Bella Donna (album)
Bella Donna is the debut solo studio album by American singer and songwriter Stevie Nicks. Released on July 27, 1981, the album reached number one on the US "Billboard" 200 in September of that year. "Bella Donna" was awarded platinum status by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on October 7, 1981, less than three months after its release, and in 1990 was certified quadruple-platinum for four million copies shipped. "Bella Donna" spent nearly three years on the "Billboard" 200, from July 1981 to June 1984. The album spawned four hit singles during 1981 and  1982: the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers-penned duet "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" (#3), the Don Henley duet "Leather and Lace" (#6), her signature song "Edge of Seventeen" (#11) and country-tinged "After the Glitter Fades" (#32). "Bella Donna" would mark the beginning of Nicks' trend of calling upon her many musician friends and connections to fully realize her sparse demo recordings. Along with friends Tom Petty and Don Henley, Nicks brought in session musician Waddy Wachtel, Bruce Springsteen's E-Street Band pianist Roy Bittan, and Stax session man Donald "Duck" Dunn of Booker T. & the MGs. The  album marked the first recording featuring Nicks' backing vocalists, Sharon Celani and Lori Perry, who still record and tour with Nicks today. The album was also included in the "Greatest of All Time "Billboard" 200 Albums" chart. History. Nicks began work on "Bella Donna" in 1979, in between sessions for her third album as part of Fleetwood Mac, "Tusk", released in October that year. Nicks recorded various demo versions of songs in early and mid-1980 but these recordings were not used on the album. Following the end of the "Tusk" tour on September 1, 1980, work with a full band  of other musicians commenced under producer Jimmy Iovine. Recording sessions continued until the spring of 1981 when the final songs for the album were completed: "Edge of Seventeen" and "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around". The 10-song, 42-minute album "Bella Donna" was released in the summer of 1981. Nicks wrote "Think About It" for her friend and Fleetwood Mac bandmate Christine McVie. A number of finished songs did not make it on the album, including "Blue Lamp", which was released instead on the "Heavy Metal" soundtrack later in 1981, and "Sleeping Angel", released on the "Fast Times at Ridgemont  High" soundtrack in 1982. These two songs were included on Nicks' "Enchanted" boxed set in 1998, along with another unused "Bella Donna" session song, "Gold and Braid". Three more songs from these sessions, "If You Were My Love", "Belle Fleur" and "The Dealer", were finally released on Nicks' album "" (2014). On her "Enchanted" boxed set release in 1998, remastered versions of some "Bella Donna" tracks ran noticeably longer in some instances, notably "Leather and Lace". Video footage of the album sessions can be found on the DVD portion of Nicks' retrospective release "Crystal Visions – The Very Best of Stevie Nicks  (2007). Rhino released an expanded, three-disc version of Bella Donna" on November 4, 2016. The first disc is the remastered original album. The second disc includes outtakes, alternative versions, demos and more. The third disc consists of live tracks from Nicks' "White Wing Dove" tour 1981, recorded at the Fox Wilshire Theatre in Los Angeles, California on December 13, 1981. Track listing. (*) denotes previously unreleased Personnel. Band Additional musicians Tour Band (2016 Deluxe Edition Disc 3) Photography Production Tour and HBO television special. Nicks underwent a short national tour in support of the album, starting on November 28, 1981 , and finishing on December 13, 1981. The final night at The Wilshire Fox Theatre in Beverly Hills was recorded by HBO for a television special and later released on VHS and LaserDisc video in many territories by CBS/Fox in 1982 as "White Wing Dove – Stevie Nicks in Concert". The whole show was recorded, but only 9 tracks ("Gold Dust Woman", "Gold And Braid", "I Need to Know", an edited "Outside the Rain", "Dreams", "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around", "Sara", "Edge of Seventeen" and "Rhiannon") were shown on the TV special and released to video. However, the live performance of  Leather and Lace was used as a video promo for the single release (even though it was a solo version and did not feature Don Henley), and did surface on the 1986 VHS collection "I Can't Wait", which featured six of Nicks' promo-clips between 1981 and 1985. These six promos were released on DVD as a special feature to the Australian issue of "Fleetwood Mac – Mirage Tour" in 2007. On the 2016 Bella Donna Deluxe Edition, 14 tracks from the show - the ten aforementioned songs as well as "Angel", "After the Glitter Fades", "Bella Donna" and "How Still  My Love" - were remastered and released (Disc 3), with "Outside the Rain" being restored to its full version. Previously, only two tracks ("Edge of Seventeen" and "Gold and Braid") were found on the boxset "The Enchanted Works of Stevie Nicks" (1998). "Blue Lamp" and "Think About It" were recorded and received audio broadcast on radio but were not televised, and as such have never been officially released. Nicks' retrospective "Crystal Visions – The Very Best of Stevie Nicks" (2007) included the full live 1981 clip of "Edge of Seventeen" on the DVD supplement, with optional commentary from Nicks. She admits that  her tears at the end of the song were due to her thoughts of having to join Fleetwood Mac in France the following day to begin recording the album "Mirage", one of the key reasons why the 1981 tour was so short. The "White Wing Dove" performance remains unreleased in its entirety, although it has been circulating for many years amongst fans as a bootleg. Tour set list Tour dates