| |
|
|
|
#1
07-06-2007, 12:48 AM
|
|||
|
|||
Quote:
|
| . |
|
#2
07-06-2007, 08:42 AM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Wow!
I'm sorry I didn't check out this strand sooner! I've been dying to talk to someone about this book (I even just bought a copy for my mom so we can talk about it).
Anyway... I'm not sure where to begin except to say that I actually really like the book. It's clearly from one, limited, perhaps biased, perspective, so it doesn't fully satiate (I, took, wish Stevie, Lindsey, etc. would write their memoirs. . .but one might say that they have). However, there is insight here (her stories about the transformation of Lindsey's musical and stage persona) and intriguing archetypal references (I think John Boorman should make a movie of this book). And, yes, there's plenty of "I get credit for Lindsey shaving his beard" stuff, which I just take as silly, and doesn't that kind of thing kinda come with the rocknroll territory (I mean: there's a reason she and Lindsey got along). Anyway... I haven't yet finished the book, but I'm super glad I got it.
|
|
#3
07-06-2007, 09:21 AM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Apologies FM LEDGIES! This turned into a long one....abandon ship if you wish...
I'm getting a bit deeper into the book. It's fascinating and tedious all at the same time. However, I'm not going to judge Carol over her personal experience with Lindsey and the band. After all, she was there. I wasn't. But I take issue with her own portrayal of herself back then. I don't see her as a young woman who had a real plan to be a sound mixer or produer. I see her as a young woman who wanted to go to Hollywood and be part of the glamour. And frankly, who wouldn't want that? Yet, her intentions were not true. If she really wanted to be a sound mixer, she would have taken the job with Pink Floyd's producer to advance her career. She didn't, and we're supposed to feel sorry for what unfolded in the years to come. You want to read about a real sound mixer who wasn't dazzled by the lights of glamour? Read "Here, There and Everywhere", by Geoff Emerick - sound engineer to The Beatles. He had a definitive work ethic. This girl just wanted to hitch her wagon to a star. Hells, that's what her writing is telling me. And there's no doubt that Lindsey loved her and needed her to be with him at all times. However - I think she pats herself way too much on the back for helping him with songs that he wrote for Tusk. Going on about being his muse, and working out emotional support that would lend itself to the type of songs he'd create, is a bit much. In fact, it makes ther reader (me) lose any sympathy for her. While reading this book, I get this sense that Carol, who must be in her 50's by now, is tapping into memories of a 20-something girl, who in my opinion was pretty, very lucky and vacuous. The years have not provided a shadow of wisdom or humility in the telling of this story. Her sense of grandeur regarding her place and influence on the Fleetwood Mac family is disturbing because many rock biographers never mention her. She is really just a footnote in the grand scheme of this band, and all her stories and feelings don't really prove that wrong. Another negative element in this book, is her way of telling a story. Not all the flowery, pretty prose can mold a biography into place. She would have done herself a service in telling us the story, and let US figure things out for ourselves - rather than her write paragraph after heavy paragraph, filled with "Angels" and "Sweeties" and every detailed minutae of a silly conversation. Also, her relationship with Stevie and how she protrays it is manipulating to the reader. She doesn't write the situations with enough information to let the reader (who plunked down some dough for this book) figure out Stevie or anyone else in this FM kingdom. I can't believe an editor let her get away with this kind of storytelling. One passage that irked me last night as I was flipping through the book: She mentions an incident that occured with Stevie in, I think New Zealand. There is some back story to this, which I won't get into. However, the main vibe of it was - Stevie took Carol aside to give her some advice on how to handle LB when he's in a violent mood. Carol never really fleshes out what Stevie said to her. Instead, she provides a very biased view of the conversation, where we do not have the slightest clue as to what Stevie said, but we are left feeling that Nicks was being controlling and weird to her. And - apparently, there was a film crew right there filming their exchange - to which Carol was totally unaware! (HELLO? It's a camera - you know -that thing with a lense?) Carol makes it look as if Stevie lured her into this sitaution where she can look like a loving, forgiving goddess in front of cameras, while Carol is the wide eyed poor soul. Again - Stevie is no saint - but Harris' writing is very one dimensional. I don't know who is right or wrong here - I only know I'm being manipulated in siding with a glorified groupie, who's remembrance of incidents from 25 years ago are tainted with the view of a young, not very bright, woman. There is a chapter in the book where she hangs out with Patti Boyd Clapton, a very well respected rock and roll wife. Patti is a rock queen because of what she's been through, how she handles her privacy and what she DOESN'T say. I think Carol should take a lesson from Patti - by keeping the stories and the gory details close to your vest like Jackie O.
