Ken Caillat's book...bits and tidbits
 

Well, my book arrived late today. I've only been skimming through it... One of the first bits I noted was his claim that Stevie did not sequence Rumours as claimed all these years..... Judy Wong did!

:laugh::laugh::laugh:

Don't tell her!

I'm about 70 pages into it, and I love it! You feel like you're right there in the control room of the studio. He writes that none of them can write or read music, which is fascinating. There are already a bunch of little anecdotes I've come across that I've never heard before. Caillat can seem harsh in his descriptions of the band members sometimes, however it is clear that he respects them as people and as musicians.

I thought the bit about not miking Stevie when she plays the tambo was interesting, they let wanted to record Mick playing it instead. Interesting read so far, Ken certainly didnt hold back when it came to JC either.

I loved the story of Stevie sobbing when she had to cut parts from Silver Springs, but once she realised that she either cut lines from it, or lost royalties by having less songs, the sobbing stopped and she became ruthless :laugh: Also loved how she rescued The Chain and was all smug about it.

that would be inaccurate regarding Christine, who is classically trained.

Yeah, her dad would be spinning if she couldn't read or write music. Michele

Maybe not, though. From personal experience, that's a skill that can go away if unused for a great length of time, and I seriously doubt that she would have needed to read music in the decade leading up to Rumours.

This is absolutely true. I played almost a half dozen different instruments from elementary school up through the end of high school, but a decade later, I most certainly cannot read music anymore. I also was able to speak, read, and write Spanish at that time... but have lost that skill as well. Even though Christine was classically trained, she focused her talents on playing in jams & by ear for the majority of her career. I could easily see her not reading music by the time of Rumours, especially given her alcohol & drug usage at that juncture. :p

huh? i didn't use it for the last 3 decades and i can still read notes and play their instruments when my kids have to practice for school. it's like riding a bike or learning how to ski, i suspect.

Yeah, that's definitley interesting, whether that skill can be lost or not...I played saxophone for five years, and didn't look at music again for four years. I can still read music, but not very well, and I wouldn't want to if I didn't have to. That's right though, I forgot that Christine is classically trained- I was really surprised when I read that they couldn't read music!

Yes, I took piano lessons for 7 years and I doubt whether I could find Middle C, but Christine has said that every now and then she will still play a classical piece just for the exercise and discipline. So, I think she still knows how.

Michele

Not for everybody.

I also don't think someone who was trained as extensively as I believe Christine was could really lose the skill.

I mean, it may not come as naturally if you are long out of practice - but once you learn and master it to a certain level it it's always gonna be there. From my experience anyway.

However, with that said, I'm not sure that Christine's musical literacy would have been of all that much use to her during the recording of Rumours, anyway. If none of the other band members could read/write than there's really no practical reason for her to have been. I'm sure her training helped in other ways in terms of crafting the songs, though.

Based on what Chris herself has said about her musical training in the Keyboard magazine interview and elsewhere, her classical training wasn't very extensive. She abandoned it early on to start playing early rock and roll, like Fats Domino. From there, she played rock and blues, learning how to replicate the styles of Bob Hall and Sonny Thompson.

I'm going to assume that she can still read staff notation, but at an intermediate level. In that sense, you never truly forget everything you ever learned about notation, but you get better or worse over the years, depending on how much practice you're getting. (By the way, there's plenty of classical music that an intermediate reader can amuse himself with.)

I'll second the opinion already given that there isn't any Fleetwood Mac music that would have required the keyboardist (or any of the other guys) to be able to read staff notation, let alone read it fluently.

So why would Ken bother to bring it up I wonder? I haven't gotten that far into the book, but there is a definite passive-aggressive undertone manifested in lots of backhanded compliments at best and outright swipes at the band members at worst.

Wait until one or more of the 5 dies. That's when
we will find out all the seedy details of their lives.
The players always think themselves more important
than they are.

Christine was classically trained and in one of the interviews for ITM she mentioned "ploughing through some Mozart" just to see if she can still sight read

Of course she can read music

Gail

The more little tidbits I hear about this book the less I want to read it. I know the members of the band probably aren't as PERFECT as what my mind likes to think they are but it just seems like Ken Caillat just has some sour grapes and a bank account that's running a little low.

....and that interview? Come on. How can you blame people for supporting their fellow band mate instead of a producer they knew long ago?

:distress: He should hook up with CAH and just throw the biggest pity party the world has ever witnessed.

He definitely comes off as snarky towards Stevie, saying several times so far(I'm halfway through the book) that AT THE TIME she was really sweet and approachable, implying that she is no longer.

Well, I think SN's army of fans would REFUSE to believe anything other than their own fairyland view of their drone, err....queen.


Do you REALLY think that massive stardom didn't change her?

