BUCKINGHAM NICKS

Next month will be forty-five years since the release of Rumours, my all time favourite album, and to celebrate I will be writing an article on the album and what it means to me. Rather than cover how Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks became members of Fleetwood Mac and changed the direction the band took I am covering their career and only album release in this article.

Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks first met at Menio-Atherton High School in Atherton, California where she was a senior in high school and he, being a year younger, was a junior. It was at an after-school gathering in 1966 that they found themselves singing and harmonizing together although there are conflicting reports on what the song was. Most accounts say it was a Beach Boys song although Nicks, in a later interview, claims it was the Mamas and Papas classic hit California Dreamin'.

It would be another two years before they sang together again. Buckingham was playing bass with some high school friends in a band called Fritz and invited Nicks to join them as their singer.

Nicks recalled this in interview, "... he called me and asked me if I wanted to be in a rock & roll band. I had been playing guitar and singing pretty much folk-oriented stuff. So I joined the band, and within a couple of weeks we were opening for really big shows. All of a sudden I was in rock & roll."

Bands that Fritz were the opening act for included Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane and Jimi Hendrix.

Fritz gave both Buckingham and Nicks, who weren't given the chance to perform their own material in the band, the opportunity to gain some experience of performing in front of an audience and, as was often the case, large crowds who had come to hear the main acts. The bands manager at the time was David Forrester who worked tirelessly to secure them a record deal despite their music being far removed from current trends.

Fritz disbanded in 1971 and Buckingham and Nicks, who had become romantically linked, planned to move from San Francisco to Los Angeles in the hope of being discovered and signed up.

Nicks had been attending San Jose State University while in Fritz and Buckingham joined her with both managing to work on their studying while still pursuing their love of music. By 1972 they were writing songs and putting them down on tape on a four-track machine that Buckingham stored at his fathers coffee roasting plant. It was at this point they both decided to drop out of college and head for Los Angeles.

In LA, Nicks worked at various jobs to keep the money coming in. These included a waitress, hostess and cleaning lady for Keith Olsen, a record producer. This gave Buckingham the time to concentrate on his guitar skills and songwriting.

They met with Keith Olsen and the two owners of White Whale Records, Ted Feigin and Lee Lasseff, played them a selection of their music and all three were impressed with what they were hearing.

Lasseff secured a distribution deal with Polydor Records which Nicks recalled. "We had some great demos. We shopped around. Over a period of time we got a deal with Polydor and made our first album, Buckingham Nicks."

It could have been a different story had the record deal not happened. Nicks talked about quitting, "I had been thinking of quitting it all and going back to school because I was sick of being miserable and I hate being poor."

The album was recorded at Sound City Studios in the Van Nuys neighborhood of Los Angeles with Keith Olsen as producer/engineer and Richard Dashut the assistant engineer. Along with Lindsey Buckingham (vocals, guitar, bass and percussion) and Stevie Nicks (vocals) the other musicians playing on the album were Waddy Wachtel (guitar), Jerry Scheff and Mark Tulin (bass), Peggy Sandvic (keyboards), Monty Stark (synthesizer), Jim Keltner, Ronnie Tutt and Hoppy Hodges (drums) and Jorge Calderon (percussion).

Recalling his working relationship with not just Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks but also Keith Olsen, Waddy Wachtel recalled on his website, "So Keith and I started working together. This was in like '68, '69 probably. And that's - from then on - that's when things started happening. That's where Keith Olsen one day came and said 'I'm bringing this couple down from North Carolina, named Stevie and Lindsey. And I want you to play on their record. "

The album opens with the first of four Stevie Nicks compositions Crying In The Night. Her other contributions are Crystal, Long Distance Winner and Races Are Run. Lindsey Buckingham provided four tracks, Stephanie, Without A Leg To Stand On, Don't Let Me Down Again, Lola (My Love) and co-wrote a fifth with Nicks, the 7 minute album closer Frozen Love. One other track, the short instrumental Django, was written back in 1954 and is a jazz standard written by John Lewis as a tribute to jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt. Lindsey plays just the introduction on the album.

A few tracks would be recorded again later on Fleetwood Mac albums. Crystal was on the breakthrough White Album while Don't Let Me Down Again was featured on tour and a 1975 live recording was included on the Fleetwood Mac Live album in 1980. Listening to the instrumental Stephanie you can hear similar guitar to the Rumours track Never Going Back Again. 

Released in September 1973 Buckingham Nicks failed to create the success hoped for, failed to chart at the time and was soon deleted. However, it seems it did chart later reaching number 28 on the 'Billboard Midline Album Charts', which were created in 1982, for older and mid-price albums - (author note: I was unable to confirm this)

Two singles were also released in 1973, Don't Let Me Down Again/Without A Leg To Stand On and Crying In The Night/Stephanie, neither achieved any chart success.

Part of the albums failure can be directed at Polydor Records whose promotional staff ignored the album. It did create interest in the Birmingham, Alabama and surrounding areas where they had a reasonably large fan-following but nothing further afield.

