Michael’s Top Books Read in 2020, #4 & 3

My #4 book of the year, hasn’t technically even been released yet. I got an advanced reader’s copy of it from Random House, and it should be released in early March of 2019. I devoured my #3 book in a few days… just the type of book to feed my fandom, bringing my love of books and geekiness about music together. Technically not as well written as many of the other books around it, but for sheer enjoyment, it earns its slot.

#4 – How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue

Imbolo Mbue follows up her magnificent debut, Behold the Dreamers (#12 on my list of Best Books Read in 2016) with a hard-hitting tale of corporate destruction and governmental greed from the perspective of the community in a small African Village whose way of life faces destruction. When an American corporation begins drilling for oil under the fictional village of Kosawa, the effects are felt for generations to come. Crops shrivel, water becomes tainted, and children begin to die. Over the course of three generations, various attempts are made to stop the destruction of their way of life, from pleading with the corporate interests, to violence, to radical organizing, uncovering layers of opposition.

Mbue follows one family in particular, which centers around Thula, a young woman who gains the incredible educational opportunity to go to college in New York, where she encounters others like herself, willing to take on the man in the hopes for a better future. She gives up everything for her community, while it hangs on by a thread back home, her cohort of age-mates struggling between subterfuge and out and out revolution to repay the violence and injustice suffered through the years.

With a keen eye and heart examining responses from villagers across educational and generational lines, Mbue uses an impartial eye, even while breaking our hearts for this communities suffering. Her writing is powerful and pulls no punches as the reader is taken on a harrowing journey as a tiny village tries to overcome insurmountable odds for a better life.

#3 – Get Tusked: The Inside Story of Fleetwood Mac’s Most Anticipated Album by Ken Caillat and Hernan Rojas

For a rabid Fleetwood Mac fan who’s been listening to the albums for over 45 years, saw them in concert a handful of times, find their music to be incomparably amazing, and am endlessly fascinated by the individuals who make up this messy, emotional trainwreck of a band, this book is like crack. I haven’t finished a book this quickly in years. Tusk was the band’s 12th album, but it was the follow-up to the mega-monster smash, Rumours. The anticipation around this album was stratospheric, and the 13-month recording session nearly tore the already fragile band apart.

Authors Ken Caillat, producer and engineer who worked on Rumours, Tusk, Live, Mirage, and The Chain box set and Tusk recording engineer Hernan Rojas, give a detailed behind-the-scenes look at the process of creating what at the time was one of the industry’s biggest disappointments, and in hindsight, is lauded by many as a bold, creative step forward by a multi-talented band.

It was the late-70’s, and Fleetwood Mac were mega-stars. Every excess was their for the taking, and the took a lot. Already known for their intense, soap opera-like personal relationships that were devoured by millions through Rumours, and just coming off a year+ long concert tour, the band immediately began the grueling process of creating the follow-up album in a state-of-the-art recording studio with enough food, alcohol, and drugs to keep an army happy. The band’s history with drugs, particularly cocaine, is well-documented, and it just boggles my mind that they were able to operate at all under the influence of so many mind-altering substances. I wish they reach out to Pacific Ridge – a reliable rehab center. Add to that singer/songwriter/guitarist Lindsey Buckingham’s creative evolution, that while perceptive and brilliant, was housed in the mind of a rich and successful, spoiled, damage, emotionally-stunted musical genius. While the rest of the band, and the crew that surrounded them arrived at the studio ready to make another album that met and surpassed the exquisite pop-rock Rumours, Lindsey had other ideas. Latching on to the burgeoning punk/new wave sounds that were starting to herald the coming of the 80’s, Lindsey want something entirely different, and he threatened to walk if he didn’t get it. Caillat and Rojas alternate in telling the tales of this process, which works well because they experienced the same scenarios, but came at them from different perspectives and temperaments.

What makes this book so delightful for me, is the fact the two authors are first and foremost, recording engineers, who go into rich, geeky detail about each song on the album: how it was recorded, the instrumentation, how they were created. I found that endless fascinating, and thrilled the long-buried musician in me. After each song was worked on and discussed in the book, I found I had to go listen to it and note the details and anecdotes that were revealed in the book.

The detailed aspect of the creation and recording of the album lifted it out of what could have been just a sensationalistic celebrity tell-all. Not that it didn’t occasionally slip into that territory, and not to say I didn’t occasionally enjoy that aspect, the film did lag a little when the boys would veer off into their sexual escapades and dalliances. Rojas did spend the latter months of the recording of Tusk in a passionate affair with Stevie Nicks, who, I might add, just ended her affair with drummer Mick Fleetwood months before, and who, two years prior, ended a 7-year relationship with guitarist Lindsey Buckingham. It made for some interesting personal dynamics. I am pleased to say that this book only served to make me love Christine McVie even more.

To sum up, as a massive admirer of Fleetwood Mac and their music, and quite specifically, the Tusk album, this book was nearly everything I’d hoped for. It certainly provided a glimpse into the working and personal lives of world-famous musicians during a very particular time in history that was fun and rewarding.