__________________
"I believe in The Five" Last edited by Boots; 07-06-2007 at 10:09 AM..
|
|
#4
07-06-2007, 09:53 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
A couple people have compared/contrasted the women that Lindsey has been with over the years. That exquisite femininity, etc. But Stevie was also a fire brand, the one that could light up the room, the one that people noticed (and still do) when she enters a room. I think Carol Ann was incredibly passive, sweet and, despite having been in a relationship before, having a child, etc, still with a touch of innocence about her insomuch as the drug culture was at that time. I don't think she was stupid, though. She knew Lindsey was a rock star and quite well off. By the end of her almost 8 year relationship, as she points out, she could have made off well financially. But she didn't. That's to her credit. She also seems to have become more aware of her needs to have boundaries. She started getting some professional help. She finally realized it "wasn't her fault" when she was being physically and emotionally abused and it wasn't "okay." When she entered the relationship with Lindsey she had no strength, in my opinion, no sense of self worth. She was, really, quite a pathetic human being. She was defective. Lindsey and Carol didn't buy a cat together. He presented her with one, as one would do with a child on Christmas or something.
I think of the lyrics of one of Stevie's songs: what you did not need was a woman who was stronger. You needed someone to depend on you. I could not be her baby. I did not want to. My first mistake was to smile at you. With Carol Ann, Lindsey thought he was getting what he wanted. A dependent. Someone very pretty, sweet, loving, obedient- someone that would love him unconditionally and be there just for him. He didn't want someone that ruled her life like a bird in flight, so to speak. I don't know a lot about what Lindsey's experiences were with girls when he was little. He didn't have sisters. He may have thought they were sugar and spice, etc. He may have been raised to believe "men, men, men men men" are the rulers of the home and women were there to help them. I think having been around some women, having done some growing, having had his own therapy, Lindsey's also changed. He has always been the musical genious for Fleetwood Mac. But I believe he's changed, he's grown up, and he's able to see a woman as a partner now. And I think he's also found the adoring dependent females he's always been looking for. And when I look at this picture that Nico kindly posted, I think he realizes how lucky he is:  He's found that little dependent girl (twice over!) that will always look up to him, always listen to him, be sweet, loving, obedient . . . well, until they reach their teens.  And at that time he won't want them to be passive, dependent, unworldly. He would never allow anyone to raise a hand to them. He'll want them strong.
|
|
#5
07-06-2007, 02:10 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
This is one of the best book reports/reviews, I have ever read....and I wasn't smart enough to draw it all together like Boots did. This states the frustrations I have with the book and my difficulty in finishing it. On another matter, I am enjoying this thread and others like it. It is fun to be reading the same book and get so many different opinions and interpretations, and not just about the book but the subject matter as well. Thanks for making my "hot-as-a-pizza-oven" summer more enjoyable.
|
|
#6
07-06-2007, 03:10 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Quote:
Stay cool wherever you are!
__________________
"I believe in The Five"
|
|
#7
07-06-2007, 05:03 PM
|
|||
|
|||
Right on Kelly! I totally agree, and then some, with all of your major points.
And, just as another poster observed, her book does not shed any new light on the Stevie and Lindsey story, so that we may get a better idea of whether or not the two will eventually get back together again. Frankly, I could care less about her impoverished background, miscarriage, or high school psycho-babble about any of the members of the band. I agree, with another poster above that said, if she had truly wanted to become a sound engineer (or anything other than an extension of a man), she would have made it happen. It seems to me, that this woman's only ambition, was to hook up with someone/anyone famous in the entertainment field long before she made her momentous, post graduation trip, to Hollywood with her bgf. She probably dreamed of being Mrs. Rock-Star, while running up her high school wardrobe ("to look like store bought clothes": How Ellie Mae can you get?) on her mother's worn-out Singer, while her more gifted siblings, were working their way through college. Here is a woman who within days of moving to Hollywood, shacks up with the first man she meets/falls for and takes up his felonious career of bootlegging concert albums. And, although, Ms. Harris likes to play the dewy-eyed, selfless, ingenue, in the FWM story, it takes a calculating woman to give up her first born child (a girl) for adoption, because she doesn't want to face up to the fact that she had a child out of wedlock, at a time when she was not financially able to take care of it. The child came second to her need to be in Hollywood pursuing a career that was undefined until she met her first Hollywood (con) artist. Otherwise she would have gotten a better paying job and sucked it in and toughed it out. I'm sure the daughter would have rather had her mother's love than a chance "at a college education." Again, Lindsey's artistic musings and biographical anecdotes about her, never approached the level of spite, that her tell-on-you stories do in this book. She loved him so much that she waited until he put her in a neck brace before she left him (martyr that she was), but she left her daughter before she was even born (selfish as she was.) The woman is a self-righteous, amoral PIG.  She reminds me of Angela Bowie dishing it for a dollar after David dumped her. And, where o' where is Angie now.In short, this book has nothing to do with "Storms" within the FWM family, but everything to do with the fact that CA wasted eight or more years of her life, pursuing a man who wouldn't even marry her. She comes across as a bitter "Girl From Yesterday" that is bound and determined to get even and to also get back some of the FWM glory and money that she had grown so used to enjoying some twenty odd years ago. CarolC
|
|
#8
07-06-2007, 05:47 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
Even if CAH was uncomfortable with the idea of having a baby out of wedlock, in the end, if she really wanted to be a mother, she would have. I expect, like most difficult decisions in life, this one was not made lightly. And certainly, there's nothing wrong with putting your child up for adoption so that he/she may have a better life with someone else. A question: does Carol Ann say/know what happened to her biological child? Because if not, then I think it's really wrong to say that this baby never had her mother's love. Carol Ann may be the biological mother, but if this little girl was adopted, then the only mother who matters is the one who raised her. I myself am adopted, and I have never once felt as though I had been robbed. My parents are the people who raised me, who loved me, who helped me through the hard times. I know that a lot of people don't like CAH. I'm one of them, but I don't think it's necessary to find evil in every little thing she has done. Maybe she did give her child up for lame reasons. But if that's true, then she very obviously was not ready to make the sacrifices inherent in being a parent. In other words, she would have done the right thing for her child, and I don't see any reason to fault her for that. Especially when there are way better reasons to hate her. 
