Legendary singer says her new album inspired by Prince, other ‘fantastic men’
In 1983 while Stevie Nicks was working on her second solo album, she got inspired after hearing “Little Red Corvette,” Prince’s sultry synth-powered hit, on the car radio.
Later, as Nicks was in the studio recording the song “Stand Back,” Prince showed up. During the session, Prince played synthesizer, as did keyboardist Dave Bluefield, which gave “Stand Back” its neon pulse.
Prince was uncredited on the track. But Nicks reportedly split her publishing royalties with him for “Stand Back,” which became a top five hit.
Forty-two years later, Nicks is paying tribute to her late friend. As reported by Rolling Stone, Nicks said a song on her upcoming album is about Prince. The funk-pop maestro died in 2016 of an accidental prescription drug overdose at age 57.
“We were friends,” Nicks said Thursday, as part of her speech at a Beverly Hills event, where she received the Hall of Fame Award from Pollstar, the live music trade publication.
Nicks described the new album, which would be her first solo LP since 2011’s “In Your Dreams,” by saying, “They are not airy, fairy songs that you are wondering who they are about, but you don’t really get it. They’re real stories of memories of mine of fantastic men.”
Nicks has been revisiting ’80s footsteps of late. In October, she was the musical guest on TV’s “Saturday Night Live” for the first time in more than 40 years.
As part of her speech Thursday, Nicks recalled attending the premiere of Prince’s 1984 movie “Purple Rain.” After the screening, she gave him a necklace with “little gold hearts on it,” she said.
Prince responded by saying, according to Nicks, “I don’t want your necklace.” She added, “And then he said — this is in the song, this is where the record began — ‘You always bring me a gift; you never bring me you.’”
A Stevie Nicks album inspired by “fantastic men” is ripe with potential. There’s her tumultuous romance with classic era Fleetwood Mac singer/guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, which famously inspired Mac hits. Before joining Fleetwood Mac in the mid ’70s, Nicks and Buckingham fronted the band Buckingham Nicks, whose 1973 self-titled album is a cult-classic.
In her heyday, Nicks was also romantically linked with A-listers like Fleetwood Mac drummer Mick Fleetwood. Also, singer/guitarist Joe Walsh and singer/drummer Don Henley, both of country-rock mega-band the Eagles.
In her awards speech Thursday, Nicks said she started writing her new album while displaced by the recent Los Angeles area fires. She’d been living in a hotel for months.
“And at some point, during that last part of the 92 days, I said, ‘You know what? I feel like I’m on the road, but there are no shows.’ And I thought, ‘You need to go back to work.’ And I did. And I have seven songs, and they are autobiographical real stories where I’m not pulling any punches for the first time in my life.”
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