BEFORE: Stevie Nicks carries over again from "Fleetwood Mac: Live in Boston". I'm going to do one more about the band before getting back into politics. It's much easier to watch this stock-umentary that's running on the AXS channel instead of tracking down a longer and more complicated doc on the band, assuming one exists.
Since the Fleetwood Mac song "Don't Stop" was famously used as a campaign song for Bill Clinton, this gives me a chance to cross another state off my "Get to Know a State" U.S. tour - yes, it's ARKANSAS!
Date admitted to the U.S.: June 15, 1836 (25th state)
Claim to fame: I just mentioned it, Bill Clinton is from there. Before that nothing much.
Nickname: "The Natural State" - sounds like a nudist colony. Formerly "Land of Opportunity", I guess something happened and it's not that anymore.
State Motto: "Regnat Populus", Latin for "The People Rule"
State Flower: Apple blossom
State Bird: Mockingbird, yeah.
State Tree: Pine Tree
State mammal: White-tailed deer
State gemstone: Diamond - oh, yeah, I think there are diamond mines there. But Idaho somehow claimed "The Gem State" first.
Notable Sports Teams: Just college teams and minor-league affiliates. The Razorbacks have a pretty cool logo though.
Fun Facts: Little Rock has been the capital of the state since 1821, however the capital was moved to Hot Springs during the Civil War because there was better BBQ there. You can visit the William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, but I think the library only has a bunch of Playboy magazines in it. The governor of the state is Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who is the daughter of former governor Mike Huckabee, I'm sure she's qualified but also she is a legacy hire.
I have been to Arkansas! Because the way the map works, you can't get from Texas to Tennessee without going through there. This was back during BBQ Crawl 1 in 2017, and we got so hungry driving that we just couldn't wait until we got to Little Rock, so we stopped at Stubby's, which was out near Hot Springs. I remember getting the "Super Ultimate Platter" which had beef, pork, ribs, ham and a half-chicken, plus potato salad, beans, and bread. Now they were out of ham, but that's OK, I took a couple more ribs instead. They asked where I was from, probably because I ate so much and they wanted me to send more people from wherever to go and eat there. Once we got to Little Rock, we spent a day walking around and we saw the actual "Little Rock" but honestly, there wasn't much to do there, but our laundry and then we hit a casino in West Memphis on the way out, and it happened to be steak night at their buffet. Yeah, I get hungry on the road - anyway I'm moving up to 21 states visited out of 28 profiled.
THE PLOT: For decades, Stevie Nicks fronted one of the most successful bands in history, and has remained an iconic role model, synonymous with the witchy, transcendental, deep rooted mysticism of a fairy godmother.
AFTER: Yeah they definitely didn't include anything in this stockumentary that isn't also listed on Stevie Nicks' Wikipedia page. No research assistants were hurt doing a deep dive into her career, that's for sure. This is really really basic stuff, just the simple facts, like how she did so much cocaine during the 1970s that she had to have reconstructive surgery on her nasal cavity. Umm, thanks for that, but it was really unnecessary to drive that point home. I think we can assume that everyone in the music industry in the 1970's did massive amounts of blow.
She moved around a lot as a child because her father was a VP for Greyhound, so from Phoenix to Albuquerque, El Paso, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles and San Francisco - it's almost like she knew somebody one day would have to write about her and connect the documentary about her to one of several U.S. states. She went from Phoenix, Arizona all the way to Tacoma, Albuquerque and El Paso, L.A. - it's almost musical, right? But in high school in Arcadia, CA she joined her first band, the Changing Times. Then at another high school in Atherton, she met Lindsey Buckingham - I guess if you move around a lot you're just bound to meet more people, and some of them could turn out to be significant in your life. Buckingham was in a band called Fritz, which she joined when a spot opened up, foreshadowing how she would similarly get into Fleetwood Mac. That's not to say she isn't talented, but being in a relationship with another band guy didn't hurt. "Buckingham Nicks" got a record deal with Polydor but was dropped after one album.
