[ali101]

Originally Posted by Sanne2

Christmas lights can be very bright.

But dont forget that stevie cant see too well hence the prescription glasses/sunglasses. i think that her poor eyesight has been well documented:


"Adversity has its artistic advantages, of course. Vulnerability is an enticing hallmark on much of Nicks' work. For instance, her imaginative images owe something to poor eyesight, she once admitted.

"I do kind of look at the world differently because of that," she once told The Arizona Republic. "I don't see it clearly. I see it like in a dream.""


http://rockalittle.com/scottsdalelife_july2000.htm

this article also has some cute photos of very young stevie

scottsdalelife4.jpg


http://rockalittle.com/scottsdalelife4.jpg

Another different article mentioning her eyes but quite interesting as she talks about her regrets about children:



I Made Stevie Nicks Cry



January 15, 2009 by Andrew Watt
Filed under My Back Pages


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One of my first musical crushes was on Fleetwood Mac singer Stevie Nicks. I remember being enchanted by her mystical witch persona as far back as when I was a second former at Murrumbeena High School around the age of fourteen. Like so many others the song that first grabbed my attention was Rhiannon and for a time I thought that rambling soft rock anthem was as good as it got.

Fleetwood Mac was just enormous and their Rockarena show at Calder in Melbourne was one of the biggest shows seen in Australia. I didn’t get to go to the show – I was deemed a little too young and although my mate Phil Brammer had tickets I wasn’t able to convince my mum that I should be allowed to go. Subsequently the Rumours album and its follow up Tusk got plenty of airplay in my study room and Stevie, with her flowing lace and apparent vulnerability kept a place close to my teenage heart.

When she released her solo album Belladonna I remember playing it in full on the Monash Uni radio station and giving an earnest summary of each track – even though it wasn’t exactly the coolest thing to be promoting on the indie/alternative obsessed campus radio.

Even as Stevie became more and more a drug casualty and her music became increasingly predictable – or perhaps it was simply that my tastes continued to broaden – I still managed to maintain my loyalty and thus when the opportunity came up to interview Stevie for her Australian tour I jumped at it. Unfortunately the interview was a phoner from Sydney but even with this limitation I was still excited to be talking to an artist who I retained and great deal of affection for.

I had done my homework. I had read in a previous interview that one of Stevie’s favorite book s was a novel by Taylor Caldwell called Ceremony of The Innocent. There was a particular quote from the novel that the previous interview had referenced that talked about the protagonist of the novel being protected from the evil ways of the world in order to maintain her innocence. I started the interview by reminding Stevie of that book and that quote and asking her about her struggle to maintain the dreamlike state of innocence that informed her songs through all the trials and tribulations that the Fleetwood Mac circus had generated.

It was the right question. Immediately the interview took on a remarkable intimacy. So many interviews just seem to follow a formula with the artist giving rote answers to questions that they have answered hundreds of time before. This interview took a number of different turns and Stevie genuinely seemed intrigued by the directions we were going and this in turn allowed me to throw away the list of questions I had prepared and just go with a conversational approach.

The interview flowed really well – so well in fact that when the publicist jumped on the line to tell me to wind it up Stevie actually demanded that I be given extra time. The conversation continued and when I bought up the subject of the sacrifices she had made in pursuit of her career I got an unexpected response.

Stevie actually started crying as she described her regret that she would not have children. The tears were really flowing and what surprised me most was the fact that she claimed that this was the first time she had actually talked about this.

Now I’m not kidding myself here. It is well documented that Stevie had a serious cocaine problem and I have no doubt that her emotional reactions to our conversation probably had a lot to do with her use of the drug. There’s nothing more common among heavy coke users than emotional peaks and troughs. Nevertheless it was slightly overwhelming to have one of the biggest rock identities in the world sobbing to me about her deepest regrets.

Not surprisingly the publicist again interrupted and demanded that the interview finish. It suddenly occurred to me that if the publicist didn’t understand what had happened it could have serious repercussions for me. I would become known as the journalist whose interview had reduced Stevie Nicks to tears. I wouldn’t be offered to many more top level interviews with that reputation.

Fortunately Stevie came to my rescue : “I want to thank you for the most beautiful interview”, she gushed. “That was one of the best interviews I’ve ever done and I hope to meet you one day”.

Nice.

That day came sooner than expected.

The next week Stevie’s concert tour landed in Melbourne and it coincided with a Melbourne show for Cyndi Lauper who was one of the biggest stars in the world at that time.

Molly Meldrum frequently had parties at his home in Richmond and at that stage I was pretty much a regular at any such event, whether it be for the StKilda football team, the Australian cricketers or just about any touring rock star that needed to be entertained. The simultaneous arrival of Stevie and Cyndi in town was ample reason for Molly to throw a party which he dubbed the “Three Queens Party”.

There was actually significantly more than three queens in attendance and as usual the place was hopping. I wonder how Mollys neighbours coped in those days such was the regularity and volume of these parties but I guess they had become conditioned to it.

The details of the party are like so many others at that time – largely sent to a hazy part of my memory where faces and places and conversations seem to merge into one blurry melange. But I do remember meeting Stevie. Nor surprisingly, even though it was a private party, Stevie had an entourage consisting of her guitarist Waddy Wachtel (you will recall him as the long and fizzy haired dude who played on or produced half the albums coming out of L.A. at the time) and a number of big black security guys. The thing I remember most was the fact that Stevie was as blind as a bat – and I do refer to her eyesight and not her state of intoxication (although the latter was just as easily possible!). She needed to be walked through the room tottering around on her platforms boots and in a seeming state of confusion.
I was determined though to meet her , having made the connection on the phone. Somehow I managed to slip under the guard of the security guys long enough to start chatting to Waddy and at that point my music journo training allowed me to strike up a conversation that was sufficiently knowledgeable and flattering about his career that it maintained his interest. As a general rule sidemen in the bands of major stars like nothing better than to talk about their other projects so as to give the impression that their gig with the major star was just something they were doing while they were waiting for their own genius to be recognised. Waddy was a genuinely nice fella and had had a pretty remarkable career in his own right (until it was derailed a few years later by a major personality flaw) but he was certainly not an exception to the rule.

Somehow in my conversation with him I managed to mention that I had done a fantastic interview with Stevie on the phone recently and how I would really like to meet her. Waddy was happy to oblige.

Upon being introduced I thanked her for the interview to which she appeared fairly disinterested until I reminded her of our conversation about Ceremony Of The Innocent. Suddenly her mood changed completely and she grabbed my arm while gushing about the great interview, how grateful she was to meet me, how much she loved that book etc etc. I seemed a really had struck a chord with the interview.

I cant remember all the details of the conversation now but I do recall feeling pretty happy with myself. Eventually we were interrupted by someone making a speech or falling in the pool or just falling over (as was typical of Mollys parties) and before long Stevie was being shuffled off to her waiting limo. As she was leaving though she made a point of finding me to say goodbye and Waddy came over as well to give me his address in LA and to tell me to look him up if ever I was in his town.

Stevie wasn’t the biggest star I ever interviewed and she certainly wasn’t my favorite artist of all time (even though I was a genuine fan of her music and her persona) but I have to admit that the interview with her and her response to it remains one of my best memories from my music writer years.


http://www.heyheymymy.com.au/2009/01...vie-nicks-cry/