Influences: Franke And The Knockouts

They were not the greatest band in the world by any means, and as short-lived as their career was in music, they had a huge influence on me and my writing. I simply loved their music.

Their biggest hit was their debut song "Sweetheart" off their debut album called, "Franke and The Knockouts". The song peaked at number 10 on the U.S. Billboard charts in 1981. It was followed up quickly by their second release off the same album, "You're My Girl", which peaked at #27.

I knew the songs, but never bought the album / CD until after I bought their second album, "Below The Belt", a 1982 release. (It was recommended by a friend). I enjoyed each and everyone of the tracks on that album. Their third charted song came from that album called, "Without You (Not Another Lonely Night)". It reached as high as 24 on Billboard's Top 100.

Their third album was released in 1984 called, "Makin' The Point". They released the song "Outrageous" but it did not hit in Billboard's Top 100, even though I thought it was a pretty good album.

In 1999, they would release their fourth album, a collection of their best songs called, "The Sweetheart Collection".

The band was made up of Franke Previte, lead vocalist, co songwriter (and founder). He was with the band from 1980 to 1986.

Leigh Foxx was on bass, and was with the band from 1980 to 1986.

Billy Elworthy was on lead and rhythm guitars, as well as a co-songwriter. He was with the band from 1980 to 1984.

Claude LeHenaff was the drummer from 1980 to 1982.

Blake Levinsohn was the keyboardist and was with the band from 1980 to 1982.

Tommy Ayers was keyboardist and back-up vocals from 1981 to 1986. He was a session musician on the bands debut album, and officially joined the band after the release of the album.

Tico Torres was the drummer from 1982 to 1984.

Bobby Messano was on lead and rhythm guitars, and back-up vocals from 1984 to 1986.

There were other session players that include: Charlie Dominici, who supplied back-up vocals on their debut album. Dominici would go on to front the band, "Dream Theater."

Al Wotten was a session musician (drummer) on their second album, "Below The Belt".

John DeNicola played bass on several demos, including a bonus track on their third album, "Makin' The Point". He also co-wrote the songs, "Hungry Eyes" (sung by Eric Carmen and released in 1987) and "(I've Had) The Time Of My Life" (featured in the 1987 film, "Dirty Dancing") with Franke Previte, the original versions of which were recorded during his (DeNicola) tenure with the band but went unreleased, until they both later appeared on "The Sweetheart Collection".


I was fortunate enough to go see them once in concert. Had a great time. It would have been nice if they could have had better success as I always thought they were awesome. They still made a lasting impression on me that I still carry with me today.

The group disbanded in 1986.  

I still have all of their songs / albums / cassettes / CD's. I continue listening to them on a somewhat fairly regular basis. It takes me back to my Navy days in Norfolk, Virginia. Fond memories of a time that I wish would have never ended. Friends and girls that I cherish, and nights that last forever. Everything about my time in the Navy comes back alive when I listen to Franke and The Knockouts. Even a few memories from when I was in / and came back home from Fort Dix when I was enlisted in the Army Reserve.

Great times.

Teena Marie: Influences

Mary Christine Brockert (March 5, 1956 – December 26, 2010), better known by her stage name Teena Marie, was an American singer - songwriter, and producer.

I remember one lazy day I was watching MTV and they played a brand new video. It was "Lover girl" by Teena Marie. I was hooked.

A few days later I went to the music store and bought a couple of her early releases. It was a treasured discovery for me. I have been a fan ever since, and always will be. When I learned of her passing, I was about as much in shock and sorrow as I was when Michael Jackson passed, and Elvis Presley.

The thing I liked most about her and her music was that she wasn't always just "radio" hungry nor did she ever have to take off her clothes on stage or in music videos to showcase her talents. I respect that. She was a true songwriter and authentic performer. She didn't play it up for the record labels, she played it up for the fans. A true original if you ask me. About as down to earth as an artist can get. There was nothing fake about Teena Marie. And you just don't get that anymore these days where recording artists are concerned because it seems everyone has a fame complex. She did it for the music. Writing was her soul.

Mary Christine, or Tina as she was called, was the daughter of construction worker Thomas Leslie Brockert and his wife, home renovator Mary Anne. She spent her early childhood in Mission Hills. Her ethnic heritage was Portuguese, Italian, Irish, and Native American. In 2005, while visiting Louisiana, she had discovered that her paternal ancestors once lived in New Orleans. She took to singing naturally, performing Harry Belafonte's Banana Boat Song by age two. She also developed a fondness for singing Motown songs, and her self-professed "gift from God" would become fine-tuned as the years progressed.

When she was eight years old, her parents began sending Tina on auditions which, among other things, netted her an acting role on The Beverly Hillbillies, credited as Tina Marie Brockert. She also sang at the wedding of Jerry Lewis' son when she was 10 years old. Reared in a Roman Catholic household, she learned to play the piano under the tutelage of two nuns, and later taught herself the guitar, bass, and congas. She would go on to form a semi-professional R&B band with her younger brother Anthony and their cousin.

In the early 1970s, after the family moved to Venice, Los Angeles, Brockert spent her adolescent years in the historically black Venice enclave of Oakwood, nicknamed "Venice Harlem". There, she would acquire a strong spiritual influence from neighborhood matriarch Berthalynn Jackson, an African American who would become her godmother.

While attending Venice High School, Brockert joined the Summer Dance Production and was the female lead in the school's production of The Music Man. She also fronted a local Venice rock band "Truvair" in 1974–1975; the band's members were her high school classmates.

Following graduation, Brockert juggled auditioning for various record companies with studying English Literature at Santa Monica College. She credited her love of reading with helping her to write lyrics.

In 1976, Brockert (as the lead singer of a band she had assembled, which included long-time friend Mickey Boyce) gained an introduction to Motown Records staff producer Hal Davis (best known for his work with Brenda Holloway and the Jackson 5). It led to an audition for a film about orphans that was being developed by Motown. The project was shelved, but label boss Berry Gordy, impressed with her singing but having no need for a musical group, decided to sign her as a solo act. Tina recorded unreleased material with a number of different producers over the next few years, before being spotted by labelmate Rick James, who was immediately impressed with her sound. Some of Tina's earlier, unreleased material has since been made available on the compilation album First Class Love: Rare Tee. At the time, James, already established as a successful recording artist, was on tap to produce for Diana Ross but changed his mind and decided to work with Brockert, instead. The result was her debut album release, Wild and Peaceful. The album was, at one point, due to be credited to "Teena Tryson", but ultimately was put out under "Teena Marie", the name by which she would be known throughout her remaining career. It scored Teena Marie her first top-ten R&B hit, "I'm a Sucker for Your Love" (#8 Black Singles Chart), a duet with James. Neither the album nor its packaging had her picture on it, and many radio programmers assumed she was African-American during the earliest months of her career. This myth was disproved when she performed her debut hit with James on Soul Train in 1979, becoming the show's first white female guest. (She would appear on the show eight more times, more than any other white act.)