The cover image was taken by photographer/art director Jimmy Wachtel (Waddy's older brother) whose photos have appeared on albums by Joe Walsh, Dave Mason, Warren Zevon and many more. Stevie Nicks had bought a new white blouse for the shoot, costing $111, a considerable amount back in 1973, but she is not wearing it on the album cover as both Wachtel and Buckingham coerced her to remove it for the photos. She was very unhappy as she recalled in a later interview, "I was crying when we took that picture. And Lindsey was mad at me. he said, 'You know, you're just being a child. This is art.' And I'm going, 'This is not art. This is me taking a nude photograph with you, and I don't dig it." She went on to say, "I thought, 'Who are you? Don't you know me?' I couldn't breathe. But I did it because I felt like a rat in a trap."

Several images from the shoot have appeared recently with and without the blouse...

To promote the album they toured the southern states during 1974/1975 and two concerts from Birmingham and Tuscaloosa, both in Alabama, have been heavily bootlegged over the years. Along with most of the tracks from the album they also performed several songs that would later appear on albums by Fleetwood Mac including, Monday Morning, Rhiannon, I Don't Want To Know and Blue Letter.

Their career as a duo and their concerts were to be short lived as they would soon find themselves part of a band whose career would see them achieving the kind of success they had longed for and deserved.

Buckingham Nicks is long-overdue for official release on CD despite several times being mentioned by Lindsey Buckingham as a possibility. In 2006 he mentioned he was interested in seeing the album on CD and in an NME interview in 2011 he reiterated his wishes to see it receive an official release. The following year he talked again about the possibility of it being released in 2013. He stated, "Stevie and I have been hanging out a little lately, and we've been talking about that. I think that's something that would happen this year as well. I hate to even say it, I think the 40th anniversary of that is next year. So we've been talking about it off and on for a long time, but Stevie seems really into the idea. So yes, I would say yes."

Unfortunately the 40th anniversary came and went without any sign of a reissue. Of course, 2023 would be the 50th so maybe we will finally have the album on CD, hopefully with bonus tracks and extensive liner notes.

The album has been bootlegged several times with the most popular being the South Korean release Buckingham Nicks: Deluxe Edition which featured twelve tracks recorded around the same time as the album.

A couple of tracks have escaped on various releases over the years. Long Distance Winner appeared on Stevie Nicks Enchanted box set while Stephanie was featured on Words And Music (A Retrospective), a promotional-only CD from Lindsey Buckingham.

Just after the albums release Mick Fleetwood happened to be looking around for a studio in which to record their next album. At Sound City, Keith Olsen played Frozen Love through the studio speakers and Fleetwood was instantly taken with the guitar playing. He wasn't actually looking for a replacement for Bob Welch who was leaving the band but fate would step in.

Olsen introduced Fleetwood to the guitar player who had impressed him so much. Lindsey Buckingham was at the studio that day recording some new material when he was asked if he wanted to join the band. He immediately said yes as long as his partner and musical collaborator Stevie Nicks was included. Originally the band were only looking for a guitarist to replace Bob Welch but following lunch at El Carmen, a Mexican restaurant, both Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks became the latest members of Fleetwood Mac.

This brings my look at the careers of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, pre-Fleetwood Mac, to a close and in a future blog I will be taking a look back at the album Rumours and why it is my all-time favourite album.

GENE TIERNEY - HOLLYWOOD BEAUTY

Gene Eliza Tierney was born on 19 November 1920 in Brooklyn, New York City and raised in Westport, Connecticut. Her father, Howard Sherwood Tierney, was an insurance broker and her mother, Belle Lavinia, was a former teacher. During her childhood she often lived with her grandparents in Connecticut, attended some of the finest schools on the East Coast and spent time in Switzerland at finishing school. She returned to America a couple of years later to complete her education.

Her first acting role was in 1938 when she appeared in What A Life! on Broadway which saw her carrying a bucket of water across the stage. One critic, writing in the entertainment paper Variety, wrote, "Miss Tierney is, without a doubt, the most beautiful water carrier I have ever seen!" It was hard to disagree with his comments as she was admired for her beautiful green eyes, luminous skin and high cheekbones... every inch a Hollywood Starlet.

Further roles on Broadway during the final years of the 1930s included Primrose Path, Mrs O'Brian Entertains and Ring Two which found her tackling meatier roles and receiving critical acclaim from the New York critics. Richard Watts, one such critic, said, "I see no reason why Miss Tierney should not have a long and interesting theatrical career, that is if the cinema does not kidnap her away." Fortunately for the cinema-going public it was exactly what happened.

In 1940 Tierney was appearing on stage as Patricia Stanley in the hit show The Male Animal and came to the attention of legendary producer and studio boss Darryl F. Zanuck. Impressed with this stunning young actress he signed her to a contract with 20th Century Fox. Her movie career began in 1940 with her role as Barbara Hall in Hudson's Bay and the same year she would also appear in The Return Of Frank James.

