Gold Dust Woman: A Biography of Stevie Nicks by Stephen Davis

(hb; 2017: biography)

From the inside flap

"Stevie Nicks is a legend of rock, but her energy and magnetism sparked new interest in this icon. At sixty-nine, she's one of the most glamorous creatures rock has known, and the rare woman who's a real rock 'n' roller.

"Gold Dust Woman gives "the gold standard of rock biographers" (The Boston Globe) his ideal topic: Nicks' work and life are equally sexy and interesting, and Davis delves deeply into each, unearthing fresh details from new, intimate interviews and interpreting them to present a rich new portrait of the star. Just as Nicks (and Lindsey Buckingham) gave Fleetwood Mac the 'shot of adrenaline' they needed to become real rock stars--according to Christine McVie--Gold Dust Woman is vibrant with stories and with a life lived large and hard:
--How Nicks and Buckingham were asked to join Fleetwood Mac and how they turned the band into stars
--The affairs that informed Nicks' greatest songs
--Her relationships with the Eagles' Don Henley and Joe Walsh, and with Fleetwood himself
--Why Nicks married her best friend's widower
--Her dependency on cocaine, drinking and pot, but how it was a decade-long addiction to Klonopin that almost killed her
-- Nicks' successful solo career that has her still performing in venues like Madison Square Garden
--The cult of Nicks and its extension to chart-toppers like Taylor Swift and the Dixie Chicks "

Review

Gold is a good, fast-moving and informative read about the mystically-themed singer, whose successful career spans more than four decades. Davis deftly captures the sense of drama, love and other emotions that imbued her thus-far dealings with Fleetwood Mac and others, while keeping the writing and timeline relatively light and lively. Gold is a book worth reading if you are a fan of Nicks/Fleetwood Mac.

Old Gods Almost Dead by Stephen Davis

(pb; 2001, 2002: biography)

From the back cover 

"The saga of the Rolling Stones is the central rock mythology. From their debut as the intermission band at London's Marquee Club in 1962 through their 2002/2003 world tour, the Rolling Stones have defined a musical genre and experienced godlike adulation, quarrels, addiction, legal traumas, and descents into madness and death - while steadfastly refusing to fade away. Now, Stephen Davis, the New York Times best-selling author who has covered the Stones for three decades, presents their whole story, replete with vivid details on the Stones's musical successes - and personal excesses."


Review

Intimate, electrifying read about the Stones - their personalities (and inherent flaws), their music (varied in its influences, sometimes groundbreaking, sometimes not) and their lives.

One of the best rock bios I've read in a long while. Worth owning, this - perhaps one of the most comprehensive Stones/rock bios I've ever read.

LZ-'75: The Lost Chronicles of Led Zeppelin's 1975 American Tour, by Stephen Davis

(hb; 2010: rock 'n' roll memoir)

From the inside flap:

"As a young music journalist in 1975, Stephen Davis got the opportunity of a lifetime: an invitation to cover for a national magazine the sold-out 1975 North American tour of Led Zeppelin, the biggest and most secretive rock band in the world. He received a backstage pass, was granted interviews with band members, and even got a prized seat on the band's luxurious tour jet, the Starship. While on duty, he chronicled the Zeppelin tour in three notebooks, but after writing his article in 1975, he misplaced them. After three decades of searching, in 2005 he finally found the notebooks, on the covers of which he had scribbled the words LZ-'75, and unearthed loads of new information from the tour.

"In LZ-'75, Davis offers an unseen look at a pivotal year in the life of the band that includes lost interviews with canny vocalist Robert Plant and the brilliant guitarist Jimmy Page; information on the rock icon who moonlighted as a heroin dealer; revelations about the identity of the lover Robert Plant sings about in 'What Is and What Should Never Be' and 'Black Country Woman'; a detailed chronicle of each performance from a musical perspective and a vivid account of the band members' extravagant, and often troubled, lives on tour."

Review:

Excellent, near-impossible-to-set-down memoir of life on the road with one of the more hedonistic bands of the Seventies - LZ-'75 is an indispensible companion book to Davis' Hammer of the Gods: The Led Zeppelin Saga.

Worth owning, this, if you're a fan of Led Zeppelin or bands of their ilk.