Her portrait graced the cover of her second album, Lady T (1980), which is also noted for having production from Richard Rudolph (the widower of R&B singer Minnie Riperton). Teena Marie had asked Berry Gordy to contact Rudolph and secure his input, as Rick James was unavailable, and she felt unprepared to be sole producer of her own material. Rudolph intended for the song he penned, "Now That I Have You", to be sung by his wife, but it was later given to Teena Marie. Rudolph also co-composed the single "Behind The Groove", which reached number 21 on the black singles chart and No. 6 on the U.K. singles chart in 1980. The song would also be included on the soundtrack of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City on the Fever 105 soundtrack. Another notable track, "Too Many Colors", featured Rudolph and Riperton's then 7-year-old daughter, Maya Rudolph, who became Teena Marie's goddaughter. 

Also in 1980, Teena Marie released her third LP, Irons in the Fire, for which she handled all writing and production herself, including the horn and rhythm arrangements of her band, and all backing vocals, achievements considered rare at the time for a female artist. The single "I Need Your Lovin'" (#37 Pop, No. 9 Black Singles) brought Teena Marie her first top 40 hit; it also peaked at No. 28 in the UK chart.

That same year, Teena Marie appeared on James' hugely successful album, Street Songs, with the duet "Fire and Desire". In an interview, Teena Marie said she had a fever at the time yet managed to record her vocals in one take. After the session, she was driven to a hospital. The two would perform the single at the 2004 BET Awards, which would be their last TV appearance with one another, as James died later that year.

Teena Marie continued her success with Motown in 1981, with the release of It Must Be Magic (#2 Black Albums Chart), her first gold record, which included her then biggest hit on R&B, "Square Biz" (#3 Black Singles). Other notable tracks include "Portuguese Love" (featuring a brief, uncredited cameo by James, No. 54 Black Singles), the title track "It Must be Magic" (#30 Black Singles), and the album only track "Yes Indeed", which she cited as a personal favorite.

In 1982, Teena Marie got into a heated legal battle with Motown Records over her contract and disagreements about releasing her new material. The lawsuit resulted in "The Brockert Initiative", which made it illegal for a record company to keep an artist under contract without releasing new material for that artist. In such instances, artists are able to sign and release with another label instead of being held back by an unsupportive one. Teena Marie commented on the law in an LA Times article, saying, "It wasn't something I set out to do. I just wanted to get away from Motown and have a good life. But it helped a lot of people, like Luther Vandross and the Mary Jane Girls, and a lot of different artists, to be able to get out of their contracts." She left Motown as the label's most successful white solo act.

Contacted by Epic Records in the fall of 1982, after expressing dismay over her Motown contract, Teena Marie signed a worldwide deal with the Columbia Records subsidiary that also allowed her to establish her own publishing company, Midnight Magnet. Epic released the concept album Robbery, which featured the hit "Fix It" (#21 R&B), as well as "Shadow Boxing" and "Casanova Brown." (The latter was one of many tracks Teena Marie would write over the years about her real-life romance with one-time mentor Rick James. The relationship had ended by that point, but the two continued a sometimes tempestuous friendship until James' death, in August 2004.)

In 1984, Teena Marie released her biggest-selling album, Starchild. It yielded her biggest hit "Lovergirl", which peaked at No. 4 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart in March 1985 and at No. 9 on the R&B chart. The label also released the moderate R&B hit "Out on a Limb", which peaked at No. 56 on the R&B chart but didn't break the Hot 100. "14k" was featured on the soundtrack of the film Goonies (1985) but was not a hit (only making the U.S. R&B charts at #87).

In 1986, Teena Marie released a rock music-influenced concept album titled Emerald City. It was controversial with her established fan base and not as successful as its predecessors. She also recorded the rock-influenced track, "Lead Me On", co-produced by Giorgio Moroder, for the soundtrack of the box office hit film Top Gun (1986).

In 1988, she returned to R&B and funk, releasing the critically acclaimed album Naked to the World. That album contained the hit "Ooo La La La", which reached the top of Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks chart and was her only No. 1 single on that chart. During her 1988 Naked to the World concert tour, she suffered a fall and was hospitalized for six months.

Teena Marie released Ivory in the fall of 1990; it scored no pop hits, but it did experience two R&B hits: "Here's Looking at You" (#11 R&B) and "If I Were a Bell" (#8 R&B)

During the 1990s, Teena Marie's classic R&B, soul, and funk records were either sampled by hip-hop artists or covered by R&B divas. Teena Marie herself is regarded as something of a pioneer in helping to bring hip-hop to the mainstream by becoming one of the first artists of her time to rap one of her singles - the aforementioned "Square Biz".

In the fall of 1994, Teena Marie released Passion Play on her independent label, Sarai Records. Lacking the backing of a major label, this album sold less well than her earlier work but was well received by fans.

Subsequently, Teena Marie devoted most of her time to raising her daughter Alia Rose (who has since adopted the stage name "Rose Le Beau" and is pursuing her own singing career). During the late 1990s, Teena Marie made appearances (as herself) on the TV sitcoms The Steve Harvey Show and The Parkers. She also began working on a new album, titled Black Rain. She was unable to secure a major label deal for this and did not want to put it out on her own Sarai label, in light of the modest sales of Passion Play.

After a 14-year sabbatical from the national spotlight, Teena Marie returned to her musical career by signing with the Classics sub-label of the successful hip-hop label, Ca$h Money Records. She released her comeback album, La Doña, in 2004, and follow up Sapphire, in 2006. La Doña became a gold-certified success (and the highest-charting album of her career, peaking at No. 6 on the Billboard 200 chart) on the basis of the Al Green-sampled "I'm Still In Love" (#23 R&B, No. 70 Pop) and a duet with the late Gerald Levert, "A Rose by Any Other Name". Teena Marie was nominated for a 2005 Grammy Award for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for "Still in Love" and quickly followed this success with the release of Sapphire in 2006.