I suspect that in Ken's dictionary, "sweet and approachable" = "I could get her." I am sure that, in the throes of heavy drug use and heavy drama, some decidedly awkward behaviors were probably on exhibit in the workplace.

I don't think anyone should really comment until reading the book.

I only have about 50 pages left and find it very interesting.
This isn't a tell all and gossip. It is more about the technical aspects of the recording process and the equipment used, etc. In fact, for the Stevie fans (including myself), I was surprised to find that there really much about Stevie in the book for the most part. As she is not a "musician", there was not much at all for her to do. A lot of decisions - even about some of the vocals were done when she wasn't even there.
The intent was not to minimize Stevie in the process, it is just the way it was. The instrumentation and retakes consumed much time in the studio. In fact, somewhere in the book, Ken estimates that Stevie's work on the album was only approximately 10% of the total recording. That makes a whole lot of sense.

The book is very interesting. I'm enjoying as it is NOT a gossip.

I recommend it to ANY fan.

Honestly? I'd probably be more interested if it were a tell-all. So shoot me.

I couldn't get through the book. Ken's style of writing didn't work for me. A shame, in my mind, that he reserves his sass for interviews.

Agreed. I'm no musician... I want to know about group politics, how songs came to be, what went into the creation of an epic album, the boring details of daily life, what the band did outside the studio, etc.

Honestly, this is exactly why I didn't buy the book. Technical details would be totally lost on me. Plus, the Rumours story is played to death anyway. I'm far more likely to buy such a book about Tusk. IT was the album that was interesting artistically, especially how it unfolded in the studio.

Same here.

oh come on, from all your posts we know you are cheap! :)

AND...It's not like Ken's the first to make that type of comment about Stevie. Remember around "The Dance" when Lindsey said something like the girl he had been in love with years ago was back and Christine had commented that Stevie had once gotten to the point of taking herself too seriously. I don't recall those comments being an issue 15 years ago.

well, I realize that of course people change with fame, I just thought it was an interesting "tid bit" and gives an idea about Caillats current thoughts about her.

She never lost her sight-reading skills. She has said in comparatively recent interviews that she likes to work through Beethoven, et al at a leisure pace at home. Most likely, she is what a classical musician would term an "intermediate" player, certainly not concert level, but not a novice either.

For what it's worth, I didn't lose my sight reading skills either. I stopped playing piano for two decades when, this past year, I returned to it and started working through some Bartok I had never played before. It was a little rough at first, but by the end of the second week, I was working through those pieces pretty quickly.

Yes, I didn't see this post when I commented above. And yes, it was Mozart, not Beethoven. Good memory, Gail.

Yes, I believe she said she played Mozart for fun. And it would take her a few days to plod through it.

Whoops... didn't read the whole thread either. ... .

oh there's definitely gossip and snark.... he makes reference to Lindsey's anger management issues a lot, and says LB not only got physical with him, but with a woman named Christina, and with Carol..... the gossip is just intertwined with some technical stuff and some rather juvenile descriptions of his swinging' single dude days...

I got a sense of this reading portions of it in the "Look Inside" feature on Amazon.com, so I didn't fork over the cash.

Will you help me with my Bartok?

Just got done myself. There is next to nothing about drama between band members. He apparently didn't even know SnL were breaking up until a few weeks into it. There is one paragraph about one argument between Stevie and Lindsey where he quotes three lines of dialog, but that's it. He does talk about drama between himself and LB, but I daresay that's not the kind of drama most fans were hoping to hear about.

The book is good for its information about the recording process. I played Rumours while reading it and I thought it was cool when he would tell you where in a song he used a certain lick or sound. I'd go back and listen to it, and it gave me a new perspective on sound construction.

I finished the book over the week-end. Eh. :shrug: The book should be marketed more to would-be producers rather than FM fans. I wasn't looking for dirt or drama about the relationships, but I was hoping for more about how the different members felt/acted about their songs, maybe?

The somewhat vague remarks about Stevie were interesting because he never said what happened. He would make statements about how at the time, he still thought she was just a sweet/cool girl back then (totally paraphrasing) but then never explains why that view changed. I also thought the ending was somewhat odd; the last sentence in the book makes reference to Lindsey's difficult nature.

Anyway, I wish Ken the best with this book and as I said, a would be producer or musician who is also a fan of FM would really enjoy it.

I thought the part about John flirting with Linda Ronstadt when she and Governor Brown visited the studio was funny. That would be so awesome, LR and FM in the same studio!! I really hope Caillat writes a book about Tusk at least, and I would also love to hear about Mirage. I really like how he seemed to keep the drama to a minimum and based the book on facts.

Myself, I would have liked a little more drama and a little less about the technical aspects of making the record. Overall I enjoyed it though. Did give more appreciation for all the work they did on that album.