Look up best in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

The Best may refer to:

Film and television[link]

• Best (film), a 2000 George Best biopic
• The Best (UK TV series), a 2002 cooking programme on BBC2
• Best: His Mother's Son, a 2009 made-for-TV drama about George Best's mother

Places[link]

• Best, North Brabant, Netherlands
• Best, Texas, United States
• Best Township, Ontario, Canada

Music[link]

• The Best (band), a music supergroup featuring Keith Emerson, John Entwistle and others
• Mclusky, a band formerly known as Best
• "The Best", a song by …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead from their 2005 album Worlds Apart
• "The Best" (song), a 1989 song by Tina Turner
• Best (Chicosci album)
• Best (Kenny G album)
• Best! (Jellyfish album)
• Best (Robert Earl Keen album), 2006
• Best (Mika Nakashima album)
• Best, an album by The Clark Sisters
• The Best (Dan Seals album)
• The Best (t.A.T.u. album), 2006
• The Best (Bonnie Tyler album), 1993
• The Best (Despina Vandi album), 2001
• The Best (George Clinton album)
• The Best (Leo Kottke album)
• The Best (VHS), a 1993 video by Bonfire
• The Best (David Lee Roth album)
• The Best, a compilation album by New Model Army
• The Best, title of the international version of Janet Jackson's Number Ones compilation album (2009)
• The Best, a compilation album by Bonnie Tyler
• Best Of (Christina Milian album), 2006
• Best Of (Tokio Hotel album), 2010
• The Best of Goldfinger, a compilation album by American band Goldfinger
• Best Of (Between the Buried and Me album)
• Blur: The Best Of, 2000
• Best Of (Vanilla Ninja Album)
• Best-Of (Anggun album)
• Best (High and Mighty Color album)
• Best Of (Chapter One 1997–2004)
• Best Of (Doro album)
• Best Of (Mano Negra), 1998
• Best Of (RBD album), 2008
• Best Of (Roch Voisine album), 2007
• Best Of... (Sia album), 2012
• Best Of (The Cardigans album), 2008
• Best Of (Voice of the Beehive album)

People[link]

• Best (surname), people with the surname Best
• Best (Portuguese footballer) (born 1968)
• Dave (Best) Hughes (born 1986)
• Puppa Isthebest

Companies and organizations[link]

• Best & Co., an 1879–1971 clothing chain

• Best Lock Corporation, a lock manufacturer
• Best Manufacturing Company, a farm machinery company
• Best Products, a chain of catalog showroom retail stores
• Board of European Students of Technology, a student organisation
• Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport, a public transport and utility provider

Other uses[link]

• Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature, a project to assess global temperature records
• The Best (PlayStation range), PlayStation budget range in Japan
• Best bitter, a type of beer
• Best disease, a disease of the eye
• Best High School (disambiguation)
• BEST Robotics, a student competition
• BioEthanol for Sustainable Transport
• Bootstrap error-adjusted single-sample technique, a statistical method
• Bringing Examination and Search Together, a European Patent Office initiative
• Bronx Environmental Stewardship Training, a program of the Sustainable South Bronx organization

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Woman

Left to right from top: Sappho  • Venus  • Joan of Arc  • Eva Perón  • Marie Curie  • Indira Gandhi  • Venus of Willendorf  • Wangari Maathai  • Mother Teresa  • Grace Hopper  • Mamechiho, a Geisha  • a Tibetian farmer  • Marilyn Monroe  • Oprah Winfrey  • Aung San Suu Kyi  • Mata Hari  • Isis  • the Queen of Sheba  • Elizabeth I  • Florence Owens Thompson

A woman (/ˈwʊmən/), pl: women (/ˈwɪmɨn/) is a female human. The term woman is usually reserved for an adult, with the term girl being the usual term for a female child or adolescent. However, the term woman is also sometimes used to identify a female human, regardless of age, as in phrases such as "Women's rights". Unlike men, women are typically capable of giving birth.

Etymology[link]

The Old English wifman meant "female human" (werman meant "male human". Man or mann had a gender neutral meaning of "human", corresponding to Modern English "one" or "someone". However in around 1000AD "man" started to be used more to refer to "male human", and in the late 1200s began to inevitably displace and eradicate the original word "werman").^[1] The medial labial consonants coalesced to create the modern form "woman"; the initial element, which meant "female," underwent semantic narrowing to the sense of a married woman ("wife").

Symbol of the planet and Roman goddess Venus, also used to indicate the female sex.

A very common Indo-European root for woman, *g^wen-, is the source of English queen (Old English cwēn primarily meant woman, highborn or not; this is still the case in Danish, with the modern spelling kvinde, as well as in Swedish kvinna), as well as gynaecology (from Greek γυνή gynē), banshee fairy woman (from Irish bean woman, sí fairy) and zenana (from Persian زن zan). The Latin fēmina, whence female, is likely from the root in fellāre (to suck), referring to breastfeeding.^[2][3]

The symbol for the planet Venus is the sign also used in biology for the female sex. It is a stylized representation of the goddess Venus's hand mirror or an abstract symbol for the goddess: a circle with a small equilateral cross underneath (Unicode: ♀). The Venus symbol also represented femininity, and in ancient alchemy stood for copper. Alchemists constructed the symbol from a circle (representing spirit) above an equilateral cross (representing matter).

Terminology[link]

Aphrodite, a classical image of youthful female beauty in Western art.

Womanhood is the period in a female's life after she has passed through childhood and adolescence, generally age 18. Puberty generally begins at about age 10, followed by menarche at age 12 to 13. Many cultures have rites of passage to symbolize a girl's coming of age, such as confirmation in some branches of Christianity, bat mitzvah in Judaism, or even just the custom of a special celebration for a certain birthday (generally between 12 and 21), like the Quinceañera of Latin America.

The word woman can be used generally, to mean any female human, or specifically, to mean an adult female human as contrasted with girl. The word girl originally meant "young person of either sex" in English;^{[citation needed]} it was only around the beginning of the 16th century that it came to mean specifically a female child. The term girl is sometimes used colloquially to refer to a young or unmarried woman, however during the early 1970s feminists challenged such use because the use of the word to refer to a fully grown woman may cause offence. In particular, previously common terms such as office girl are no longer used. Conversely, in certain cultures which link family honor with female virginity, the word girl is still used to refer to a never-married woman; in this sense it is used in a fashion roughly analogous to the obsolete English maid or maiden. Referring to an unmarried female as a woman may, in such a culture, imply that she is sexually experienced, which would be an insult to her family.

There are various words used to refer to the quality of being a woman. The term "womanhood" merely means the state of being a woman, having passed the menarche; "femininity" is used to refer to a set of supposedly typical female qualities associated with a certain attitude to gender roles; "womanliness" is like "femininity", but is usually associated with a different view of gender roles; "femaleness" is a general term, but is often used as shorthand for "human femaleness"; "distaff" is an archaic adjective derived from women's conventional role as a spinner, now used only as a deliberate archaism; "muliebrity" is a neologism (derived from the Latin) meant to provide a female counterpart of "virility", but used very loosely, sometimes to mean merely "womanhood", sometimes "femininity" and sometimes even as a collective term for women.

