Interview of Stevie Nicks (1981)

ABC, the Bella Donna solo record

In 1981, on an ABC sit-down framed around the Bella Donna project, Stevie Nicks talks about songs she could finally keep for a record of her own. Producer Jimmy Iovine gave her a hard three-month window before she had to rejoin Fleetwood Mac in Paris. She kept Bella Donna and Edge of Seventeen off the band’s table because those songs were the album’s spine, not leftovers.

The clip is calm and practical, and it stays on the work. Nicks is not leaving Fleetwood Mac. She explains why a solo record was the only place left for songs that had sat for years in a drawer.