The next few years were very busy for Tierney with films including The Shangai Gesture, Sundown, John Ford's comedy Tobacco Road, Belle Star all released in 1941 and the following year she turned to comedy again in Rings On Her Fingers. 

Around this time she was approached to recreate her role as Patricia Stanley in the film version of The Male Animal. Unfortunately she was under contract to make Tobacco Road and the part went to Joan Leslie.

Demand for her acting talents, and no doubt stunning looks, meant she was offered more roles and 1942 saw her in China Girl, Thunder Birds and, the next year, top billing in the Ernst Lubitsch comedy Heaven Can Wait alongside Don Ameche and Charles Coburn. She received her first award for the film, The Photoplay Award for 'Best Performances of the Month'. However, the following year would see her playing her most famous role. 

Critics agree that her portrayal of murder victim Laura Hunt in Otto Preminger's film noir Laura was an outstanding performance. Starring alongside Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, Vincent Price and Judith Anderson it told the story of police detective Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews) who falls in love with the woman whose murder he is investigating.

The film received five Academy Award nominations, winning the 'Best Black & White Cinematography' category, was selected in 1999 for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being 'culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant and named one of the best ten mystery films of all time by the American Film Institute. A second Photoplay Award came her way for 'Best Performances of the Month (January)'.

Laura wasn't the only film in which she starred with Dana Andrews. They also worked together on Tobacco Road, Belle Star, The Iron Curtain and Where The Sidewalk Ends.

The mystery/romance Dragonwyck, released in 1946, saw her appearing alongside Vincent Price again having already worked together on Laura, Hudson's Bay and Leave Her To Heaven.

Her portrayal of Ellen Brent in Leave Her To Heaven (1945) earned her an Oscar nomination in the 'Best Actress' category which, despite not winning, just confirmed, if any confirmation was necessary, her position in Hollywood society.

More praise came her way in 1946 with her role as Isabel Bradley in the wartime romance film The Razor's Edge, based on a book by W. Somerset Maughaw and the next year as Lucy Muir in the acclaimed romance The Ghost And Mrs Muir.

The 1940s had been good years for Tierney and the 1950s would find her just as busy. Among her film credits during the decade were Night And The City (1950), The Mating Season (1951), Close To My Heart (1951), Plymouth Adventure (1952), Personal Affair (1953) and The Left Hand Of God (1955), which would be her last role for seven years.

She returned to the silver screen in 1962 in Advise & Consent but demand for her waned and The Pleasure Seekers (1964) was her last feature film although she did make a TV appearance in 1980 in the mini-series Scruples.

While Gene Tierney was a successful actress, loved on the silver screen and across the world her personal life was not such a happy story.

She struggled for years with depression and, following consultations with psychiatrists, was admitted to a number of facilities. Following shock treatment, meant to alleviate depression, she fled one facility and became very outspoken about the therapy which, she claimed, had severely damaged parts of her memory. Talking about her depression she said, "No one suggested psychiatric help. No one saw it then as a clue to the mental breakdown still ahead of me, or the kind of trick the mind plays on the body."

She worked as a salesgirl in a dress shop before being recognised by a customer and this resulted in newspaper headlines. In 1959 she was offered a role in Holiday For Lovers but the stress was too much and after a few days of production she dropped out of the film. As we have already seen she did make a comeback in 1962 in Advise & Consent. Explaining why she hadn't been working she commented, "My departure from Hollywood was described as a walk-out. No one understood I was cracking up."

Tierney was married twice. Her first husband, Oleg Cassini, was a fashion designer and they had two children, Antionette Daria and Christina. They married in 1941 and separated in 1946 during which time she was linked romantically with John F. Kennedy and Kirk Douglas. A reconciliation with Cassini only lasted a few years and they were divorced in 1952. She met oil baron William Howard Lee in 1958 and they married in 1960 and lived a fairly quiet life in Texas and Miami until his death in 1981.

While pregnant with Daria, in June 1943, Tierney contracted Rubella, possibly from a fan who had the illness. She was born prematurely, weighing just over three pounds, and the illness caused congenital damage. Daria was deaf, partially blind and mentally disabled. She spent a lot of her life in institutions and passed away in 2010 aged 66. Howard Hughes apparently paid all the medical expenses ensuring she had the best care possible, something Tierney never forgot.

Tierney was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in February 1960 and honored with the first Donostia Lifetime Achievement Award in 1986 at the San Sebastian Film Festival in Spain. Eighteen of her films passed the $100 million gross mark with Leave Her To Heaven becoming her biggest box office hit. On average a Gene Tierney movie grossed $117.20 million. Although she never won an Oscar thirteen of her films received at least one nomination in any category with four winning at least one in any category.

Gene Tierney had started smoking the first time she saw herself on-screen commenting that, "I sounded like an angry Minnie Mouse." She thought smoking would help lower her voice but it came at a great cost. She passed away on 6 November 1991 of emphysema and was buried at the Glenwood cemetery in Houston. She was two days away from her 71st birthday.

The last words should be from Darryl F. Zanuck who said, "She was unquestionably the most beautiful woman in movie history."

I have to agree.