History[link]

The earliest women whose names are known were:

• Enheduanna,^[4][5] born c. 2285 BCE, was the high priestess of the temple of the Moon God in the Sumerian city-state of Ur and possibly the first poet and first named author of either gender.^[6]
• Tashlultum, late 24th-early 23rd centuries BCEfl. late 24th-early 23rd centuries BCE, Akkadian queen, wife of Sargon of Akkad, and mother of Enheduanna.^[7][8]
• Kubaba, Puabi - Pre-Sargonic queens in Sumer
• Peseshet, c. 2600 BCE, was a physician in ancient Egypt.^[9][10]
• Merit-Ptah, c. 2700 BCE, also lived in Egypt and is the earliest known female physician and scientist.^[11]
• Merneith, c. 3000 BCE was a consort and a regent of ancient Egypt during the first dynasty. She may have been ruler of Egypt in her own right.^[12][13]
• Neithhotep, c. 3200 BCE, was the wife of Narmer and the first queen of ancient Egypt.^[14][15]

Biology and gender[link]

The human female reproductive system.

Spectral karyotype of a human female.

Woman nursing her infant

In terms of biology, the female sex organs are involved in the reproductive system, whereas the secondary sex characteristics are involved in nurturing children or, in some cultures, attracting a mate. The ovaries, in addition to their regulatory function producing hormones, produce female gametes called eggs which, when fertilized by male gametes (sperm), form new genetic individuals. The uterus is an organ with tissue to protect and nurture the developing fetus and muscle to expel it when giving birth. The vagina is used in copulation and birthing (although the word vagina is often colloquially and incorrectly used for the vulva or external female genitalia, which also includes the labia, the clitoris, and the female urethra). The breast evolved from the sweat gland to produce milk, a nutritious secretion that is the most distinctive characteristic of mammals, along with live birth. In mature women, the breast is generally more prominent than in most other mammals; this prominence, not necessary for milk production, is probably at least partially the result of sexual selection. (For other ways in which men commonly differ physically from women, see Man.)

An imbalance of maternal hormonal levels and some chemicals (or drugs) may alter the secondary sexual characteristics of fetuses. Most women have the karyotype 46,XX, but around one in a thousand will be 47,XXX, and one in 2500 will be 45,X. This contrasts with the typical male karotype of 46,XY; thus, the X and Y chromosomes are known as female and male, respectively. Because humans inherit mitochondrial DNA only from the mother's ovum, genetic studies of the female line tend to focus on mitochondrial DNA.

Biological factors are not sufficient determinants of whether a person considers herself a woman or is considered a woman. Intersex individuals, who have mixed physical and/or genetic features, may use other criteria in making a clear determination. There are also transgender or transsexual women, who were born or physically assigned as male at birth, but identify as women; there are varying social, legal and individual definitions with regard to these issues. (See trans woman.)

Although fewer females than males are born (the ratio is around 1:1.05), due to a longer life expectancy there are only 81 men aged 60 or over for every 100 women of the same age. Women typically have a longer life expectancy than men.^[16] This is due to a combination of factors: genetics (redundant and varied genes present on sex chromosomes in women); sociology (such as not being expected in most countries to perform military service); health-impacting choices (such as suicide or the use of cigarettes, and alcohol); the presence of the female hormone estrogen, which has a cardioprotective effect in premenopausal women; and the effect of high levels of androgens in men. Out of the total human population, there are 101.3 men for every 100 women (source: 2001 World Almanac).

Most women go through menarche and are then able to become pregnant and bear children.^[17] This generally requires internal fertilization of her eggs with the sperm of a man through sexual intercourse, though artificial insemination or the surgical implantation of an existing embryo is also possible (see reproductive technology). The study of female reproduction and reproductive organs is called gynaecology.

There are some diseases that primarily affect women, such as lupus. Also, there are some sex-related illnesses that are found more frequently or exclusively in women, e.g., breast cancer, cervical cancer, or ovarian cancer. Women and men may have different symptoms of an illness and may also respond differently to medical treatment. This area of medical research is studied by gender-based medicine.

During early fetal development, embryos of both sexes appear gender-neutral; the release of hormones is what changes physical appearance male or female. As in cases without two sexes, such as species that reproduce asexually, the gender-neutral appearance is closer to female than to male.

Culture and gender roles[link]

A woman weaving. Textile work has historically been a female occupation in many cultures.

In many prehistoric cultures, women assumed a particular cultural role. In gatherer-hunter societies, women were generally the gatherers of plant foods, small animal foods and fish, while men hunted meat from large animals.

In more recent history, the gender roles of women have changed greatly. Traditionally, middle class women were involved in domestic tasks emphasizing child care. For poorer women, especially working class women, although this often remained an ideal,^[specify] economic necessity compelled them to seek employment outside the home. The occupations that were available to them were, however, lower in pay than those available to men.

As changes in the labor market for women came about, availability of employment changed from only "dirty", long hour factory jobs to "cleaner", more respectable office jobs where more education was demanded, women's participation in the U.S. labor force rose from 6% in 1900 to 23% in 1923. These shifts in the labor force led to changes in the attitudes of women at work, allowing for the revolution which resulted in women becoming career and education oriented.

Movements advocate equality of opportunity for both sexes and equal rights irrespective of gender. Through a combination of economic changes and the efforts of the feminist movement,^[specify] in recent decades women in most societies now have access to careers beyond the traditional homemaker.

Although a greater number of women are seeking higher education, salaries are often claimed to be less than those of men. CBS News claims that in the United States women who are ages 30 to 44 and hold a university degree make only 62 percent of what similarly qualified men do, a lower rate than in all but three of the 19 countries for which numbers are available. The nations with greater inequity in pay are Germany, New Zealand and Switzerland.^[18] However, "A study of the gender wage gap conducted by economist June O' Neill, former director of the Congressional Budget Office, found that women earn 98 percent of what men do when controlled for experience, education, and number of years on the job."^[19] A later CBS News article quoted a U.S. Department of Labor study which stated "This study leads to the unambiguous conclusion that the differences in the compensation of men and women are the result of a multitude of factors and that the raw wage gap should not be used as the basis to justify corrective action. Indeed, there may be nothing to correct. The differences in raw wages may be almost entirely the result of the individual choices being made by both male and female workers."^[20] In 2011, A Wall Street Journal article by Carrie Lukas stated that: "A study of single, childless urban workers between the ages of 22 and 30 found that women earned 8% more than men."^[21]

Education[link]

OECD countries[link]

Education[link]

A female biologist weighs a desert tortoise before release.

The educational gender gap in Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries has been reduced over the last 30 years. Younger women today are far more likely to have completed a tertiary qualification: in 19 of the 30 OECD countries, more than twice as many women aged 25 to 34 have completed tertiary education than have women aged 55 to 64. In 21 of 27 OECD countries with comparable data, the number of women graduating from university-level programmes is equal to or exceeds that of men. 15-year-old girls tend to show much higher expectations for their careers than boys of the same age.^[22]

While women account for more than half of university graduates in several OECD countries, they receive only 30% of tertiary degrees granted in science and engineering fields, and women account for only 25% to 35% of researchers in most OECD countries.^[23]

See also[link]

	Gender studies portal
	Feminism portal

• Lady
• Sex assignment
• Trans woman
• Lists of women

Medical:

• Childbirth
• Feminine psychology
• Gender differences
• Obstetrics

Dynamics:

• Femininity
• Feminization (sociology)
• Matriarchy
• Misogyny
• Mitochondrial Eve
• Sexism
• Women in science
• Women in religion

Political:

• Feminism
• Gender studies
• Womyn

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Chafe, William H., "The American Woman: Her Changing Social, Economic, And Political Roles, 1920–1970", Oxford University Press, 1972. ISBN 0-19-501785-4
• Roget’s II: The New Thesaurus, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003 3rd edition) ISBN 0-618-25414-5
• McWhorter, John. 'The Uses of Ugliness', The New Republic Online, January 31, 2002. Retrieved May 11, 2005 ["bitch" as an affectionate term]
• McWhorter, John. Authentically Black: Essays for the Black Silent Majority (New York: Gotham, 2003) ISBN 1-59240-001-9 [casual use of "bitch" in ebonics]
• Routledge international encyclopedia of women, 4 vls., ed. by Cheris Kramarae and Dale Spender, Routledge 2000
• Women in world history : a biographical encyclopedia, 17 vls., ed. by Anne Commire, Waterford, Conn. [etc.] : Yorkin Publ. [etc.], 1999–2002

External links[link]

Look up muliebrity in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Look up Wikisaurus:woman in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Women

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Women

Look up woman in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

History

• Women's History in America
• A History of Women’s Entrance into Medicine in France studies and digitized texts by the BIUM (Bibliothèque interuniversitaire de médecine et d'odontologie, Paris) see its digital library Medic@.