Teena Marie never married. She gave birth to a daughter named Alia Rose in 1991. As of 2009, Alia Rose sings under the name Rose LeBeau.

Throughout her career, Teena Marie lived in Inglewood and Encino, Los Angeles, before settling in Pasadena, California in the mid-1980s.

Teena Marie was godmother to actress-comedian Maya Rudolph and to Marvin Gaye's daughter, Nona Gaye. She also cared for Rick James' son, Rick, Jr., and family friend Jeremiah O'Neal.

Lenny Kravitz posted a video in which he said that Teena Marie had taken him into her home and helped him when he was struggling early in his career.

In 2004, while Teena Marie was sleeping in a hotel room, a large picture frame fell and struck her on the head. The blow caused a serious concussion that would cause momentary seizures for the rest of her life. On the afternoon of December 26, 2010, Teena Marie was found unresponsive by her daughter, Alia Rose, at Teena Marie's home in Pasadena, California.

On December 30, 2010, an autopsy was performed by the Los Angeles County coroner, who found no signs of apparent trauma or a discernible cause of death, and concluded she had died from natural causes.

She had suffered a tonic–clonic seizure a month before.

A memorial service was held at Forest Lawn Cemetery on January 10, 2011. Among those in attendance were Smokey Robinson, LisaRaye, Sinbad, Tichina Arnold, Stevie Wonder, Deniece Williams, Shanice Wilson, Queen Latifah, and Berry Gordy, Jr.


You can visit her official website here: TEENA MARIE OFFICIAL WEBSITE


Sources: Wikipedia

This work released through CC 2.0 SA-BY: Creative Commons

Eric Clapton: Influences

Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE (born 30 March 1945), is an English rock and blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. He is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist and separately as a member of the Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and influential guitarists of all time. Clapton ranked second in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and fourth in Gibson's "Top 50 Guitarists of All Time". He was also named number five in Time magazine's list of "The 10 Best Electric Guitar Players" in 2009.

In the mid-1960s Clapton left the Yardbirds to play blues with John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers. Immediately after leaving Mayall, Clapton formed the power trio Cream with drummer Ginger Baker and bassist Jack Bruce, in which Clapton played sustained blues improvisations and "arty, blues-based psychedelic pop". Furthermore, he formed blues rock band Blind Faith with Baker, Steve Winwood, and Ric Grech. For most of the 1970s Clapton's output bore the influence of the mellow style of JJ Cale and the reggae of Bob Marley. His version of Marley's "I Shot the Sheriff" helped reggae reach a mass market. Two of his most popular recordings were "Layla", recorded with Derek and the Dominos; and Robert Johnson's "Crossroads", recorded with Cream. Following the death of his son Conor in 1991, Clapton's grief was expressed in the song "Tears in Heaven", which was featured on his Unplugged album.

Clapton has been the recipient of 18 Grammy Awards, and the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music. In 2004 he was awarded a CBE at Buckingham Palace for services to music. In 1998, Clapton, a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, founded the Crossroads Centre on Antigua, a medical facility for recovering substance abusers.

Clapton was born in Ripley, Surrey, England, the son of 16-year-old Patricia Molly Clapton (7 January 1929 – March 1999) and Edward Walter Fryer (21 March 1920 – 15 May 1985), a 25-year-old soldier from Montreal, Quebec. Fryer shipped off to war prior to Clapton's birth and then returned to Canada. Clapton grew up with his grandmother, Rose, and her second husband, Jack Clapp, who was stepfather to Patricia Clapton and her brother Adrian, believing they were his parents and that his mother was actually his older sister. The similarity in surnames gave rise to the erroneous belief that Clapton's real surname is Clapp (Reginald Cecil Clapton was the name of Rose's first husband, Eric Clapton's maternal grandfather). Years later, his mother married another Canadian soldier and moved to Germany, leaving young Eric with his grandparents in Surrey.

Clapton received an acoustic Hoyer guitar, made in Germany, for his thirteenth birthday, but the inexpensive steel-stringed instrument was difficult to play and he briefly lost interest. Two years later Clapton picked it up again and started playing consistently. Clapton was influenced by the blues from an early age, and practised long hours to learn the chords of blues music by playing along to the records. He preserved his practice sessions using his portable Grundig reel-to-reel tape recorder, listening to them over and over until he felt he'd got it right.

In 1961, after leaving Hollyfield School in Surbiton, Clapton studied at the Kingston College of Art but was dismissed at the end of the academic year because his focus remained on music rather than art. His guitar playing was so advanced that, by the age of 16, he was getting noticed. Around this time, Clapton began busking around Kingston, Richmond, and the West End. In 1962, Clapton started performing as a duo with fellow blues enthusiast David Brock in pubs around Surrey. When he was seventeen years old, Clapton joined his first band, an early British R&B group, the Roosters, whose other guitarist was Tom McGuinness. He stayed with this band from January until August 1963. In October of that year, Clapton did a seven-gig stint with Casey Jones & the Engineers.

In October 1963, Clapton joined the Yardbirds, a blues-influenced rock and roll band, and stayed with them until March 1965. Synthesising influences from Chicago blues and leading blues guitarists such as Buddy Guy, Freddie King, and B. B. King, Clapton forged a distinctive style and rapidly became one of the most talked-about guitarists in the British music scene. The band initially played Chess/Checker/Vee-Jay blues numbers and began to attract a large cult following when they took over the Rolling Stones' residency at the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond. They toured England with American bluesman Sonny Boy Williamson II; a joint LP album, recorded in December 1963, was issued in 1965.

In March 1965, Clapton and the Yardbirds had their first major hit, "For Your Love", written by songwriter Graham Gouldman, who also wrote hit songs for Herman's Hermits and the Hollies (and would later achieve success of his own as a member of 10cc). In part because of its success, the Yardbirds elected to move toward a pop-oriented sound, much to the annoyance of Clapton, who was devoted to the blues and not commercial success. He left the Yardbirds on the day that "For Your Love" went public, a move that left the band without its lead guitarist and most accomplished member. Clapton suggested fellow guitarist Jimmy Page to be his replacement, but Page declined out of loyalty to Clapton, putting Jeff Beck forward. While Beck and Page played together in the Yardbirds, the trio of Beck, Page, and Clapton were never in the group together. However, the three did appear on the 12-date benefit tour for Action for Research into Multiple Sclerosis in 1983.

