Mick Fleetwood Broke Sheets of Glass to Accentuate Stevie Nicks’ Voice For This Hit Fleetwood Mac Song
A former Fleetwood Mac producer opened up about making the Rumours album, and he revealed what went on behind the scenes when the band recorded a hit Stevie Nicks song. Here’s the story of making “Gold Dust Woman” and why they recorded the sounds of breaking glass for the track.
A Fleetwood Mac producer opened up about recording the Stevie Nicks song ‘Gold Dust Woman’
Producer Ken Caillat worked with Fleetwood Mac on the Rumours album and described the Stevie Nicks song “Gold Dust Woman” as “weird.”
“It was a weird song, and truthfully, I wasn’t very excited about it,” Caillat told MusicRadar. “I couldn’t tell where it was going. It was typical Stevie – most of her songs, in their inception, are close to 10 or 12 minutes long, with endless verses and epic stories.”
The producer said he had to heavily edit Nicks’ song, despite pushback from the singer. “My job became one of editing, taking all of these sections and making them flow, cutting out the fat,” he explained. “Stevie would go crazy – ‘Oh, that verse was about my mother! That part was about my dog!’ [laughs] These things would mean something to her, but they had to work for the listener.”
The Fleetwood Mac producer described how Mick Fleetwood made unique sounds to complement Stevie Nicks’ voice on ‘Gold Dust Woman’
Ken Caillat said “Gold Dust Woman” became more “evil” sounding as he recorded it with Stevie Nicks. “The song grew more evil as we built it. I called over to SIR and they send over a bunch of weird instruments, like an electric harpsichord with a jet phaser – that created a cool, whooshing sound,” he described. “We weren’t looking for musicality, we were looking for accents, mood. We marked the keyboard with tape so Mick could play the right notes.”
The producer said Nicks had been drinking before they recorded. “Stevie had a lot of Courvoisier in her, and she did this incredible coyote-like howling at the end,” he said. “She had become this witch she was always writing about.”
Drummer Mick Fleetwood smashed sheets of glass into a microphone to complement Nicks’ voice. “To accentuate her vocals, Mick went into this room we had [mic’d] up, and he broke sheets of glass. He was wearing goggles and coveralls – it was pretty funny,” said Caillat. “He just went mad, bashing glass with this big hammer. He tried to do it on cue, but it was difficult. Eventually, we said, ‘Just break the glass,’ and we fit it all in.”
Mick Fleetwood said his bandmate recorded the hit song in 8 takes
In the Mick Fleetwood book My Life and Adventures in Fleetwood Mac, the drummer described recording “Gold Dust Woman” with Stevie Nicks. He said the singer took eight takes to get the vocals right, and they recorded in the early hours of the morning.
Apparently, all that “coyote-like howling” Ken Caillat described took it out of the singer. In his book, Fleetwood described Nicks as “hunched over in a chair, alternately choosing from her supply of tissues, a Vicks inhaler, a box of lozenges for her sore throat and a bottle of mineral water” (per Songfacts).
