Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Reviewed by Kristin

Imagine being in the middle of the hottest rock band in the seventies—let’s say a group like The Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac, Queen, or Led Zeppelin. With some bands’ meteoric rise to fame, all too many musicians go on the road chased by adoring fans, start popping a few pills (or worse,) and begin to see themselves as invincible. This familiar story is freshly told in an achingly poignant voice in Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid.

The story begins with a description of Daisy Jones’ childhood. Her father is a well-known painter and her mother a French model, and they continue to live their lives as they had before parenthood, occasionally remembering that they have a daughter. Soon enough, teenage Daisy is making her way into the party scene of L.A, where everyone loves the young and the beautiful. And Daisy is beautiful, with thick red hair and the bluest of blue eyes. Not to mention, she has the purest, completely untrained singing voice. Daisy sings from the depths of herself, seemingly without effort. It is inevitable that Daisy will connect with the The Six, a band started by brothers Billy and Graham Dunne. When she does, sparks fly.

Billy is the acknowledged leader of The Six, and is none too sure about bringing Daisy into the group. Music fans and tabloid journalists question whether they are secretly a couple, or do they hate each other? The “truth” is ferreted out through a series of interviews by someone who is writing a history of the band at least three decades after the band broke up in 1979. Told through many voices and many points of view, the “author” has compiled an oral history of this mysterious band. Family, friends, and bandmates are intertwined as the complexities of their relationships are revealed. The audiobook version really brings the characters to life as it was recorded by different narrators for each voice.

The book is amazing enough, but now a television miniseries is being produced by Amazon. Reese Witherspoon promoted the novel with her book club, and is also one of the executive producers of the screen adaptation. Throw in the fact that Riley Keough—Elvis’ granddaughter—will portray Daisy, and I’m sold.

Christy also reviewed this book  soon after the release in 2019. Like her, I wanted to hear the band’s music, and remained disappointed that they did not actually exist in 1970s rock history. Instead I kept imagining Fleetwood Mac style songs. Wikipedia says that the author was partly inspired by seeing Fleetwood Mac performances on television, so I must have picked up on her subconscious vibes.

Read the book. I’m willing to bet that you’ll be wishing Daisy Jones & The Six were real too.

Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Reviewed by Christy

            Daisy Jones and the Six is Taylor Jenkins Reid follow up to The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. Written as an oral history, this novel recounts the rise and fall of a 70s rock band called Daisy Jones and the Six. I listened to the audio book which featured a full cast of narrators, and it was delightful. I finished the book in two days which I think may be a record for me. It felt like I was listening to a podcast or watching an episode of Behind the Music.

            Reid gets into the background of  Daisy Jones’ life as well as the background of the members of the Six and then explains how they fused together to create a popular rock band and one of the most critically acclaimed albums of the 70s. Much like The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, the characters in felt real, and I kept forgetting that I couldn’t just go listen to some of their songs on Youtube. But eventually that wore off, and I have to admit that I found my mind wandering a bit when the characters get into the nitty gritty of how some of their songs were written. I obviously couldn’t listen to their music so I had no connection to that part of it. The physical book includes all the lyrics to all the songs mentioned so maybe that would’ve helped. I didn’t love this the way I do Evelyn Hugo, and there are a few things I’d tinker with regarding the ending but overall it’s a fun read, and I liked it a lot. I wonder if I would’ve had a different experience reading it traditionally (a lot of readers felt disconnected to the oral history style) but the audio is fantastic, and I highly recommend it.

            Reese Witherspoon is supposedly adapting it for an Amazon miniseries which will include original music, and I am so excited to check that out.

Tune In: The Beatles – All These Years, Vol. 1 by Mark Lewisohn

Reviewed by Kristin

Mark Lewisohn is not just a casual music fan who decided to write a book about the Beatles.  He is known as the world authority on the group, perhaps the best Beatles historian of this, or any age.  It is no wonder that this first volume of a planned trilogy weighs in at over 900 pages, including about 100 pages of notes, credits, and an index.  Although a tremendous undertaking just to read the book, I believe it is well worth the time of any Beatles fan.  Exhaustively researched (the first volume took Lewisohn almost a decade,) Tune In utilizes thousands of primary documents and hundreds of new interviews to tell the story of how the Beatles came to be.

Tune In begins in January 1958, when 17-year-old John Lennon invited 15-year-old Paul McCartney to join the Quarry Men, the musical group that John had begun in 1956-57.  This first volume spans the era through December 1962, the point when the Beatles were beginning to be known to the wider music world.  Lewisohn discusses the inclusion of Pete Best, George Harrison, Stuart Sutcliffe, Ringo Starr, and a few other musicians who played in some version of the group which would come to be known as the Beatles, meticulously noting how and when friends and acquaintances were added and/or removed from the group.  Manager Brian Epstein and producer George Martin’s significant influences are considered as well.

From a couple of teenage boys playing around on their guitars, to the single Love Me Do making a splash by hitting the charts in the fall of 1962 and peaking at number seventeen, Tune In examines those early years.  Playing clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg, Germany honed their skills, and much text is dedicated to the breadth of their live experience before being awarded recording contracts.  Lewisohn delves into the influence that musicians such as Little Richard, Buddy Holly, and Elvis had on the Beatles, as well as other societal influences of the post-World War II era.

Published in 2013, Tune In is a comprehensive telling of the Beatles early years.  It was an easy “read” for me as I listened to the audiobook version.  I was entertained for 43+ hours over the last few weeks as I drove, fixed dinner, etc.  This is one of those “driveway stories,” where I just couldn’t quite bring myself to turn off the book even though I had arrived home.  After finishing the audio version, I checked out the print version from the library as there are quite a few interesting photographs.  The author does not have a definite date for the publication of the next volume; I am anxiously awaiting that information.  Although the story is of all those years ago, the Beatles still hold our attention and our hearts, and Lewisohn is a master storyteller who should not be missed.