Clapton joined John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers in April 1965, only to quit a few months later. In the summer of 1965 he left for Greece with a band called the Glands, which included his old friend Ben Palmer on piano. In November 1965 he rejoined John Mayall. During his second Bluesbreakers stint, Clapton gained a reputation as the best blues guitarist on the club circuit. Although Clapton gained world fame for his playing on the influential album, Blues Breakers – John Mayall – With Eric Clapton, this album was not released until he had left the band for the last time. Having swapped his Fender Telecaster and Vox AC30 amplifier for a 1960 Gibson Les Paul Standard guitar and Marshall amplifier, Clapton's sound and playing inspired a well-publicised graffito that deified him with the famous slogan "Clapton is God". The phrase was spray-painted by an admirer on a wall in an Islington Underground station in the autumn of 1967. The graffiti was captured in a now-famous photograph, in which a dog is urinating on the wall. Clapton is reported to have been embarrassed by the slogan, saying in his The South Bank Show profile in 1987, "I never accepted that I was the greatest guitar player in the world. I always wanted to be the greatest guitar player in the world, but that's an ideal, and I accept it as an ideal".

Clapton left the Bluesbreakers in July 1966 (replaced by Peter Green) and was invited by drummer Ginger Baker to play in his newly formed band Cream, one of the earliest supergroups, with Jack Bruce on bass (previously of the Bluesbreakers, the Graham Bond Organisation and Manfred Mann). Before the formation of Cream, Clapton was not well known in the United States; he left the Yardbirds before "For Your Love" hit the US Top Ten, and had yet to perform there. During his time with Cream, Clapton began to develop as a singer, songwriter, and guitarist, though Bruce took most of the lead vocals and wrote the majority of the material with lyricist Pete Brown. Cream's first gig was an unofficial performance at the Twisted Wheel Club in Manchester on 29 July 1966 before their full debut two nights later at the National Jazz and Blues Festival in Windsor. Cream established its enduring legend with the high-volume blues jamming and extended solos of their live shows.

Clapton first visited the United States while touring with Cream. In March 1967, Cream performed a nine-show stand at the RKO Theater in New York. They recorded Disraeli Gears in New York from 11–15 May 1967. Cream's repertoire varied from hard rock ("I Feel Free") to lengthy blues-based instrumental jams ("Spoonful"). Disraeli Gears featured Clapton's searing guitar lines, Bruce's soaring vocals and prominent, fluid bass playing, and Baker's powerful, polyrhythmic jazz-influenced drumming. Together, Cream's talents secured them as an influential power trio.

In 28 months, Cream had become a commercial success, selling millions of records and playing throughout the US and Europe. They redefined the instrumentalist's role in rock and were one of the first blues-rock bands to emphasize musical virtuosity and lengthy jazz-style improvisation sessions. Their US hit singles include "Sunshine of Your Love" (#5, 1968), "White Room" (#6, 1968) and "Crossroads" (#28, 1969) – a live version of Robert Johnson's "Cross Road Blues". Though Cream was hailed as one of the greatest groups of its day, and the adulation of Clapton as a guitar legend reached new heights, the supergroup was short-lived. Drug and alcohol use escalated tension between the three members, and conflicts between Bruce and Baker eventually led to Cream's demise. A strongly critical Rolling Stone review of a concert of the group's second headlining US tour was another significant factor in the trio's demise, and it affected Clapton profoundly.

Cream's farewell album, Goodbye, featuring live performances recorded at The Forum, Los Angeles, 19 October 1968, was released shortly after Cream disbanded; it also featured the studio single "Badge", co-written by Clapton and George Harrison. Clapton met Harrison and became friends with him after the Beatles shared a bill with the Clapton-era Yardbirds at the London Palladium. The close friendship between Clapton and Harrison resulted in Clapton playing the lead guitar solo on Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" from the Beatles' White Album (1968).

Cream briefly reunited in 1993 to perform at the ceremony inducting them into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; a full reunion took place in May 2005, with Clapton, Bruce, and Baker playing four sold-out concerts at London's Royal Albert Hall, and three shows at New York's Madison Square Garden that October. Recordings from the London shows, Royal Albert Hall London May 2-3-5-6, 2005, were released on CD, LP, and DVD in September/December 2005.

Clapton's next group, Blind Faith (1969), was composed of Cream drummer Ginger Baker, Steve Winwood of Traffic, and Ric Grech of Family, and yielded one LP and one arena-circuit tour. The supergroup debuted before 100,000 fans in London's Hyde Park on 7 June 1969. They performed several dates in Scandinavia and began a sold-out American tour in July before their only album was released. The LP Blind Faith consisted of just six songs, one of them the hit "Can't Find My Way Home". The album's jacket image of a topless pubescent girl was deemed controversial in the United States and was replaced by a photograph of the band. Blind Faith dissolved after less than seven months.

With the intention of counteracting the "star" cult faction that had begun to form around him, Clapton assembled a new band composed of Delaney and Bonnie's former rhythm section, Bobby Whitlock as keyboardist and vocalist, Carl Radle as the bassist, and drummer Jim Gordon, with Clapton playing guitar. It was his intention to show that he need not fill a starring role, and functioned well as a member of an ensemble.

The band was originally called "Eric Clapton and Friends". The name "Derek and the Dominos" was a fluke that occurred when the band's provisional name of "Del and the Dynamos" was misread as Derek and the Dominos.^[44] Clapton's biography states that Tony Ashton of Ashton, Gardner and Dyke told Clapton to call the band "Del and the Dominos", since "Del" was his nickname for Eric Clapton. Del and Eric were combined and the final name became "Derek and the Dominos".

Clapton's close friendship with George Harrison brought him into contact with Harrison's wife, Pattie Boyd, with whom he became deeply infatuated. When she spurned his advances, Clapton's unrequited affections prompted most of the material for the Dominos' album, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs (1970). Heavily blues-influenced, the album features the twin lead guitars of Clapton and Duane Allman, with Allman's slide guitar as a key ingredient of the sound. Working at Criteria Studios in Miami with Atlantic Records producer Tom Dowd, who had worked with Clapton on Cream's Disraeli Gears, the band recorded a double album.

