au 132 849

CANBERRA - Wednesday 7th December AIS Arena
ticketek.com.au 132 849

Stevie Nicks: The Fleetwood Mac veteran and solo star picks the music that has inspired her through her 40-year career

Stevie Nicks: Soundtrack of my life 
The Fleetwood Mac veteran and solo star picks the music that has inspired her through her 40-year career

Interview by Gareth Grundy
The Observer,
Sunday 26 June 2011

From Florence Welch to Courtney Love, Sheryl Crow to Taylor Swift, there are plenty of artists who owe a debt to Stevie Nicks (63). She began as half of Buckingham Nicks, in partnership with then boyfriend Lindsey Buckingham. They remained artistically though not romantically entwined, joining Fleetwood Mac and helping the group become synonymous with 70s rock. Last month Nicks released her first solo album in a decade, In Your Dreams. The track "Soldier's Angel" offers a clue to how she's spent her time in the interim. It was inspired by regular hospital visits to wounded American veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq, something she's done since 2004, along with raising funds for their rehabilitation. "There's no politics involved," she says. "I'm just visiting kids. I take them presents of iPods loaded up with songs, which breaks the ice. Most of them don't even know who I am, although they do by the time they leave and I've sat and held their hand. I'll keep doing it as long as there is a need."

STARTING OUT IN ROCK'N'ROLL

'Rock & Roll Woman', Buffalo Springfield (1967)

Hearing this for the first time was like seeing the future. [Sings] "And she's coming, singing soft and low…" When I heard the lyrics, I thought: that's me! They probably wrote it about Janis Joplin or someone like that but I was convinced it was about me. I saw Buffalo Springfield at the Winterland Ballroom at the time, and it could not have been better. They were a very Californian band and it was the height of the Haight-Ashbury scene. My parents had moved to San Francisco in my final year of high school, so I was new and didn't know anyone. But music was everywhere, everyone was listening to the radio all the time – I was living in the middle of a music revolution.

By 1968 I was in a band with Lindsey. His family lived in the same gated community as us, and we would practise at his house. My mum and dad liked him, and everybody in the band. We practised Monday to Thursday, then played gigs on Friday and Saturday. So we were serious about it from the beginning, and my parents understood that.

THE ALBUM THAT TAUGHT ME TO SING HARMONY

Wondrous Stevie Nicks, love child of a fairy queen and a storm trooper performs Sunday London's Hyde Park

Stevie Nicks Daily Express Weekend June 25 2011

Stevie Nicks Live in Australia - November, 2011 - First 4 Dates Announced

• Nov 19 - Melbourne (Myer Music Bowl)
• Nov 20 - Mornington (Mornington Race Course)
• Nov 23 - Adelaide (Entertainment Centre)
• Nov 29 - Sydney (Entertainment Centre)

THE Twilight film New Moon has had a profound effect on rock superstar Stevie Nicks.

IT WAS just after she had seen the Twilight film New Moon while on tour in Australia. Stevie Nicks was so taken by the fated love story that she stole upstairs to her Melbourne hotel room and wrote a five-page essay about iconic love affairs.

She wrote about Bella and Edward, about Beauty and the Beast and about her own love story, between herself and her musical partner in life, Lindsey Buckingham, of Fleetwood Mac.

The similarities between their story and Bella and Edward's in New Moon were uncanny. A forbidden love. A love that cannot work, she describes it.

She went back to see the film to reflect on it again.

Meanwhile, a united Fleetwood Mac were playing sell-out shows around Australia. When they got to Brisbane, her hotel room contained a piano.

Audio Interview... Stevie Nicks from Absolute Radio UK

Click Through to Absolute Radio to Listen

Stevie Nicks Q&A: She spoke to SoundSpike about her recent illness,working with Dave Stewart & Lindsey Buckingham + Fleetwood Mac

Q & A: Stevie Nicks
Story by Christina Fuoco-Karasinski SoundSpike Contributor
Published June 24, 2011 04:11 PM
Soundspike

Singer/songwriter Stevie Nicks was feeling down before her recent interview with SoundSpike. She'd just bid adieu to her Chinese Crested Yorkie before heading off to England to do press and perform another show with Rod Stewart.

"[The dog is] on her way to Phoenix as we speak," Nicks said via telephone from her California home. "Much to my heartache, she can't go to England. She's staying with [a friend's] mom and dad. You can't take [dogs] into England. We're going to be gone for almost a month. It's been a horrific day of saying goodbye to her. ...It's just so lonely. It's so quiet around here."

Nicks is touring in support of her latest solo effort, "In Your Dreams," a collaboration with Dave Stewart of Eurythmics fame. Prior to her visit to England, the Fleetwood Mac singer had to briefly put promotional efforts on hold, including a stop on "The Today Show," as she recovered from pneumonia.

Now that she's feeling better, Nicks is ready to promote her album, which features the single "Secret Love." She spoke to SoundSpike about her illness, working with Stewart and if there's another Fleetwood Mac reunion in the offing.

SoundSpike: So are you feeling better?

Stevie Nicks: You know what, I'm over the pneumonia, but I've definitely still got the residue of being that sick for three weeks. I was really sick. Having really bad pneumonia on the day your record comes out -- your favorite record you've ever made in your life -- really sucked. And having to cancel "The Today Show" in New York really sucked. I mean, that part of me was going, "Why are you doing this to me, God?" My mom said to me, "You know what? There's a reason. There's a reason. Maybe it's because you never take a break. Maybe the spirits were saying, 'You need a break.' So if we have to give you pneumonia and knock you down for a couple weeks, you're down." It was a hard three weeks.

Were you still ill when you performed on "Dancing with the Stars" [on May 17]?

I was still a little sick on "Dancing with the Stars."

You sounded great.

Thank you. I have been sicker than that and done concerts. That was on the end of the pneumonia. But had I had to do a bunch of songs, then it would have been a problem. Singing one song, not so hard.

Do you have plans to tour North America again soon?

I do, like more toward the end of the summer when it's even hotter. Then we're off to Australia in November. We'll do probably two months here. When you release a new record, you never really know what's coming. I would hope and love to do a few shows in Europe. I don't know whether that'll happen or not. We're leaving tomorrow to do press in Europe and to do one big, huge show in [London's] Hyde Park, 55,000 people on the 26th of June. That's exciting. My band hasn't played that big of a show since like I don't know, Peace Sunday. That's a lot of people.

You said this is your favorite record.

This is my favorite record, absolutely.

Full Q&A at Soundspike.com