By 1981 Stevie Nicks was nearly three albums in with Fleetwood Mac since she and Lindsey Buckingham joined the band in 1975. Working with producers Tom Petty and Jimmy Iovine in between making her third record with Fleetwood Mac, Tusk, Nicks began pieceing together her solo debut.
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Hitting No. 1 on the charts, Bella Donna reached multiplatinum status with the release of Nicks’ hits “Edge of Seventeen,” “Stop Dragging My Heart Around” with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, the country crooner “After the Glitter Fades” and “Leather and Lace,” featuring Don Henley. Bella Donna was the first of eight solo records by Nicks, including her most recent 24 Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault in 2014, and the beginning of her rock and roll legacy.
Nicks is the only woman to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice as a member of Fleetwood Mac in 1998 and as a solo artist in 2019.
Besides penning many of Fleetwood Mac’s biggest hits including “Dreams, “Rhiannon,” “Landslide,” “Gold Dust Woman,” and many more as the sole writer, Nicks also wrote many of her own, including Bella Donna singles “Edge of Seventeen,” “Leather and Lace,” and “Stand Back,” off her second album Wild at Heart.
When asked how songs come to her, Nicks once said it’s the little things that inspire her “poems.”
“It just starts with a little inspiration,” said Nicks in a 2007 interview. “Whether it’s something that happens to me, whether a man walks by me and smiles at me in a certain way. Then I might just go and write the smile was the only thing I saw, dot, dot, dot. Then I’m off. Then my poem has begun.”
“Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” (with Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers)
“Rooms on Fire”
“Edge of Seventeen”
