It was a smart move by Taylor Jenkins Reid: she based the character dramas of her novel,
Everybody Loves Daisy
(2019), on the turbulent intrastory of Fleetwood Mac, with its power struggles, infidelities and overwhelming success.
In the background is the idyllic hippy enclave of Laurel Canyon, in the Hollywood Hills.
In the recently released series
Daisy Jones & the Six
(Prime Video) the retouching accumulates.
Thus, Daisy's escape now ends on a Greek island, an echo of Joni Mitchell's famous escape in 1970. It is true that, more than the globs of historical anecdotary, what is annoying in the audiovisual version are the concessions to, let's go to put it this way, the pious current sensibility.
The ethnicity and sexuality of various characters are altered.
Which, mind you, isn't always a bad thing: the subplot in which Simone Jackson, Daisy's unlikely black friend, plunges into New York's gay scene and is resurrected by disco music is welcome
.
It is appreciated since the series is too bloated and contains chapters with soap opera twists that, zzzzzz, sink the tension: behind it is a monstrous budget that required, the Amazon gentlemen decided, 10 installments.
The investment in the care with which the original songs of Daisy Jones & The Six have materialized, which are even working commercially in the current market, to the delight of Jackson Browne, Marcus Munford and other producers, is also noticeable.
This scrupulousness collides with the whims of the
showrunners
, who fall into embarrassing topics, where they confuse the decades: in the mid-seventies, recording was no longer made with the musicians playing and singing, all at the same time, in the studio;
similarly, a successful group was not greeted by crowds with banners when they arrived at a hotel (
hey
, the californian rock public was too
cool
to imitate the beatlemania of 10 years ago).
We see little of
business
, although Timothy Olyphant's role as unflappable
road manager is a success.
Quite the opposite of a meticulous novel recently published in Spain,
Wandering Kings
(Impedimenta).
Joseph O'Connor evokes the rough texture of a group takeoff in Thatcher's England, The Ships in the Night;
The Ships then settle in wild lower Manhattan, where they begin their rise to stardom.
Here is everything: the learning, the miseries of the business, the meetings with his idols (Patti Smith, Elvis Costello and —fleetingly— Bob Dylan), the generosity of the world with the winners: “I swear that when the album hit hard in North America I spent a year going out at night with no money.”
Joseph knows what he's talking about: he's the older brother of the singer Sinéad O'Connor.
Cover of the book 'Vagabond Kings'.O'Connor
His characters have strong backgrounds: the narrator, guitarist Robbie Golding, comes from the Irish economic diaspora, a family based in Luton (you know, the fourth airport in the London area), headed by a traditional father, skeptical of modernities such as Pop music.
The verisimilitude does falter with the luminary of the group, Fran Mulvey.
And not so much because of his exotic origin – a Vietnamese orphan raised in British foster families – as because of his pansexuality, his taste for provocative clothing, his elusive life, his voracity towards drugs, his unleashed ego, his Bowie-grade magnetism .
Naturally, Fran ends up flying solo.
And he becomes an inflexible monster, who imposes his will through bellicose lawyers.
Don't miss (page 331) the list of his travel requirements.
As in real life.
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