|
|
#9
07-06-2007, 06:21 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
I agree with you. The decision that Carol Ann Harris made was not simplistic and selfish. The author speaks of what happened to the baby on page 4 of the book. The baby girl had a name. I cannot fault any woman for this anguished decision. "For on the day I signed the adoption papers, a part of me died, and was still dead." At the end of the book, page 373, she not only was reunited with her daughter, but invited and attended her wedding. So clearly and early in this book it becomes clear that Carol Ann was not strong, not healthy- rather, pathologically passive. "From that moment we lived life on John's terms." When she was wronged, she never confronted it, never discussed it. And the cycle continued.
|
|
#10
07-06-2007, 06:28 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Great post lieueitak, I completely agree.
As for the arguments that CAH doesn't give the full picture in regards her relationship with Stevie, well the very nature of an autobiography is that it's bias. This is very much her view of Stevie, and let's face it the two were very much rivals, they were never going to be best friends, so of course her impression of Stevie isn't going to be as flattering as a friend or fan writing about her, if it had been I would have been shocked. I have no doubt Stevie isn't as bad as she makes out on some things, but she's probably more spot on and honest about other things than someone in the Stevie circle, it goes both ways. If you go into any autobiography expecting a well-rounded picture then you are always going to be disappointed, as it's always going to be one person's take or opinion on things. I also agree with Strand in that, while the book is obviously a cash-in, it's still her life and she has every right to tell it, as flawed as it may be. And carol7lynn if you have no interest whatever in CAH's life then I have no clue why you just read her autobiography, since that's what an autobiography is: the story of someone's life, her's just happened to be involved with the Fleetwood Mac machine for a long time. Quote:
I'm not really a fan of CAH, I think she's a flake and her writing isn't going to win her any awards, but I do think it's a interesting insight to the Mac's world from a first-hand witness, and sorta refreshing after that dreadful Stevie biography last year.
__________________
"I want to come back as a Yorkshire Terrier, owned by me." - Stevie Nicks Last edited by trackaghost; 07-06-2007 at 06:33 PM..
|
|
#11
07-07-2007, 07:35 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
|
|
#12
07-07-2007, 01:35 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Quote:
|
|
#13
07-21-2007, 11:22 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
"The woman is a self-righteous, amoral PIG.
"That is painful to read. Your anger is sad.
|
|
#14
09-04-2007, 05:36 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
How do you feel about Stevie's multiple abortions? Do you think she should sucked it in and toughed it out? Is she calculating too? Did her potential children come second to her need to be in Hollywood pursuing a career?
__________________
James T. Kirk: outerspace pimp.  -- Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years. Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 3 Irish dramatist, novelist, & poet (1854 - 1900)
|
|
#15
07-07-2007, 12:44 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
 If FM fans ever got the real story of Carol Ann Harris your heads would all explode.  
|
 |
| Thread Tools | |
| Display Modes | |
|
|
Fleetwood Mac – The Very Best Of Fleetwood Mac 2 CD Set - NEW
$17.40
Fleetwood Mac The Alternate Collection 8LP Vinyl Box Set Sealed RSD 2022 Limited
$180.00
Fleetwood Mac - Rumours - Target CD West Germany
$30.00
Fleetwood Mac Live 1975 2LP Clear Vinyl RSD Record Store Day 2025 LTD ED SEALED
$50.00
Fleetwood Mac - Rumours - Deluxe Edition 2 LP 180 gram 45 RPM Vinyl Record
$64.99
Hybrid Mode