Religion

• Women and Christianity: representations and practices
• Women in Islam

Look up kind in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Kind can mean:

• Kind (type theory), the type of types in a type system
• Natural kind, in philosophy a grouping of things which is a natural grouping, not an artificial one.
• Created kind, often abbreviated to kinds, is a term used by some creation biologists to the describe original forms of life created by God
• Kind can also refer to any of several hundreds in Sweden:
  • In Östergötland:
    • Bankekind Hundred
    • Hammarkind Hundred
    • Hanekind Hundred
    • Kinda Hundred
    • Skärkind Hundred
    • Östkind Hundred
  • In Västergötland:
    • Frökind Hundred
    • Kåkind Hundred
    • Kind Hundred, a hundred divided between Halland, Småland and Västergötland

People[link]

• Adolfo Kind (1848–1907), Swiss chemical engineer and one of the fathers of Italian skiing
• Andy Kind, British stand-up comedian
• Johann Friedrich Kind (1768–1843), German dramatist
• Paolo Kind, son of Adolfo Kind, Italian sci jumper and founder of the "Unione Ski Club Italiani" (today the Federazione Italiana Sport Invernali–FISI)
• Richard Kind (born 1956), US-American actor
• Ron Kind (born 1963), U.S. Representative for Wisconsin's 3rd congressional district
• Thomas Kind Bendiksen (born 1989), Norwegian association footballer

See also[link]

• KIND (disambiguation)
• Kinda (disambiguation)
• kindness

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Stevie Nicks
Stevie Nicks live in 2009.
Background information
Birth name	Stephanie Lynn Nicks
Born	(1948-05-26) May 26, 1948 (age 64)
Origin	Phoenix, Arizona, United States
Genres	Pop, rock, pop rock, soft rock, country rock
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, musician
Instruments	Vocals, piano, keyboards, guitar, percussion
Years active	1967–present
Labels	Modern, Atlantic, Reprise
Associated acts	Fleetwood Mac, Buckingham Nicks, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, David A. Stewart, Sheryl Crow
Website	stevienicks.net

Stephanie Lynn "Stevie" Nicks (born May 26, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter, best known for her work with Fleetwood Mac and an extensive solo career, which collectively have produced over forty Top 50 hits and sold over 140 million albums. She has been noted for her ethereal visual style and symbolic lyrics.^[1] Nicks joined Fleetwood Mac on December 31, 1974, along with her then-boyfriend Lindsey Buckingham. Fleetwood Mac's second album after the incorporation of Nicks and Buckingham, 1977's Rumours, produced four US Top 10 singles (including Nicks's song "Dreams", which was the band's first and only US number one) and remained at No.1 on the American albums chart for 31 weeks, as well as reaching the top spot in various countries around the world. To date the album has sold over 40 million copies worldwide, making it the eighth best-selling album of all time.

Nicks began her solo career in 1981 with the 8 million selling album Bella Donna, and she has produced six more solo studio albums to date. Her seventh solo studio album entitled In Your Dreams, and her first in ten years, was produced largely by Dave Stewart of Eurythmics fame and Glen Ballard and was released on May 3, 2011. After the release of her first solo album, Rolling Stone deemed her "The Reigning Queen of Rock and Roll".^[2] Having overcome cocaine addiction, and dependency on tranquilizers, Nicks remains a popular solo performer. As a solo artist, she has garnered eight Grammy Award nominations^[3] and, with Fleetwood Mac, a further five, of which one was the 1978 award for Album of the Year for Rumours, which they won. As a member of Fleetwood Mac, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998. Nicks is known for her distintive voice, mystical visual style and symbolic lyrics as well as the famous (sometimes tense) chemistry between herself and former boyfriend and guitarist/vocalist in Fleetwood Mac, Lindsey Buckingham.^[4]

History[link]

Early life[link]

Nicks was born at Good Samaritan Hospital in Phoenix, Arizona, to Jess Nicks, a corporate executive, and Barbara Nicks, a homemaker. Nicks' grandfather, Aaron Jess Nicks, a struggling country music singer, taught Nicks to sing, performing duets with her by the time she was four years old. Nicks' mother was very protective of her, keeping her at home "more than most people were" and fostering in her a love of fairy tales.^[5][6] As a young child, Nicks had difficulty pronouncing her given name Stephanie, instead pronouncing it "tee-dee", which became the nickname "Stevie".^[7] Nicks' father Jess's career as a food business executive necessitated frequent moves, and the family lived in Phoenix, Albuquerque, El Paso, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco during Nicks' youth. With the Goya guitar that she received for her sixteenth birthday, Nicks wrote her first song called "I've Loved and I've Lost, and I'm Sad But Not Blue". She joined her first band "The Changing Times" while attending Arcadia High School in Arcadia, California.

Nicks first met her future musical and romantic partner Lindsey Buckingham during her senior year at Menlo Atherton High School.^[8] She was attending a high school party and saw Buckingham playing "California Dreamin'", and joined in with the harmony.^[9] Buckingham contacted Nicks a few years later and asked her to join him and his bandmates Javier Pacheco and Calvin Roper in a band called Fritz. Fritz became popular as a live act from 1968 until 1972, opening for popular musicians Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, among others, in the San Francisco Bay Area.^[10] Both Nicks and Buckingham attended San Jose State University in Northern California, where Nicks majored in Speech Communication. They dropped out in 1968 and moved to Los Angeles together to pursue a career in music when Nicks' family moved to Chicago.^[11]

[edit] Buckingham Nicks: 1972–1974

After Fritz disbanded in 1972, Nicks and Buckingham continued to write and record as a duo, producing demo tapes at the coffee plant belonging to Buckingham's father Morris.^[12] They secured a deal with Polydor Records. Polydor used tracks from the demo tapes to release the album^{[clarification needed]} Buckingham Nicks in 1973. The album was not a commercial success, despite the live shows that Nicks and Buckingham performed together to support it, and Polydor dropped the pair from the label. To support herself and Buckingham, who wrote music while recovering from mononucleosis, Nicks worked a variety of jobs, which included waiting tables and a stint cleaning engineer/producer Keith Olsen's house, where Nicks and Buckingham lived for a time.^[13] Nicks says that she first used cocaine during this time.^[14]

Nicks and Buckingham briefly relocated to Aspen, Colorado. While there, Buckingham landed a guitar-playing gig with the Everly Brothers, and toured with them while Nicks stayed behind. During this time, Nicks wrote "Rhiannon" after seeing the name in the novel Triad by Mary Leader, unaware at the time of the Mabinogi legend of Rhiannon. She also wrote "Landslide", inspired by the scenery of Aspen and her inner turmoil over her decision to pursue music.^[15]

[edit] Fleetwood Mac and Rumours: 1975–1978

Nicks and Buckingham joined Fleetwood Mac on December 31, 1974, after Keith Olsen played their track "Frozen Love" for drummer Mick Fleetwood, who had come to Studio City in California, in search of a studio to record Fleetwood Mac's next album. Fleetwood remembered Buckingham's guitar work after guitar player Bob Welch's departure to pursue a solo career. Initially extending the offer only to Buckingham, Fleetwood later included Nicks in the offer when Buckingham insisted that they were "a package deal".

