‘Street Angel’: How Stevie Nicks Fought To Keep Her Spirit Alive

“This album is so different because we started out from guitar”

Rose Garden definitely found its home on Street Angel, as it was composed on guitar and reflects the central role of that instrument in the album. The multiple guitarists on Street Angel (sadly not Nicks herself) included Andy Fairweather Low and Eagles’ Bernie Leadon, who were more than simply guns for hire – they joined Nicks right from the album’s inception. “The three of us spent about eight weeks playing all the songs and the ones that made it on the album began to show themselves,” Nicks said. “It was almost like we were this little Kingston Trio… it was really great and that’s why this album is so different, because we started out from a guitar point of view as opposed to the piano.”

Some of the newer songs were still composed by Nicks alone at the piano. Street Angel’s title track is a narrative about a young homeless woman, but instead of delivering something in the usual tradition of rich rock stars wringing their hands over a social problem, Nicks dispenses with the paternalism. Her narrator resists a Prince Charming type “rescuing” her, preferring to stay with her community. There are also songs for notable people. Blue Denim – about former partner and bandmate Lindsey Buckingham – strongly captures the kind of love that flares so bright it slashes and burns all around, and it still stands today as one of the best Stevie Nicks songs. Jane is about the primatologist Jane Goodall (of Gorillas In The Mist fame), and was written just ten minutes after the two women met. And Greta is for Garbo, and Nicks’ admiration for the actress’ show of strength in walking away from fame.

Nicks also gets a little help on the album from Bob Dylan. She had long claimed to Dylan she wanted to cover Just Like A Woman, originally released on his 1966 album, Blonde On Blonde. “You hate it, right?” a nervous Nicks said, when she played an early version to him. But he didn’t. Instead, he played harmonica and guitar on it, blessing it as a fantastic cover version, exploring all the complexity of womanhood.

“If she got through it… maybe I can, too”

Technically, Nicks had frustrations with Street Angel. The original producer was Glyn Johns – a veteran of rock production, from The Who to Faces, Eric Clapton to Eagles. But Nicks found not only his technique, but his whole attitude, to be a problem. “I didn’t like it when he was there, and he knew it,” she said in 2014. “Basically he told me to… like, in no uncertain English, very rough terms, to shut up and deal with it.”

The vicissitudes of Klonopin addiction made Nicks erratic, too, and during mixing and mastering, she tried to conquer the drug with another stay in rehab. This meant key decisions on the final sound and tracklist of Street Angel were taken by the record company, not Nicks. But on leaving rehab and hearing an album she barely recognised as her own work, Nicks strode back into the studio, adding percussion, extra guitar, and remixing – undoing the production work she couldn’t abide.

She has since expressed regret that she didn’t also fix her vocals, but at the time she was exhausted, unhappy, and just wanted done with the thing. “This record should have been out a long time ago,” Nicks said at the time, weariness dripping from her. “It may be new for everybody else, but it’s really old for me.” Released on 7 June 1994, Street Angel made it to No.16 in the UK. Yet it was the dark before the dawn. Nicks’ latest stint in rehab worked, as she was free of tranquilizer addiction – and all other addictions, which had plagued her for over two decades. When she returned with her next studio album, 2001’s Trouble In Shangri-La, her mojo was definitely working again.

Street Angel now feels ripe for reappraisal. Despite all her misgivings and unhappiness with the album, Nicks knew that her fans would still find her within it. She said, at the time of the album’s release, that she’d like people to hear the lyrics and then think, “Well, if she’s got through it and she survived… maybe I can too.”

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