The album features the hit love song "Layla", inspired by the classical poet of Persian literature, Nizami Ganjavi's The Story of Layla and Majnun, a copy of which Ian Dallas had given to Clapton. The book moved Clapton profoundly, as it was the tale of a young man who fell hopelessly in love with a beautiful, unavailable woman and who went crazy because he could not marry her. The two parts of "Layla" were recorded in separate sessions: the opening guitar section was recorded first, and for the second section, laid down a few weeks later, drummer Jim Gordon played the piano part for the melody which he claimed to have written (though Bobby Whitlock stated that Rita Coolidge wrote it).

Clapton's career successes in the 1970s were in stark contrast with the struggles he coped with in his personal life, which was troubled by romantic longings and drug and alcohol addiction. He became infatuated with Pattie Boyd, who at the time was married to close friend George Harrison, and withdrew from recording and touring to isolation in his Surrey residence as the band broke up. There he nursed a heroin addiction, which resulted in a lengthy career hiatus interrupted only by the Concert for Bangladesh in August 1971 (where he passed out on stage, was revived, and managed to finish his performance).

In January 1973, the Who's Pete Townshend organised a comeback concert for Clapton at London's Rainbow Theatre, aptly titled the "Rainbow Concert", to help Clapton kick his addiction. Clapton would return the favour by playing 'The Preacher' in Ken Russell's film version of the Who's Tommy in 1975; his appearance in the film (performing "Eyesight to the Blind") is notable as he is clearly wearing a fake beard in some shots, the result of deciding to shave off his real beard after the initial takes in an attempt to force the director to remove his earlier scene from the movie and leave the set.

In 1974, Clapton started living with Pattie Boyd (they would not marry until 1979) and was no longer using heroin (although he gradually began to drink heavily). He assembled a low-key touring band that included Radle, Miami guitarist George Terry, keyboardist Dick Sims (who died in 2011), drummer Jamie Oldaker, and vocalists Yvonne Elliman and Marcy Levy (also known as Marcella Detroit). With this band Clapton recorded 461 Ocean Boulevard (1974), an album with an emphasis on more compact songs and fewer guitar solos; the cover version of "I Shot the Sheriff" was Clapton's first number one hit and was important in bringing reggae and the music of Bob Marley to a wider audience. The 1975 album There's One in Every Crowd continued this trend. The album's original title, The World's Greatest Guitar Player (There's One in Every Crowd), was changed before pressing, as it was felt its ironic intention would be misunderstood. The band toured the world and subsequently released the 1975 live LP, E.C. Was Here. Clapton continued to release albums and toured regularly. Highlights of the period include No Reason to Cry (a collaboration with Bob Dylan and the Band); Slowhand, which featured "Wonderful Tonight" and a second JJ Cale cover, "Cocaine". In 1976 he performed as one of a string of notable guests at the farewell performance of The Band, filmed in a Martin Scorsese documentary called The Last Waltz.

The 1990s brought a series of 32 concerts to the Royal Albert Hall, such as the 24 Nights series of concerts that took place around January through February 1990, and February to March 1991. On 27 August 1990, fellow blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan, who was touring with Clapton, and three members of their road crew were killed in a helicopter crash between concerts. Then, on 20 March 1991, Clapton's four-year-old son, Conor, died after falling from the 53rd-floor window of his mother's friend's New York City apartment at 117 East 57th Street. Conor's funeral took place on 28 March at St Mary Magdelene's Church in Clapton's home village in Ripley, Surrey.

Clapton's grief was expressed in the song "Tears in Heaven", which was co-written by Will Jennings. At the 35th Grammy Awards, Clapton received six Grammys for the single "Tears in Heaven" and his Unplugged album. Unplugged features Clapton performing live in front of a small audience on 16 January 1992 at Bray Film Studios in Windsor, Berkshire, England. The album reached number one on the Billboard 200, and has since been certified Diamond by the RIAA for selling over 10 million copies in the US. On 9 September 1992, Clapton performed "Tears in Heaven" at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards, and won the award for Best Male Video.

Clapton cites Muddy Waters, Freddie King, B.B. King, Albert King, Buddy Guy, and Hubert Sumlin as guitar playing influences. Clapton stated blues musician Robert Johnson to be his single most important influence. In 2004 Clapton released CDs and DVDs entitled Sessions for Robert Johnson, featuring covers of Robert Johnson songs using electric and acoustic guitars. Clapton also singled out Buddy Holly as an influence.

Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and influential guitarists of all time. He ranked second in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and fourth in Gibson's Top 50 Guitarists.

Guitarists influenced by Clapton include Slash, Allen Collins, Richie Sambora, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Gary Moore, Duane Allman, Derek Trucks, Eddie Van Halen, Terry Kath, Brian May, Tony Iommi, Lenny Kravitz, Ted Nugent, Orianthi, Vince Gill, Brad Paisley, Jonny Buckland, Joe Don Rooney, Alex Lifeson, Jonny Lang, Carroll Bryant (song writing), John Mayer, Joe Satriani, Joe Bonamassa, Davy Knowles, Lindsay Ell, Neal Schon, and Mark Knopfler.

Clapton and Pattie Boyd married in 1979 and had no children. In 1984 while recording Behind The Sun, Clapton began a relationship with Yvonne Kelly, the manager of AIR Studios Montserrat. Although both were married to other partners at the time, they had a daughter in January 1985. She was named Ruth Kelly Clapton, but her existence was kept from the public until the media realised she was his child in 1991.

Clapton and Boyd tried unsuccessfully to have children, even trying in vitro fertilisation in 1984, but were faced instead with miscarriages. They divorced in 1988 following his affair with Italian model Lory Del Santo, who gave birth to their son, Conor, on 21 August 1986. Conor died in 1991, at the age of four and a half, when he fell out of an open bedroom window on the 53rd floor of a Manhattan apartment building. The death of his son was the inspiration for Clapton's song, "Tears in Heaven".
Clapton married Melia McEnery in a low-key church ceremony in January 2002. They have three daughters: Julie Rose (born June 2001), Ella May (born 2003) and Sophie Belle (born 2005). His grandson Isaac Eric Owen Bartlett was born in June 2013 to his oldest daughter Ruth and her husband Dean Bartlett.



Sources: Wikipedia

This work released through CC 3.0 BY-SA: Creative Commons

Greg Guidry: Influences

There's a lot of people out there who have never heard of Greg Guidry, I'm sure, but for a songwriter such as myself, I know exactly who Greg Guidry is. Or should I say, was?

Gregory M. Guidry was born January 23, 1950 and died July 28, 2003. He is better known as Greg Guidry and he was an American singer-songwriter.

