Storms

May 7, 2007
T
his is a fascinating if overlong look at the megasuccess of Fleetwood Mac in the mid-1970s, after the former British blues band recorded the laid-back rock songs of guitarist Lindsey Buckingham and singer Stevie Nicks that made the album Rumours
one of the most popular of its era. While working at the band's recording studio, Harris, currently a music business costume designer, became Buckingham's girlfriend and constant companion from 1976 through 1984, and she gives a detailed look—more so than drummer and original member Mick Fleetwood's biography—at this already well-chronicled story of how the success of Rumours
provided the income for extravagant cocaine-fueled excesses before, during and after performances. Harris too often uses clichés, such as her view of the band's “beautiful insanity.” But she does candidly recount Buckingham's rage and his repeated physical assaults on her. Along the way, she offers great descriptions of the band's recording sessions, especially her account of Buckingham's desire to “create something new, something completely” different for Tusk
, the more experimental (and less profitable) follow-up to Rumours
.

June 1, 2007
In 1977, recording engineer Harris found herself suddenly smitten with the young guitarist and singer Lindsey Buckingham as he and his band, Fleetwood Mac, were putting the finishing touches on Rumours, the album that would catapult them into international superstardom. Here, she recounts her eight tumultuous years with the band and their extended family. Entering not as a groupie but as a relative innocent, Harris experienced the eyeopening and life-changing atmosphere of drugs, incestuous couplings, and internecine fighting that eventually devolved from the highs of jet-set celebrity to the lows of drug addiction and an abusive relationship. Although somewhat clumsy, this is a personal and heartfelt tell-all of her relationship with Buckingham and the insular Fleetwood Mac clan during their heyday. However, there are a number of other books about the band, and Cath Carroll's Never Break the Chain: Fleetwood Mac and the Making of Rumours is a better buy, offering an excellent behind-the-scenes look at the dissolution of the two rocky romances within the group, between John and Christine McVie and Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, not to mention the songs they inspired.Dave Valencia, King Cty. Lib. Syst., Washington

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2007
Fleetwood Mac abandoned its blues roots to pursue mainstream commercial success even before Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined it in 1975. Harris, then Buckinghams girlfriend, chronicles the behind-the-scenes drugs-and-sex-and-rock-and-roll aspects of the bands late-1970s climb to mega mainstream success with the albums Fleetwood Mac, Rumours, and the relatively underperforming Tusk. During this time, group bassist John McVie and his wife, Christine, the bands most successful songwriter, divorced; Buckingham and Nicks ended their romantic relationship; and internal love affairs and myriad rumors threatened band cohesiveness. Enter Harris, who proved more a symptom than a cause of the turmoil. Using extremely rich material for a rock tell-all, she now offers the sort of in-depth reportage that, though engrossing, does rather strain credulity concerning the accuracy of all its quoted dialogue; but then, such is expected of and usual in such books. Serious music fans may be disappointed, but seekers of celebrity dirt will revel in this work. Prospective readers will know in which camp they fall, so advise appropriately.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)