By now we all know the "Sound City" story, which is how Mick Fleetwood heard their song "Frozen Love" while touring a studio and hired Buckingham, and how he brought in Nicks as part of the deal. And we know that after a few years the pair was pretty much driving the band, except for the Christine McVie songs, she got at least one per album, making her sort of the "George Harrison" of Fleetwood Mac. Stevie and Lindsey were therefore the Lennon and McCartney, if Paul and John could have been romantic partners as well. But you know that any creative marriage can't last, because of Artist Brain and attempts to figure out which one is the Alpha, plus if we throw drugs and infidelity and touring into the mix, it's like tossing a Mentos into a bottle of Diet Coke. Sit back and watch the fireworks.
What's amazing is that Fleetwood Mac stayed together for so long after the romantic relationships ended, I mean Christine McVie was in the band for 22 years, off and on, after getting divorced from bassist John McVie. And we don't know exactly when Nicks and Buckingham broke up, but they sang together on stage for a long time after, and several of their songs are ABOUT their relationship ending, like "Go Your Own Way" and "Silver Springs". Sure, mine your own personal heartbreak because that sells albums big-time, but then you're going to have to sing those songs together on tour, night after night, putting it all out there in one city after another. If only there were some substances you could take to help deal with that situation...
On top of all the Buckingham stuff, Nicks had an affair with Mick Fleetwood at some point, which they all knew couldn't work long-term either. He was married (for a while, anyway) and then when the marriage ended, he left his wife for Stevie Nicks' best friend. Oh, well, that's show biz.
This doc gets a little into the rehab trips, and Nicks being prescribed Klonopin to get off cocaine, however in some ways Klonopin is even worse, because it's a sedative and therefore side effects include sleepiness, memory loss, poor coordination and also memory loss. Plus weight gain and withdrawal symptoms if you stop taking it. All of this is terrible if you're on tour and have to go on stage, also not good for writing songs, Nicks claims that there are eight years of her life that she just doesn't remember. Who knows how many people she might have married during that period? More research is required.
Anyway, Nicks had like five solo albums in addition to her work with Fleetwood Mac, even if she doesn't remember all of them. The Clinton campaign using the "Don't Stop" song was a boost for the band (even if it's a Christine McVie song) and that prompted them all to go to rehabd and get back together and take advantage of the newfound popularity. By this time there was a whole generation who did not know the band had hits during the 1970's with its original line-up, and also knew nothing of the fake Fleetwood Mac that toured in 1973. To be fair, that band toured under the name "Fleetwood Mock" and hoped that people wouldn't look closely at the marquee.
The real band did a tour called "The Dance" in 1997 that toured in celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Rumours album, and obviously they were still doing the nostalgia circuit when they came to Boston in 2004. Between reunion tours, box set releases and various solo projects, they kept the band going for another decade without putting out any new material, it seems. It can be done, just look at REO Speedwagon, same business model. But the band finally had to call it quits in 2022. At least Ms. Nicks got inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, once with the band and once as a solo artist.
Directed by Piers Garland (director of "ABBA: Super Troupe")
Also starring Jennifer Otter Bickerdike (last seen in "The Beatles: In the Life"), Chris Salewicz,
with archive footage of Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie (all three carrying over from "Fleetwood Mac: Live in Boston"), Christine McVie, Kim Anderson, Mike Campbell (last seen in "Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Live from Gatorville"), Bill Clinton (last seen in "When We Went MAD!"), Jimi Hendrix (ditto), Jose Eber, Neil Finn, Peter Green, Rupert Hine, Janis Joplin (last seen in "Little Richard: I Am Everything"), Danny Kirwan, Jeremy Spencer, Bob Welch,
with narration by Mike Ciporkin
RATING: 4 out of 10 solo albums (including 1 of lost songs from the vault and 2 live ones)
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