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, he played piano and sang gospel as a child, and sang in a band with future Doobie Brother Michael McDonald as a teenager. He signed a publishing contract with CBS Records in 1977 and wrote songs for Climax Blues Band, Robbie Dupree, Exile, Johnny Taylor, Sawyer Brown, and Reba McEntire.

In 1981 he sang as a backing vocalist for the Allman Brothers Band on their 1981 album Brothers of the Road. He signed with Columbia in 1982 and released an album, Over the Line, which produced two hit singles, "Goin' Down" (US #17, US AC #11) and a duet with his sister Sandy, "Into My Love" (US #92).




While he continued to do songwriting work later in the 1980s, he did not issue a follow-up album until 2000, when Soul'd Out and Private Session were released, and his debut album was re-released.


On July 28, 2003, Guidry died in a fire at age 53. His charred body was found in a car parked in his garage in Fairview, Tennessee. His death was ruled a suicide.

It is in my opinion that his first album, "Over The Line" was highly underrated. I remember seeing it in the ship PX one day and without knowing who he really was at that time, I bought it. I played that cassette over and over until it couldn't be played anymore.

I then took it upon myself to learn more about him and before I knew it, I was a fan of Greg Guidry the songwriter more than I was of him as a singer or performer.

Truth be told, I always thought I would model my songwriting career pretty much like his, which was under the radar, but to this point, that hasn't been the case.

Still, I envy the soulful approach he took for all of his songs. After his debut album, "Over The Line", it was believed his career would take off like a rocket, but that never materialized. I think that is a shame because Greg Guidry could write.

While it's unclear why his songwriting / singing / music career never took off, I like to think it was his mental health issues that may have gotten in the way. It's easy to see that he suffered from depression. I don't know if he ever got officially diagnosed or if he even was aware of it, but suicide is a tell-tell sign of possible mental health issues.

What he does leave behind though is really good music. His potential may not have been reached, but what he did do was just freaking awesome. I can only hope that people will think as much about my music someday as they do about his.

It's also a reminder that we really need to take mental health more seriously. I know for myself, I have suffered from bi-polar depression and suicidal thoughts ever since my first suicide attempt when I was 17 years old. It took a long time before I was ever diagnosed. Perhaps if Greg was diagnosed and got treatment, he would still be with us, and writing more good songs. God knows we could use some good new songs these days. My head, heart and stomach can only tolerate so much of this crap that is getting stuffed down our throats anymore. Seriously, today's music, 90 percent of it I just don't get. The lyrics sound okay but the music is garbage. Only a handful of songs are worth the cost of downloading. At the risk of sounding like my grandfather but, today's music really lacks a lot of emotion and or meaning. It's just crap. Many tell no story. But this post isn't about that, it's about a songwriter that was instrumental in inspiring me to want to be a songwriter. It's about the legacy of Greg Guidry. A legacy that goes on practically unnoticed and unrealized.

Sources: Wikipedia

This work released through CC 3.0 BY-SA - Creative Commons

Gary Stewart: Influences

He wasn't the most famous country singer in country music history, but he did have a huge impact on my writing. It started out one fine Friday morning when I left with my stepfather, at the time, to ride shotgun in his big rig to drop off and pickup a few loads one weekend.

My stepfather was a long road semi-truck driver. It was the summer of my 14th birthday. We lived in Palm Harbor, Florida and picked up a trailer in Tampa, Florida to drop off in Jacksonville, Florida. From there, we would pick up and drop off a couple more loads before returning that following Monday afternoon.

No sooner did we leave Tampa for Jacksonville did my stepfather put in a tape. As soon as it started playing, I turned to my stepfather and asked, "Who's that?"

He looked at me with a grin. "Gary Stewart." He replied, before elaborating, "Man cannot live by Hank Williams alone."

I never looked back. My country music roots were now planted. It was the most listened to tape on the trip. I made it a point to memorize every lyric to every song on that tape. I also remember saying to myself, "I want to write songs like that!"

The song that made the most impression on me was his version of "Broken Hearted People". I never forgot Gary Stewart after that.

Gary Ronnie Stewart (May 28, 1944 – December 16, 2003) was a country musician and songwriter known for his distinctive vibrato voice and his southern rock influenced, outlaw country sound. During the peak of his popularity in the mid-1970s, Time magazine described him as the "king of honkytonk." He is remembered for a series of country chart hits from the mid- to late- 1970s, his biggest hit being "She's Actin' Single (I'm Drinkin' Doubles)," which topped the U.S. country singles chart in 1975.

Named after actor Gary Cooper, Stewart was born in the Letcher County, Kentucky, town of Jenkins, the son of George and Georgia Stewart. In 1959 his father, a coal miner, sustained an injury while working in the mines, and shortly afterwards the family moved to Fort Pierce, a city on Florida's Atlantic coast.

Learning guitar and piano, Stewart began touring with local bands and writing songs in his teens. He married Mary Lou Taylor, more than three years his senior, at age seventeen and began working days in an airplane factory. He still played in rock and country bands at night. While playing in an Okeechobee, Florida, honky-tonk known as the Wagon Wheel, Stewart met country singer Mel Tillis, who advised Stewart to travel to Nashville to pitch his songs. He recorded a few sides for the small Cory label in 1964 and began co-writing songs with local policeman Bill Eldridge. Stewart and Eldridge wrote Stonewall Jackson's 1965 country hit, "Poor Red Georgia Dirt". Signed to the Kapp label in 1968, Stewart made several unsuccessful recordings but several songwriting successes followed, for artists like Billy Walker ("She Goes Walking Through My Mind", "Traces of a Woman", "It's Time to Love Her"), Cal Smith ("You Can't Housebreak a Tomcat", "It Takes Me All Night Long"), and Nat Stuckey ("Sweet Thang And Cisco"). He even played piano for a time in Charley Pride's band the Pridesmen, and can be heard on Pride's live In Person double-album. Disappointed with Music Row, however, he soon returned to Florida and resumed playing countrified rock 'n' roll in local clubs and bars.

Stewart was dropped from Kapp and then from Decca, but a series of demo tapes, including some countrified Motown tunes, found their way into the hands of producer Roy Dea, who convinced Jerry Bradley to sign Stewart to RCA Records. He returned to Nashville in 1973 and recorded a cover version of "Ramblin' Man" by the Allman Brothers, both of whom were Stewart's personal friends. It charted at only #63 on the country chart, but his follow-up, 1974's "Drinkin' Thing" became a top ten hit. His album Out of Hand was released in early 1975. "Out of Hand", the title cut, became a #4 country hit and was followed by the #1 hit "She's Actin' Single (I'm Drinkin' Doubles)".

