Every Friday around 11 a.m. Central, it’s time for Classic Americana on Radio Heartland. We pull a special track from the archives or from deep in the shelves to spotlight a particular artist or song.

This week, we’re spotlighting an artist whose birthday is coming up on May 26 — singer-songwriter Stevie Nicks.

Nicks is certainly well known for her tenure in the iconic band Fleetwood Mac, but in 1981, Nicks released her debut solo album, Bella Donna. Produced by Jimmy Iovine, Bella Donna proved quite a successful effort for Nicks, who wrote all but one song on the album.

The song that Nicks didn’t write was composed by Tom Petty and Mike Campbell of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. That band had recorded a version of the song with Iovine, but Iovine suggested Stevie Nicks record a version of the song along with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers as the studio band (one key exception is that bassist Ron Blair was replaced by Stax bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn). The song in question? “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.”

The song was released as a single on July 8, 1981, two-and-a-half weeks before Nicks’ album Bella Donna dropped. “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” went on to be one of four songs off Bella Donna to be charting hits, and it spent three weeks at its peak position of No. 3 in the Billboard singles chart. It’s our Classic Americana pick of the week, Stevie Nicks with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.”

Nicks and Petty reunited onstage many times through the years to perform the song together. Their final performance of the song came in July 2017 at the British Summer Time music festival in Hyde Park in London; Petty died on October 2, 2017, at the age of 66.

External Link

Stevie Nicks – official site