In 1975 the band achieved success with the album Fleetwood Mac. That same year, Nicks worked with clothing designer Margi Kent to develop Nicks's unique onstage look, with costumes that featured flowing skirts, shawls and platform boots.^[16]

Following the success of Fleetwood Mac, increasing tension between Nicks and Buckingham began to take its toll on their creativity, and Nicks ended the relationship.^[17][18] Fleetwood Mac began recording their follow-up album, Rumours, in early 1976 and continued until late in the year. Also, Nicks and Buckingham sang back-up on Warren Zevon's debut album.^[19][20]

Among Nicks's contributions to Rumours was "Dreams", which became the band's only Billboard Hot 100 No.1 hit single to date. Nicks had also written and recorded the song "Silver Springs", but it was ultimately not included on the album because of space limitations for studio albums on vinyl records, which were limited to 24 minutes per side. Instead, it was released as a B-side of the "Go Your Own Way" single, and would remain in some obscurity until it appeared on the four-disc Fleetwood Mac retrospective 25 Years – The Chain in 1992. The song, the rights to which are owned by Nicks's mother Barbara, has always been very special to Nicks, and she was devastated when told about the omission after the decision had been made.^[21]

In November 1977, after a New Zealand concert for the Rumours tour, Nicks and Fleetwood, who was married to Jenny Boyd, secretly began an affair.^[22][23] The pair mutually decided to end the affair, because, according to Nicks, "we knew it would be the end of Fleetwood Mac."^[24] Soon after, in October 1978, Mick Fleetwood left his wife for Nicks's best friend Sara Recor.^[25] After the success of the Rumours album and tour in 1977–78, Fleetwood Mac began recording their third album with Buckingham and Nicks, Tusk, in the spring of 1978. That year, Nicks sang back-up on virtually every track of Not Shy, recorded by musician Walter Egan, a friend of both Nicks and Buckingham. One track, "Magnet & Steel", prominently featured Nicks on back-up vocals and became a hit single on Billboard's "Hot 100" chart during the summer of 1978. Lindsey Buckingham also played guitar and sang back-up on some of the tracks recorded for that album.

[edit] Tusk, Bella Donna and Mirage: 1978–1982

By 1978, Nicks had amassed a large backlog of songs dating back to her Buckingham Nicks days that she had been unable to record and release with Fleetwood Mac because of the constraint of having to accommodate three songwriters on each album.^[26] Nicks wrote and recorded demos for the solo project during Tusk sessions in 1979 and the Tusk world tour of 1979–80. Nicks, Danny Goldberg, and Paul Fishkin founded Modern Records to record and release Nicks's material. Nicks recorded the hit duets "Whenever I Call You Friend" with Kenny Loggins in 1978, and "Gold" with John Stewart in 1979.

Fleetwood Mac's Tusk was released on October 19, 1979. During 1981, Nicks toured with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and New Zealand band Split Enz as a guest.

Nicks released Bella Donna on July 27, 1981 to critical and commercial acclaim. Bella Donna was the first album to feature Nicks's back-up singers, Sharon Celani and Lori Perry, who have contributed vocals to all of Nicks's solo albums since then.

The day that Bella Donna reached No.1 on the Billboard 200, Nicks's best friend Robin Anderson was diagnosed with leukemia. Robin gave birth to a son, appointing Nicks as the child's godmother. Following Robin's death in 1982, Nicks married Robin's widower Kim Anderson. They divorced eight months later.^[27]

In November, 1981, Nicks embarked on the White Winged Dove tour, which she had to cut short to record the Mirage album with Fleetwood Mac. After the Mirage tour in 1982, Nicks prepared to record her second solo album.

[edit] Wild Heart and Rock a Little: 1983–1986

Nicks released The Wild Heart on June 10, 1983. The album introduced songwriter and performer Sandy Stewart as co-writer, vocalist, and musician. The Wild Heart went double platinum, reached No.5 on the Billboard album chart, and featured three hit singles. Nicks performed at the second US Festival at Glen Helen Regional Park in San Bernardino, California, and later toured the US from June 1983 to November 1983. Nicks appeared on Saturday Night Live in 1983, performing "Stand Back" and "Nightbird".

Following the tour for The Wild Heart, Nicks commenced work on her third solo album. Originally titled Mirror Mirror, Nicks recorded songs for the album during 1984. However, Nicks was unhappy with the album, and opted to record a new batch of songs in 1985.^[28] Rock a Little, as it was re-titled, was released November 18, 1985 to commercial success, supported by three hit singles.

Nicks toured for Rock A Little in 1986. The tour ended on October 10, 1986.

The tour marked a turning point in Nicks's career: although she had achieved significant critical acclaim, drugs were taking a toll on her performing, affecting her vocals and changing her on-stage persona.^{[citation needed]} In 1986, a plastic surgeon warned her of severe health problems if she did not stop using cocaine.^[29] At the end of the Australian tour, Nicks checked herself into the Betty Ford Center to overcome her cocaine addiction.^[30] Later that year, a doctor prescribed the sedative Klonopin to help her avoid a cocaine relapse.^[31]

[edit] Tango in the Night, The Other Side of the Mirror, and Behind The Mask : 1987–1990

In 1985, Fleetwood Mac began work on Tango in the Night, which was released in April 1987.

Creative differences and unresolved personal issues within the band led Buckingham to quit the group right before their world tour. According to bassist John McVie, a "physically ugly" confrontation between Nicks and Buckingham ensued when Nicks angrily challenged Buckingham's decision to leave the band.^[32]

The band embarked on the Shake The Cage tour in September 1987, with Buckingham replaced by Rick Vito and Billy Burnette. The tour was suspended during Nicks's bout with chronic fatigue syndrome and developing addiction to tranquilizers, though it resumed in 1988. Tango in the Night met with commercial success and was followed in 1988 by Fleetwood Mac's Greatest Hits album in November 1988.

Also in 1988, Nicks began work on a fourth solo album with British producer Rupert Hine. The Other Side of the Mirror was released on May 11, 1989 to commercial success. Nicks became romantically involved with Hine.^[33]

Nicks toured the US and Europe from August to November 1989, the only time she has toured Europe as a solo act. She has famously been quoted since as stating that she has "no memory of this tour" due to her increasing dependency on the tranquillizer Klonopin,^[34] prescribed in ever increasing amounts by a psychiatrist between 1987 and 1994 in an attempt to keep Nicks from regressing to her former abuse of cocaine.

In 1989, Nicks set to work with Fleetwood Mac on a new album, Behind the Mask, which was released in 1990 to moderate commercial success in the US. In the UK, however, the album entered the chart at No.1 and has been certified Platinum there. The band went on a world tour to promote the album, on the last night of which Buckingham and Nicks reunited on stage to perform "Landslide".^[35] After the tour concluded, Nicks left the group over a dispute with Mick Fleetwood, who would not allow her to release the 1977 track "Silver Springs" on her album Timespace – The Best of Stevie Nicks, because of his plans to release it on a forthcoming Fleetwood Mac box set.^[36]

[edit] Timespace and Street Angel: 1991–1996

On the tenth anniversary of her solo career debut, Nicks released Timespace – The Best of Stevie Nicks on September 3, 1991.