The album Out of Hand, which climbed to #6 on the Billboard country album chart, has since become one of the most critically lauded country albums of the 1970s. Rock critic Robert Christgau gave the album an A- saying that it "was the best regular issue country LP I've heard in about five years." Rolling Stone gave it high praise as well, stating that, "With practitioners like Stewart around, honky-tonk—and rockabilly - may not be dead yet." Thom Jurek of Allmusic later gave the album five of five stars and stated that a "strong case could be made for Out of Hand as one of the Top 100 country records of all time. It might be in this writer's Top Ten!" Country music critic Bill Malone called Out of Hand "one of the greatest honky-tonk country albums ever recorded.

Later in 1975, MCA released Stewart's old Kapp material scoring a #15 hit with the single "You're Not the Woman You Use to Be". For the rest of the 1970s Stewart played the honky tonks with his road band, The Honky Tonk Liberation Army, and recorded similar albums with modest success for RCA: 1976's Steppin' Out; 1977's Your Place or Mine (which featured guest artists Nicolette Larson, Emmylou Harris, and Rodney Crowell); and 1978's Little Junior. These albums spawned several hit singles, including: "Flat Natural Born Good-Timin' Man", "In Some Room Above the Street", "Single Again", "Your Place or Mine", "Quits", and "Whiskey Trip".

His 1977 ode to marital distress entitled "Ten Years of This", from the album Your Place or Mine, was a favorite of Bob Dylan and a #16 hit.

Though his late 1970s albums were well received by critics and his core audience, Stewart never established a large audience. He was often labeled as "too country" for rock listeners and "too rock" for country fans. In 1980, he released the Chips Moman-produced Cactus and a Rose which featured Southern rockers Gregg Allman, Dickey Betts, Mike Lawler, and Bonnie Bramlett. It did not garner much airplay and RCA teamed Stewart up with songwriter Dean Dillon for a pair of duet records. Soon after, Stewart returned to Florida, where alcoholism and drug use kept him from recording for much of the 1980s. His son, Gary Joseph Stewart, committed suicide late in the decade as well. Stewart signed with the HighTone label in 1988 and recorded three albums over the next five years. These albums included fan favorites like the minor hit "An Empty Glass (That's the Way the Day Ends)" (written by Stewart and Dillon), "Let's Go Jukin'" (written by Stewart and Betts), and "Brand New Whiskey" (written by Stewart and his wife).

Stewart continued to tour through the 1990s, playing venues such as Fort Worth's Billy Bob's Texas several times a year. During this time Bob Dylan, while touring with Tom Petty in Florida, drove out of his way to meet Stewart, "confessing that he'd played Stewart's ode to marital malaise 'Ten Years of This' over and over, the record casting a spell over him." In 2003, Stewart released Live at Billy Bob's Texas, his first album in ten years and his first-ever live album. Reviewers at Allmusic gave it good marks.

There were numerous pro-audio and pro-video recordings of Gary Stewart performing full sets live at Billy Bob's Texas, although representatives with the Smith Music Group have stated there are currently no plans to release them for public consumption.

On November 26, 2003, the day before Thanksgiving, his wife of nearly 43 years, Mary Lou, died of pneumonia. Stewart, who had been scheduled to play Billy Bob's three days later, canceled his concert appearances. His friends later told reporters that he was extremely despondent after Mary Lou's death. On December 16, his daughter's boyfriend and Stewart's very close friend, Bill Hardman, visited his Fort Pierce, Florida, home to check on his welfare. They found Stewart dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the neck.

Sources: Wikipedia

This work released through Creative Commons 3.0 BY-SA.

Stevie Nicks: Influences

Stevie Nicks is bad ass! Make no mistake. She can rock with the best of them, and she has done so successfully for over four decades. Being one of the hottest female rockers doesn't hurt either. For me, she proved that a female singer need not have to go out on stage almost nude to get attention, but rather, she let her talent do all the talking. Or in this case, do all the singing.

Stephanie Lynn "Stevie" Nicks (born May 26, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter, who in the course of her work with Fleetwood Mac and her extensive solo career, has produced over forty Top 50 hits and sold over 140 million albums. She was deemed "The Reigning Queen of Rock and Roll" and one of the "100 Greatest Singers of All Time" by Rolling Stone, and, as a member of Fleetwood Mac, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998. As a solo artist, she has garnered eight Grammy Award nominations and, with Fleetwood Mac, a further five.

Nicks joined Fleetwood Mac in 1974, along with her then-romantic partner Lindsey Buckingham. Fleetwood Mac's second album after the incorporation of Nicks and Buckingham, Rumours, released in 1977, was the best-selling album of all time the year of its release, and, to date, is the fourth best-selling album of all time, having sold over 45 million copies worldwide. The album remained at No.1 on the American albums chart for 31 weeks, and reached the top spot in various countries worldwide. The album won Album of the Year in 1978 and produced four US Top 10 singles, with Nicks' Dreams being the band's first and only US number one hit.

Nicks began her solo career in 1981 with the album Bella Donna, which reached Platinum status less than three months after its release, and has since been certified quadruple-platinum. She has produced seven more solo studio albums to date, with her most recent titled In Your Dreams, and released on May 3, 2011. Having conquered her cocaine addiction and dependency on tranquilizers, she continues to be a popular solo performer. Nicks is known for her distinctive voice, mystical visual style, and symbolic lyrics, as well as the famous (sometimes tense) chemistry between her and Lindsey Buckingham.

Nicks was born at Good Samaritan Hospital in Phoenix, Arizona, to Jess Nicks, former president of Greyhound's Armour-Dial 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. As a young child, Nicks had difficulty pronouncing her given name Stephanie, instead pronouncing it "tee-dee", which became the nickname, "Stevie". Her father'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 spent her adolescence playing records constantly, and existing in her "own little musical world". 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. She was attending a high school party and saw Buckingham playing "California Dreamin'", and joined in with the harmony. 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 - both of whom Nicks credits as inspiring her own stage intensity and performances - among others, in the San Francisco Bay Area. Both Nicks and Buckingham attended San Jose State University in Northern California, where Nicks majored in Speech Communication. She had planned on becoming an English teacher, but she and Buckingham dropped out in 1968 to move to Los Angeles in pursuit of a music career when Nicks' family moved to Chicago.

