Beauty And The Beast

Prior to joining Fleetwood Mac in 1975, Stevie had formed a duo with her romantic partner, Lindsey Buckingham. As Buckingham-Nicks they released an eponymous album for Polydor in 1973. Despite the lack of commercial success, the album was instrumental in getting the duo an invitation to join Fleetwood Mac after drummer Mick Fleetwood heard Buckingham's guitar work on the record's final track, Frozen Love. Fleetwood Mac's first album with the pair onboard was the band's massively successful, eponymously entitled, 10th record. A far cry from the British blues displayed on the group's first handful of releases in the late 1960s, when guitar supremo Peter Green was at the helm, 'Fleetwood Mac' was nevertheless a glorious collection of infectious pop music that cut-through in a year otherwise dominated by dull prog-rock, cheesy M.O.R and insipid singer-songwriters. It hit the number one spot on Billboard in 1976 and three of the 11 tracks became Top 20 singles: Over My Head, Say You Love Me and Stevie Nick's signature song, the haunting Rhiannon. Her other major contribution was Landslide, another widely acclaimed and radio-friendly number which has been covered by a plethora of artists. Despite her achievements within the group, Stevie was a prolific songwriter and with two other major writers in the band (Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie) opportunities to release her songs were somewhat curtailed and a backlog accumulated. Thus in 1981, Stevie embarked on a parallel solo career and released her own record, 'Bella Donna'. The album was a personal triumph - it reached number one on the Billboard chart and from it no less than four singles entered the Top 100: Edge of Seventeen, Leather and Lace, Stop Draggin' My Heart Around (co-written by Tom Petty and Mike Campbell) and After the Glitter Fades. Released a year later, 'Wild At Heart' went double platinum, reached number five, and featured three hit singles with Stand Back hitting the number 5 spot.