Fleetwood Mac also released a four-disc box set, 25 Years – The Chain, which included "Silver Springs".

During the 1992 US presidential campaign, Bill Clinton used the Fleetwood Mac hit "Don't Stop" as his campaign theme song, and Nicks joined her band mates to perform the song at Clinton's 1993 Inaugural Gala. No plans for an official reunion were made at that time. Nicks was criticized for her weight gain.^[37] Nicks, who is 5 feet 1 inch (1.55 m), had gained weight, peaking at 175 lb (79.4 kg).

In late 1993, while Nicks held a baby shower at her house, she tripped and cut her forehead near a fireplace. Not feeling any pain from the injury, Nicks realized she needed help and endured a painful 47-day detox from Klonopin in a hospital.^[38]

Nicks used material written mostly in previous years to record a solo album in 1992 and 1993 entitled Street Angel, which was ultimately released following her detox in May 1994. Nicks has expressed major disappointment with the album, claiming that a lot of production work took place during her second stint in rehab, meaning she had little to no say over the final product.^[39]

Released May 23, 1994, Street Angel was poorly received. Despite praise from critics and fans for her vocals on the three-month Street Angel tour, Nicks was crushed by the focus on her weight and the poor reception of the album itself. Disgusted by the criticism she received during the tour for being overweight, Nicks vowed to never set foot on a stage again unless she slimmed down.^[40]

In 1995, Nicks was reunited with Lindsey Buckingham and contributed the duet "Twisted" to the Twister movie soundtrack, while in 1996 the Sheryl Crow penned "Somebody Stand By Me" featured on the Boys on the Side soundtrack, and Nicks also remade Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'" for Fox's TV hit Party of Five.

[edit] The Dance: 1997–1998

In 1996 Lindsey Buckingham, working on a planned solo album, enlisted the help of Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, which eventually led to a reunion of the entire band. A newly invigorated and slimmed down Nicks joined Fleetwood Mac for The Dance, a highly successful 1997 tour that coincided with the 20th anniversary of the release of Rumours. Prior to the tour, Nicks started work with a voice coach, to lend her voice more control and protect it from the stress of lengthy touring schedules. She also went on a diet and started jogging to lose weight before the tour as well.

The live CD release, The Dance, was released to commercial and critical acclaim, earning the group several Grammy nominations. In 1998, Nicks joined the group for its induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This same year, she won the Outstanding Contribution at the BRIT Awards.

Nicks put work on a new solo album on hold when she was approached by Warner Music to release a solo career-spanning box set, to finish her contract with Atlantic Records in the US. After the culmination of the Fleetwood Mac reunion tour, Nicks settled down in Los Angeles and Phoenix with close friends and colleagues to devise a track list for this three-disc collection.

[edit] Enchanted and Trouble in Shangri-La: 1998–2001

The box set Enchanted was released to acclaim on April 28, 1998 with liner notes from Nicks, as well as exclusive rare photographs, and pages from her journals. Nicks supported the box set with a successful US tour. In 1998, Nicks contributed to the Practical Magic soundtrack and performed in Don Henley's benefit concert for the Walden Woods Project.

Nicks had begun writing actively for Trouble in Shangri-La in 1994 and 1995 as she came out of her Klonopin dependency. According to Nicks, friend and former musical partner Tom Petty was responsible for convincing her to write music again when he rebuffed her request that he write a song with her. Nicks resumed recording songs for the Trouble in Shangri-La album with Sheryl Crow, who produced and performed on several tracks. When a scheduling conflict forced Crow to drop out of the project, Nicks first approached R&B producer Dallas Austin, but these sessions have never surfaced. Nicks finally called on John Shanks to produce the remainder of the album, with additional contributions from David Kahne, Rick Nowels, Pierre Marchand, and Jeff Trott. Artists Natalie Maines, Sarah McLachlan, and Macy Gray contributed to some of the tracks.

Released May 1, 2001, Trouble in Shangri-La restored Nicks's solo career to critical and commercial success. "Planets of the Universe" was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance, and Nicks was named VH1's "Artist of the Month" for May 2001. Nicks was named one of People magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People, was featured in a well-received Behind The Music episode, and performed an episode of the VH1 Storytellers Concert Program. Nicks made several television appearances in support of the album and performed at the 2001 Radio Music Awards.

Nicks supported the album with a successful tour, although some shows were canceled or postponed because of Nicks's bout with acute bronchitis. Shows were also canceled because of the September 11 attacks in the U.S.

[edit] Say You Will: 2001–2004

during Fleetwood Mac's 2003 tour.

In 2001, Fleetwood Mac began work on a new studio album. After the end of her solo tour, Nicks convened with the other members of the band for recording during 2002.

Say You Will was released in April 2003 and met with commercial success but mixed reviews. Nicks joined the group to support the album with a world tour lasting until September 2004.

Nicks has subsequently stated in several interviews that she was not happy with the album or the successful world tour that followed, citing production disputes with Buckingham as a core factor, as well as the absence of fellow female band member Christine McVie.^[41] A documentary of the making of the album, Destiny Rules, was released on DVD in 2004 and chronicles the sometimes turbulent relationships between band members, especially Buckingham and Nicks, during that time in the studio.

[edit] Crystal Visions and Soundstage Sessions: 2007–2009

On March 27, 2007, Reprise Records released Crystal Visions – The Very Best of Stevie Nicks in the US. The album debuted at No.21 on the Billboard 200 Albums Chart.

The compilation includes her hit singles, a dance remix, and one new track, a live version of Led Zeppelin's "Rock and Roll". There are two versions of this album, one with just the audio CD and another version with an included DVD featuring all of Nicks's music videos with audio commentary from Nicks, as well as rare footage from the Bella Donna recording sessions.

A tour with Chris Isaak, opening in Concord, California on May 17, 2007 supported the release.

Reprise Records initially released two radio only promos, the live version of "Landslide" with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and "Rock and Roll". Both tracks failed to garner much airplay and made no impact on the charts. Reprise Records released "Stand Back" (issued with club mixes) on May 29, 2007. "Stand Back", which peaked at No.5 on the pop singles chart in 1983, reached No.2 on the "Billboard Club Chart". Nicks previously reached No.1 on this chart, with "Planets Of The Universe" (from Trouble in Shangri-La) in 2001. The remix single of "Stand Back" debuted on the Billboard Hot Singles Sales Chart on September 15, 2007 at No.10 peaking at No.4 the following week. It also debuted on the Billboard Hot Dance Singles Sales Chart at No.3 peaking at #1.

On March 31, 2009, Stevie released the album, The Soundstage Sessions, via Reprise Records. The album debuted at No.47 on the Billboard 200 Albums Chart. The first single from the album was "Crash Into Me" and was released as a digital download, along with "Landslide" (orchestra version) as a B-side, on March 17, 2009.

Along with the CD, Nicks also released a DVD titled Live In Chicago. Both are of her October 2007 Soundstage performance which was filmed and recorded before an intimate audience at Grainger Studio in Chicago. The DVD features special guest Vanessa Carlton.