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. They then secured a deal with Polydor Records, which used tracks from their demo tapes to release the album 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. Nicks says that she first used cocaine during this time. "We were told that it was recreational and that it was not dangerous," Nicks recalled to Chris Isaak in 2009.

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.

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 Sound City in California, in search of a studio to record Fleetwood Mac's next album. Fleetwood remembered Buckingham's guitar work after guitarist 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 he and Nicks were "a package deal".

Nicks worked with clothing designer Margi Kent to develop Nicks's unique onstage look, with costumes that featured flowing skirts, shawls and platform boots.

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. 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. 

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. The pair mutually decided to end the affair. "Never in a million years could you have told me that would happen," Nicks has stated. "Everybody was angry, because Mick was married to a wonderful girl and had two wonderful children. I was horrified. I loved these people. I loved his family. So it couldn't possibly work out. And it didn't. I just couldn't." She has also stated that had the affair progressed, it "would have been the end of Fleetwood Mac". Soon after, in October 1978, Mick Fleetwood left his wife for Nicks' best friend Sara Recor.

After the success of the Rumours album and tour in 1977 to 1978, 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 the Billboard Hot 100 chart during the summer of 1978. Lindsey Buckingham also played guitar and provided backing vocals on some of the tracks recorded for that album.

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. Nicks wrote and recorded demos for a 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 first solo album, Bella Donna, was released on July 27, 1981 to critical and commercial acclaim, reaching #1 on the Billboard 200 chart, with four singles making the Billboard Hot 100, and Rolling Stone deeming her "The Reigning Queen of Rock and Roll".

The day that Bella Donna reached #1 on the Billboard 200, Nicks' best friend Robin Anderson was diagnosed with leukemia. Robin gave birth to a son, appointing Nicks as the child's godmother. "I never got to enjoy Bella Donna at all because my friend was dying. Something went out that day; something left." Following Robin's death in 1982, Nicks married Robin's widower Kim Anderson, believing that her friend would want her to care for the baby. "We were all in such insane grief, just completely deranged," she told The Telegraph in 2007. The couple divorced eight months after the marriage.

Bella Donna introduced Nicks' back-up singers, Sharon Celani and Lori Perry, who have contributed vocals to all of Nicks' solo albums since then. 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.

Nicks released her second solo album, The Wild Heart, on June 10, 1983. The album went double platinum, reached #5 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, and featured three hit singles. It also introduced songwriter and performer Sandy Stewart as co-writer and vocalist.

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.

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 #1 and was certified Platinum. 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". 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.

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".

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.

The live CD release, The Dance, was released to commercial and critical acclaim, earning the group several Grammy nominations, including their live performance of Nicks' "Silver Springs".

In 1998, she joined the group for its induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That same year, Nicks won the Outstanding Contribution at the BRIT Awards.

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 her, 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. She 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 her bout with acute bronchitis. Shows were also canceled because of the September 11 attacks in the U.S.

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 did not want it to end up on YouTube. The Santa Barbara show benefited a young girl she had met through the Make-a-Wish Foundation 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. Another song on the album "For What It's Worth" features Nicks' niece in the video. This song was inspired by a good friend, as well as a former band member, who accompanied Nicks on her first tour after leaving rehab at the Betty Ford Center. This was the first tour that Nicks used a bus, usually she used a plane. Nick's said she felt frightened and extremely fragile at that time, and that this man helped her get through one of the most difficult periods of her life. In her documentary, "In Your Dreams" she explain why she felt that this man actually saved her life. The song reached #25 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart in September 2011.

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, 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). The show sparked renewed interest in the band and its most commercially successful album, and Rumours re-entered 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."

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 Mick Fleetwood, who is 6 feet 6 inches (1.98 m). 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. Over the years, Nicks has developed a style which she calls her "uniform", which is best exemplified by the outfit worn on the cover of Fleetwood Mac's Rumours. 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 hats on stage, and she often still wears a black top hat adorned with giant plumes.

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. 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 she gave to her friends. In recent years, celebrity friends such as Bette Midler and ice-skating star Tai Babilonia have been photographed wearing their "Stevie moons".^[    

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

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:

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 has spoken about this erroneous image in numerous interviews. 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. She says she didn't know anything about the true story of Rhiannon, or Rhiannon of the Birds, as she is better known. Rhiannon was not a witch, despite her mastery of magic. Her name translates to "Great Queen" and is believed by many experts on the subject of Celtic legends and mythology to have been originally a Celtic Goddess native to Wales. Rhiannon was (or is, depending on who's speaking) a Sovereignty Goddess, who a king must wed to legitimize his rule. She was also a Goddess of Transformation, using her powers for love of others and self. She has been linked to not only the songbirds which Nicks incorporated into her song, but also sacred to her are the moon, horses, horseshoes, gates, the wind, and the number 7. She has been linked to the Horse Goddess Epona, as well as called the Queen of the Faeries. Nicks also stated: "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". Nicks has spoken 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. Because of the rumors of witchcraft, Nicks has been pursued for years by numerous stalkers. At one point, her longstanding attorney, Ed McPherson, who routinely has obtained restraining orders against all of them, indicated that she had at least one stalker a year. However, all of her stalkers have abided by the restraining orders, and none has become violent. The rumors have also been referred to in American Horror Story: Coven by the character Misty Day, who idolizes the singer. Stevie Nicks was made aware of these references beforehand. On November 12, 2013, it was revealed that she will have a cameo role on the show, as a good witch in what will be her acting debut.  

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. "I was determined to take care of [Robin's] baby, so I said to Kim, 'I don't know, I guess we should just get married." 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." Years after their divorce, she reunited with her stepson, putting him through college.

Nicks says she consciously chose not to have children of her own, due to her demanding career and desire to follow her art wherever it should take her: "My mission maybe wasn't to be a mom and a wife; maybe my particular mission was to write songs to make moms and wives feel better." She finds maternal fulfillment through her nieces, nephew, and godchildren: "I have lots of kids. It's much more fun to be the crazy auntie than it is to be the mom, anyway."

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 was later sold for $3 million.

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. " In 2009, she told The New York Times about Lohan, "Over my dead body. She needs to stop doing drugs and get a grip. Then maybe we'll talk.




Sources: Wikipedia

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