It's difficult to be a girl in a big rock and roll group for six years," says Stevie Nicks about her life with Fleetwood Mac. "You're very protected and dependent. Doing my solo albums were the steps I took to show I still had control."

The exercise in "control" worked because Ms. Nicks' first solo album, Bella Donna, rose to the top of the charts, and now her most recent release, The Wild Heart, is doing the same. Stevie Nicks' music is a mirror of her moods and many people can both relate to and admire her ability to capture those feelings on vinyl and video.

"I had all these tunes stored up," she says. "I write 3 to 4 songs every month or two, and since I never get more than that many on a Fleetwood Mac album, the backlog grows. And I really needed to know that I could do something on my own."

Stevie Nicks is part "Sara," part "Gypsy," part "Bella Donna," part "Wild Heart" and part of dozens of songs the world has yet to hear from her. Her personal style is her own blend of "collectibles," mostly fine antique chiffon, velvet and crepe hand-beaded, lacy wonders combined with dancers' leg warmers and "outmoded" high platform boots. "When I was in my teens," she says, "my concept of me was strange, which I still am, because the reason I still wear the chiffon and the platform boots and the leg warmers is because I like that."

Stevie Nicks was born in Phoenix, Arizona. She was attending San Jose State when she met guitar whiz Lindsey Buckingham. They became romantically and professionally involved before teaming up with Mick Fleetwood, Christine McVie and John McVie to form Fleetwood Mac. The rest, of course, is history.

Not surprisingly, Stevie's creative energies continue to seek new outlets. Her latest album, The Wild Heart, was spearheaded by thesingle, "Stand Back" which jumped the charts steadily this past summer. Before opening an extensive American tour, Stevie performed in front of an estimated 200,000 people at the US Festival in California in July. Now, full swing into the tour, Stevie's spreading her wild musical heart nationwide.

Always true to herself and to her fans, Stevie Nicks said, "If this record is going to be called The Wild Heart, then the 'Wild Heart' song has got to be a killer or I'll have to change the title. But The Wild Heart is wild," says Stevie, "and it's exactly what I wanted it to be! The Wild Heart is all the darkest places in your mind, it's a real intense song...I played it for Tom Petty and he said, 'This is an epic,' and that's just what it is, the real story of what we all go through, everybody---of how wild our hearts really are and we can't help it; because this is just the way it is." And that's just the way Stevie Nicks is.