[edit] In Your Dreams: 2010–present

After completing the Unleashed Tour with Fleetwood Mac, Stevie began work on her first solo album in a decade with David A. Stewart (musician and record producer, best known for his work with Eurythmics), who announced this via his Twitter in February 2010. During 2010, Stewart used Twitter to confirm various facts about the album; in one of the tweets, Stewart stated that he, Nicks, Waddy Wachtel, Mike Campbell (of the Heartbreakers), Mike Rowe, and Steve Ferrone were all working on the album, and that Mick Fleetwood has also contributed drums to at least one track. Waddy Wachtel has been Nicks's lead guitarist for most of her solo career, featuring prominently on all of her albums to date. It was also later confirmed that Lindsey Buckingham would appear on the track "Soldiers Angel".

Nicks performed in a series of shows in August 2010 ("it's not really a tour," she said). They did not contain any of her new music, because she does not want it to end up on YouTube. The Santa Barbara show benefited a little girl she knows in Los Angeles with rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare cancer.

On January 13, 2011, Reprise announced Stevie's upcoming album In Your Dreams would be released on May 3, and the lead single, "Secret Love", would be released on February 8. Reprise provided a free download of the single to fans who pre-ordered the album via certain websites. Nicks originally wrote "Secret Love" in 1976 and recorded a demo of it for Fleetwood Mac's 1977 album, Rumours. It did not make the final cut for the album. The demo version had been circulating among fans for many years prior to its inclusion on In Your Dreams. Nicks promoted the song with a video directed by Dave Stewart. Nicks' goddaughter Kelly appears in the video wearing a vintage dress that Nicks wore on stage in 1976. According to Nicks, Kelly portrays the young Stevie Nicks blending with the soul of Nicks' 62 year-old self. On the US Billboard Charts, "Secret Love" was a modest hit on the Adult Contemporary Singles Chart, peaking at #20, and at #25 on the Triple A Singles Chart.

In Your Dreams received overwhelmingly positive reviews, rivaling that of Stevie's 1981 debut. Rolling Stone commented "It's not just her first album in 10 years, it's her finest collection of songs since the Eighties", which mirrored the reception from most other critics and music industry members. The album debuted at #6 on the Billboard 200 giving Nicks her fifth top ten album on that chart,^[42] with 52,000 copies sold in the first week. Elsewhere, the album has made numerous Top 50 debuts, including #24 on the Australian ARIA Chart and #22 in Canada.

The same day that Nicks' new album was released, Fox Network broadcast the Glee episode (Season 2, Episode 19) "Rumours" that featured six songs from Fleetwood Mac's 1977 album, including Nicks' song "Dreams" (the band's only #1 song on the US charts).^[43] The show sparked renewed interest in the band and its most commercially successful album, and Rumours reentered the Billboard 200 chart at #11, the same week that In Your Dreams debuted at #6. (Nicks was quoted by Billboard saying that her new album was "my own little Rumours."^[44]).^[45]

Nicks contributed a cover of Buddy Holly's "Not Fade Away" for the tribute album Listen to Me: Buddy Holly, which was released in September 2011.^[46][47]

On March 29, 2012, Nicks made a guest appearance as herself on the NBC sitcom Up All Night. The show featured an excerpt of the 1981 track "Sleeping Angel", as well as new duets with both Maya Rudolph and Christina Applegate of "Whenever I Call You Friend" and "Edge of Seventeen". Rudolph and Applegate have said they are fans of the singer.^{[citation needed]}

Tours[link]

Nicks on the 2008 leg of her "Crystal Visions" tour.

After a few months' respite from the Say You Will tour, Nicks did a four-night stint in May 2005 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, and then did a 10-show tour with Don Henley. During the summer of 2005, Nicks continued the tour solo with pop singer Vanessa Carlton as the opening act, playing over 20 dates nationwide.

In October 2005, she attended the Melbourne Cup Week in Australia, and one of the horse racing stakes was named after her: The Stevie Nicks Plate. She used this opportunity to launch her promotion of an Australian/New Zealand extension to her Gold Dust Tour in February and March 2006. Nicks toured in Australia and New Zealand with popular Australian performer John Farnham.^[48] She also appeared in concert with Tom Petty in June near Manassas, Virginia and at the Bonnaroo Music Festival that same month.^[49]

In 2006, Nicks performed with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers for the first leg of their tour in the summer, and later in the year returned as a guest performer for a number of songs on the tour celebrating Petty's 30th anniversary since his debut album. Tom Petty's Homecoming Concert in Gainesville, FL, which contained performances with Stevie Nicks, was filmed for PBS Soundstage as well as DVD release for March 2007. Nicks was also the featured performer for Bette Midler's benefit function, Hullaween, in October 2006.^[50]

Beginning in May 2007, Nicks began touring with pop/rock artist Chris Isaak. The last Stevie Nicks/Chris Isaak show was June 17, 2007 at the Tweeter Center in Boston, MA. Nicks continued the tour solo, with Vanessa Carlton opening on some dates. The tour finished at The Borgata in Atlantic City on August 24, 2007.

In 2008, Nicks embarked on the Soundstage Sessions Tour in the U.S.

In 2009, Fleetwood Mac embarked on a global hits tour. The Unleashed Tour took place in arenas on multiple continents. The tour ended in December with two sell-out shows of 35,000 people at the New Plymouth TSB Bowl of Brooklands in New Zealand.

Rod Stewart and Nicks co-headlined The Heart & Soul Tour. Launched March 20, 2011 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the tour united the two singers for a series of arena concerts throughout North America – with performances in New York, Toronto, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, Tampa, Montreal and more.^{[51][dated info]}

A solo tour for In Your Dreams began on August 9, 2011 in Denver, Colorado. Nicks announced on her July 27 appearance on America's Got Talent that Michael Grimm would be going on tour with her. She then continued on an Australian and New Zealand leg of the tour accompanied by Dave Stewart until December 2011.

In recent weeks, a series of summer 2012 dates have been announced as Stevie will reunite with Rod Stewart for another leg of the very successful Heart & Soul Tour. Dates announced are currently for arena concerts in US cities only, but further announcements are being released to the internet daily.

Dates are also now being advertised for a continuation of the 'In Your Dreams' tour, kicking off in June 2012 and calling at several US cities.

Solo tours[link]

• Buckingham Nicks Tour: 1974–1975 (with Lindsey Buckingham)
• White Winged Dove (Bella Donna) Tour: 1981
• The Wild Heart Tour: 1983 (with Joe Walsh)
• Rock A Little Tour: 1986
• The Other Side of the Mirror Tour: 1989
• Whole Lotta Trouble (Timespace) Tour: 1991
• Street Angel Tour: 1994
• Enchanted Tour: 1998
• Holiday Millennium Tour: 1999–2000
• Trouble In Shangri-La Tour: 2001 (on select dates with Sheryl Crow)
• Two Voices Tour: 2005 (with Don Henley)
• Gold Dust Tour: 2005–2006 (with Vanessa Carlton)
• Crystal Visions Tour: 2007–2008
• Soundstage Sessions Tour: 2008 (with Chris Isaak)
• Heart & Soul Tour (with Rod Stewart): 2011, 2012
• In Your Dreams Tour: 2011, 2012

Touring band (2011)[link]

• Sharon Celani – Backing vocals (1981–present)
• Waddy Wachtel – Lead guitarist, Musical director (1981–1986, 2001–present)
• Lori Nicks – Backing vocals (1981–1989, 1996, 2007–present)
• Carlos Rios – Rhythm guitar (1988–present)
• Al Ortiz – Bass guitar (2001–present)
• Lenny Castro – Percussionist ( 1994–2001, 2007-present)
• Jimmy Paxson – Drums (2005–present)
• Darrell Smith – Keyboardist (2005–present)
• Ricky Peterson – Keyboardist (2007–present)

