NEVER BREAK THE CHAIN

Cath Carroll's book, "Never Break The Chain" was published in 2004 and follows Fleetwood Mac and their making of "Rumours" (Chicago Review Press' "Vinyl Frontiers" series which chronicles classic albums like "Pet Sounds" and "The White Album" to name a few).

This insightful behind-the-scenes look at the making of Fleetwood Mac's Rumours explores the strong personalities behind the band and the creative tensions between the members that helped to shape the lyrical content of this era-defying, classic album.

Original research and new interviews with those who were there reveal the technical challenges and excessive drinking and drug abuse that went on during the album's production. The complex relationships within the group and each individual's contribution to the album are discussed. The two rocky romances within the band, including the breakdown of John and Christine McVie's marriage and the increasingly strained relationship between Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, are also discussed, as are the songs on the album they influenced.

The stories that inspired and created one of the most popular and significant albums of all time are unearthed.

 

NBTC REVIEWS

"Carroll's prose moves along nicely, though - she gives readers a good feel for the California music scene in the 1970s, from the major players to how records got mastered, and her description of Stevie Nicks onstage, "whipping around like a Gothic tumbleweed," is worth the price of admission." -MSNBC.com

"Sausalito, 1977: What could have been sweeter or more golden than to be Stevie Nicks swirling in a circle at the Record Plant, a waterfront recording studio with a hot tub, making the now legendary album "Rumours"? Fleetwood Mac was peaking, sometimes chemically; punk rock hadn't fully strafed America yet, and PSA Airlines let you buy your ticket on the plane.

But in the precise, detailed account offered by Cath Carroll in "Never Break the Chain," we see that "Rumours" wasn't the missive from an enchanted, sunny make- out room dusted with white powder that some of us, as teenagers, might have imagined, but the result of a year-long, grueling emotional and creative process undertaken by five slightly industry- worn adults who were all getting divorced at the same time. Moreover, it would turn out to be not only the band's top achievement, but in many ways their last cohesive effort before fragmenting professionally just as they all had personally.

Ironically, Fleetwood Mac's moment of greatest unification creatively coincided with wreckage as far as the eye could see. "Listening to this album ...," Carroll writes, "one comes away with a feeling that the music must have really mattered for them to set aside their differences and to sing harmony on insults directed at themselves. This was a modern- day opera."

Carroll carefully traces the band's roots, early members and multiple personnel changes, climb to success and ragged, protracted decline. -Stacey D'Erasmo

"...An impeccable and very clearly, intelligently written story of the record's creation, admirably balancing history and analysis.

The surrounding history is relayed very well and does illuminate the complicated relationships and circumstances that generated the record, particularly the collapse of long-standing romances between John McVie and Christine McVie, and Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, shortly before the album commenced.

In addition to a good deal of discussion of the recording and writing of the album, there's also quite a bit of detail regarding its promotion, commercial reception, and the subsequent path the group took, none of it extraneous." -Richie Unterberger

"The book exposes the powerful details of Rumours, the album whose creation Rolling Stone calls one of the "50 Moments that Changed the History of Rock and Roll."  As one of the most celebrated albums in history, Rumours' musical authority is unmatched. Never Break the Chain opens the recording studio's door for serious music fans and critics, encouraging them to take a closer look at the making of musical magic." -FleetwoodMacLegacy.com

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