"Stevie Nicks' Band of Soldiers" charity work[link]

Nicks has started a charity foundation entitled "Stevie Nicks' Band of Soldiers" which is used for the benefit of wounded military personnel.^[52]

In late 2004, Nicks began visiting Army and Navy medical centers in Washington, D.C. While visiting wounded service men and women, Nicks became determined to find an object she could leave with each soldier that would raise their spirits, motivate, and give them something to look forward to each day. She eventually decided to purchase hundreds of iPod Nanos, load them with music, artists, and playlists which she would hand select, and autograph them:^[53]

"I call it a soldiers' iPod. It has all the crazy stuff that I listen to, and my collections I've been making since the '70s for going on the road, when I'm sick...Or the couple of times in my life that I have really been down, music is what always dances me out of bed." - Stevie Nicks. The Arizona Republic

She now regularly delivers these tokens of her appreciation, bringing her closest friends along to share the experience:^[53]

"So, as Mick [Fleetwood] and I went from room to room delivering their tiny iPod, they told us their stories. Mick became his tall, loving, father figure, English self, taking in every word they said, remaining calm (at least on the outside) inspiring them. We floated from room to room down thru the halls of the 2 hospitals over a three-day period. We gave out all our iPods. Right before I left for D.C., Stephen Tyler and Joe Perry dug into their pockets and came up with $10,000 for me. In my eyes they went from the coolest rock stars to generous great men; as my press agent Liz Rosenberg said, every returning wounded soldier should be given an iPod. It will be an integral part of their recovery." - Stevie Nicks^[53]

In 2006, Nicks held a get-together to raise money for her charity work. Many of her peers made contributions. Nicks continues to develop this philanthropic endeavor.^[54]

Influence[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2011)

Many celebrities - among them Courtney Love, Michelle Branch, Belinda Carlisle, the Dixie Chicks, Mary J. Blige, Sheryl Crow, Nadia Ali, Florence Welch, Taylor Swift, Laura Branigan, Sarah McLachlan, Kelly Clarkson, Vanessa Carlton, Georgi Cussick, Tori Amos, Michelle Hotaling, Jennifer Hanson, Ruston Taylor, and Delta Goodrem - have cited Nicks as an inspiration. She has participated in duets or provided guest vocals for several of their albums and some have returned the favour, notably Crow and the Dixie Chicks. The Dixie Chicks covered her 1975 classic "Landslide", which became a Top 10 hit (#1 on the Adult Contemporary chart) and a No.1 Hit on the Country Chart. Alternative rock band The Smashing Pumpkins made an acoustic cover of the song that was featured on their 1994 B-side collection Pisces Iscariot. The cover was a hit and made it to the top three on the Modern Rock Tracks chart in the US that year. She recorded a duet of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" with Chris Isaak on his 2004 Christmas album Chris Isaak Christmas and sang with Isaak on his PBS Christmas television special. Other successful covers have included The Corrs' "Dreams", and Courtney Love's band Hole with "Gold Dust Woman". "Edge Of Seventeen" was sampled on Destiny's Child's 2001 No.1 single "Bootylicious". Nicks appeared in the video for "Bootylicious" and in an episode of MTV's Making The Video that featured it, in which she expressed her admiration for both the song and the group. Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys has expressed extreme interest in working with Nicks. Lindsay Lohan covered "Edge of Seventeen" on her 2005 album, A Little More Personal. Deep Dish fulfilled their "Dreams" of working with Nicks in 2005 when Nicks offered to re-record vocals on a remix of her No.1 penned song, "Dreams". The Deep Dish version went on to reach No.2 on the Billboard Hot Dance Airplay Chart, as well as providing Nicks with her third UK top 40 hit. Nicks provided additional vocals and writing on Vanessa Carlton's 2007 album Heroes and Thieves. Carlton had previously been on tour with Nicks in 2005 and 2006.

The Dixie Chicks' cover of Nicks's 1975 song "Landslide" also earned her a BMI Songwriters Award in 2003 when it won "Song of the Year" (the award is given to the songwriter of the track, regardless of the performer). According to BMI, "Landslide" also earned Nicks the 35th Robert J. Burton Award as "Most Performed Country Song of the Year". This distinction is given to the song tallying the most feature US broadcast performances during the eligibility period. Included on the Dixie Chicks' platinum Monument album Home, "Landslide" was a Country, Adult Top 40, Hot 100 and AC Billboard charts smash. Nicks previously collected a Pop Award in 1998 for Fleetwood Mac's recording of the song, which has achieved Million-Air status with over three million airplays.^[55]

On January 31, 2010, Nicks performed with Taylor Swift at the 52nd Grammy Awards. Swift, who describes Nicks as one of her childhood heroes, introduced her to the audience by saying "It's a fairy tale and an honor to share the stage with Stevie Nicks."^[56]

On February 4, 2012 (the 35th anniversary of the release of Rumours), the group Mirabelle released Crystal Revisions, a tribute album consisting of Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks covers.^[57]

Personal life[link]

During the Rumours tour, Nicks had a relationship with singer/songwriter Don Henley of the Eagles. Nicks ended her relationship with Henley at the beginning of the Tusk tour in 1979.

Her only marriage was to Kim Anderson, the widower of her friend Robin Anderson, soon after Robin died of leukemia while Bella Donna was on the top of the charts. Stevie and Kim were soon divorced: "We didn't get married because we were in love, we got married because we were grieving and it was the only way that we could feel like we were doing anything."^[27][58]

Until July 2007 Nicks lived in Paradise Valley, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix in a home she had built in 1981 and shared with brother Chris, his wife Lori and their daughter Jessica. She announced in mid-2007 that her Paradise Valley home would be put up for sale, citing her aspirations to "downsize" and focus more on her charity work, and the fact that in the last year she had only "spent about two weeks there." The house was put on the market for a reported $3.8 million, and many fans, feeling it was the end of a major era in her life and career, tagged it as a "Kingdom Up For Sale", a line from the song "Gold Dust Woman". She also owns a home in Pacific Palisades, California.

According to a September 2007 article in the Daily Telegraph, Nicks says she is again selling her home, her recently purchased Pacific Palisades home (purchased two years before by Nicks, right down the street from a rental home she had for years in Pacific Palisades). She has said it is a "house for adults", "And even though I'm pushing 60 I don't feel that I'm that old yet." She will be moving to a penthouse apartment on the beach and the old house is already on the market.^[59]

Beginning in 2007, reports surfaced concerning Lindsay Lohan's interest in buying the rights to Nicks's life story and developing a motion picture in which she planned to play Nicks. In March 2007, while promoting her album Crystal Visions, Nicks was asked about this rumor. Nicks told Access Hollywood, "That is completely insane and crazy. There is no movie in the works on my life. Nobody can do a movie about my life without me being involved, because nobody knows what really happened in my life until I tell them. So, nobody can make a movie about my life. And if anybody ever went and made a movie about my life without my permission and my being involved, I would slam it so hard to the press that it would never do anything." Nicks has gone on record to the New York Times as being strongly opposed to the prospect, and was quoted in 2009 as saying "Over my dead body. She needs to stop doing drugs and get a grip. Then maybe we'll talk."^[60] She has since cleared up her comments and praised Lohan's talents.^[61]

Image[link]

Stevie Nicks is known for her mystical image, her billowing chiffon skirts, shawls, layers of lace and long blonde hair. Margi Kent, a designer from California, has worked with Nicks since the 1970s to perfect her style. Perhaps the most famous part of Nicks's wardrobe is her platform boots. Nicks has worn suede platform boots in various colors, usually black, cream, tan or maroon in almost all of her performances since 1975. Standing at 5 feet 1 inch (1.55 m), Nicks has stated she felt a little ridiculous standing next to the much taller Mick Fleetwood.^[62] For this reason she developed a penchant for 6-inch (15 cm) platform boots. "Even when platforms went completely out of style, I kept wearing them because I didn't want to go back to being 5 feet 3 inches (1.60 m) in heels", she told Allure magazine in 1995.^[63] Over the years, Nicks has developed a style which she calls her "uniform",^[64] which is best exemplified by the outfit worn on the cover of Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, perhaps the base inspiration for many of her costumes. Another trademark of Nicks's is a Dickens-style gentleman's formal top hat, which she began wearing in the late 1970s. During the early 1980s she wore Renaissance poets' velvet berets with plume feathers (as shown in the vintage photo used on the cover of her March 2007 CD release Crystal Visions – The Very Best of Stevie Nicks). In the late 1980s and early 1990s, she wore fashionable ladies hats on stage and to this day, often still sports a black top hat adorned with giant plumes.

Many of Nicks's shawls and capes also have an association with her songs in her live performances, many becoming as signature in live performances as the songs themselves. These include a red/crimson shawl for "Sara", white for "Edge of Seventeen", gold for "Gold Dust Woman" and black with round gold circles for "Stand Back". One of her trademarks is twirling across the stage with shawls flying during the interlude of her classic songs, notably "Stand Back" and "Gypsy".

Nicks has said that her vocal style and performance antics evolved from female singers like Grace Slick and Janis Joplin. She admitted inspiration when she saw Joplin perform live (and opened for with her first band "Fritz") shortly before Joplin's death. Nicks owns a strand of Joplin's stage beads. She also commented that she once saw a woman in her audience dressed in dripping chiffon with a Gibson Girl hairstyle and big boots and Nicks knew she wanted something similar. She took the look and made it her own.^[65] Another important part of Nicks's image is her jewelry. Nicks typically introduces one signature piece of jewelry during each tour. Such items have included silver bracelets, crescent moon pendant, pyramid-shaped pendant, winged-heart pendant, gold crosses and, most recently, a Tiffany pendant with diamonds meaning "longevity." The crescent moon pendant is arguably the most iconic of all Nicks's jewelry – the original was bought while she was in England on tour with Fleetwood Mac during the Tusk era. Nicks then had her personal jeweler, Henri David of Philadelphia, make replicas of the moon pendant which have become treasured gifts to her friends. In recent years, celebrity pals such as Bette Midler and ice-skating star Tai Babilonia have been photographed wearing their "Stevie moons".

Nicks has even commented in interviews recently^[when?] that she never would have dreamed that her trademark "Bella Donna/Witchy Woman" image would have been taken so seriously by her fans, often joking that she does not live her private life in her stage clothes and "Stevie garb" as many people seem to think. However, she greatly credits her career/stage image for its role in giving her a trademark that has made her unique and "timeless."

Microphone and tambourine[link]

Stevie Nicks is known for her use of the Sennheiser MD-441-U5 microphone.^[66] It was a frequent sight in Nicks's early tours. Also synonymous with Nicks's microphone are the items with which she chooses to decorate her microphone stand. Over the years, such items have included roses, ribbons, chiffon, crystal beads, scarves and small stuffed toys.^[67]

Upon being asked in a question forum on her official website about playing the tambourine, Nicks stated that she began playing the tambourine upon joining Fleetwood Mac in 1975, feeling the need to do something onstage during songs that featured Buckingham or McVie. Like her microphone, her tambourine usually features scarves and/or streamers. Nicks's trademark tambourine since the early 1980s is in the shape of a black half-moon. The tambourine is sometimes silenced using tape. She has spoken of being embarrassed about handing President Bill Clinton a silenced tambourine when he joined Fleetwood Mac on stage.

Rumours of witchcraft[link]

A rumor that has trailed Nicks through the years is that she is a witch and is heavily involved in Wicca. While she admits to having a high regard for the mythic and gothic, she denies any solitary dedication to any one religion, including Wicca. She speaks about this erroneous image in a 2006 interview.^[68] Nicks's music is copyrighted under the name Welsh Witch Music, a reference to her song "Rhiannon", which she introduced as "a song about a Welsh witch" in concerts between 1975 and 1978. In a Yahoo! interview on April 28, 1998, Nicks said of the rumor: "I have no idea what precipitated those rumors… I am not a witch. Get a life!" Nicks also stated in a 1983 Entertainment Tonight interview: "I spent thousands of dollars on beautiful black clothes and had to stop wearing them for a long time because a lot of people scared me. And that's really unfair to me, I think, for people – other people – to conjure up their ideas of what I am or what I believe in." In a 1998 Redbook magazine article, Nicks spoke of her faith, stating that she believes in angels and knows that she is alive today because "there was a God" looking out for her during her years of addiction.

Discography[link]

Solo[link]

Studio albums[link]

• Bella Donna (1981)
• The Wild Heart (1983)
• Rock a Little (1985)
• The Other Side of the Mirror (1989)
• Street Angel (1994)
• Trouble in Shangri-La (2001)
• In Your Dreams (2011)

Live album[link]

• The Soundstage Sessions (2009)

Compilations[link]

• Timespace – The Best of Stevie Nicks (1991)
• Enchanted (3 CD box set) (1998)
• Crystal Visions – The Very Best of Stevie Nicks (2007)

Solo videos and DVDs[link]

• Stevie Nicks: Live in Concert (VHS) (1984)
• I Can't Wait: The Music Video Collection (VHS) (1986)
• Live at Red Rocks (VHS) (1986)
• Crystal Visions - The Very Best of Stevie Nicks (Deluxe Edition with DVD) (2007)
• Soundstage: Stevie Nicks Live (Sears-exclusive Blu-Ray) (2008) (later released on DVD as Live in Chicago in 2009)

[edit] As Buckingham Nicks

• Buckingham Nicks (1973)

With Fleetwood Mac[link]

• Fleetwood Mac (1975)
• Rumours (1977)
• Tusk (1979)
• Live (1980)
• Mirage (1982)
• Tango in the Night (1987)
• Greatest Hits (1988)
• Behind the Mask (1990)
• 25 Years – The Chain (2 CD & 4 CD Boxset) (1992)
• The Dance (1997)
• The Very Best of Fleetwood Mac (2002)
• Say You Will (2003)
• Live in Boston (2004)

Awards & nominations[link]

Grammy Awards[link]

Solo:
Stevie has been nominated for eight Grammy Awards as a solo artist, holding the record for most nominations for Best Female Rock Vocal without a win.

With Fleetwood Mac:
Stevie has been nominated for nine competitive Grammy Awards as a member of Fleetwood Mac, winning the 1978 Grammy Award for Album of the Year for Rumours, and received the 2003 Grammy Hall of Fame Award.

See also[link]

• List of number-one dance hits (United States)
• List of artists who reached number one on the US Dance chart

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Stevie Nicks

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Stevie Nicks

• Official website
• Reprise Records
• Stevie Nicks at the Internet Movie Database
• Works by or about Stevie Nicks in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Stevie Nicks at Allmusic
• Five audio interview segments with Stevie Nicks discussing her Bella Donna Album