Being a rock’n’roll guy, I tend to be fairly critical and cynical about how the music and those who make it are fictionally portrayed in films and TV. Flipping the coin, when visual media gets rock music right – see the film “Still Crazy” for what I feel is the best example I know to date, followed closely by “This is Spinal Tap,” – I love it.
The TV series “Daisy Jones & The Six,” based on the best-selling novel of the same name, evoked both feelings in me.
At first blush, it seemed like a string of hoary rock band cliches knitted into the same old and tired story. A group plying their trade in Pittsburgh, Pa., in the early 1970s decide to seek fame and fortune in Los Angeles. Just before they leave, the four-man outfit adds a female keyboard player with, oddly, an English accent. Maybe I missed it, but it’s unclear to me how a Limey musician wound up in the Pennsylvania steel town. But no matter.
The band go through the usual struggles and privations until they’re quote-un-quote discovered, but their big break goes awry. Then singer and songwriter Daisy Jones comes into their orbit and the group’s fortunes change.
Interestingly, that’s also the point where what struck me as an only okay show starts to get good. And the main factor in that is the actress who plays Daisy: Riley Keough. Though she already has a fairly long and impressive filmography and a Golden Globe nomination, this was the first I’d seen her. And Keough wowed me from the moment she appears onscreen. So much that, for me, an alternate title for this series could be “A Star is Born.”
Keough comes by her credibility to play a rock singer genetically; she’s the granddaughter of Elvis Presley. And the oldest daughter of the recently-deceased Lisa Marie Presley with her first husband, musician Danny Keough. Whatever that special “it” is that makes a performer so alluring, which Elvis had in spades. Riley has inherited “it.”
A Los Angeles Times reviewer noted earlier how she “can seize and hold the screen with electrifying force.” That’s just what she does here in a mesmerizing performance rich with character, nuance and even the oh-so-human quality of contradictions. Plus, she sings with genuine power and personality.
And from the moment Keough appears in this story, she changes the air in the room of this series. It perked me up and transformed “Daisy Jones & The Six” from what seemed ho-hum into an engaging show. She’s that potent in her talents and presence.
In addition to the inspired casting of its lead, the series also did one thing I’ve long felt is essential to making movies and TV shows about rock music that capture the bracing power of the music. The five actors who play The Six went through a rock’n’roll boot camp to learn how to play their instruments and perform as a band, which they do in many scenes. It’s an essential element to making a story about a rock group feel real. That the fictional band’s songs were written by accomplished professional songwriters
As anyone who has followed the music well knows, rock is still very much a boys’ club, even if women in recent decades have asserted their presence as more than just what’s been called “chick singers” in the game, more so now than ever before. But in “Daisy Jones,” it’s largely the female characters that shine and carry the story. First and foremost is Keough as Jones. But Camila Morone shows dramatic potency as the girlfriend, and then wife of the band’s original singer and primary songwriter, Billy Dunne, with whom Jones has a yin/yang relationship of attraction and competition/conflict, which is the show’s most electric dramatic thread.
But as the series starts to wrap up into a satisfying and even touching conclusion, the guys in the band get to also show some dramatic depth. It’s not entertainment with any deep message or meaning, but “Daisy Jones & The Six” gets enough right about rock music to be a enjoyable diversion for a cynic and stickler like me.
Album: “The Record” by Boygenius – The sum of the parts creates a winning and delightful whole with this union of female singer-songwriters Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus. Smart songs bursting with spirit, a verdant and mesmeric modern rock sound and three delicious voices have powered this group to being one of this year’s big breakout acts, and deservedly so.
Documentary Film: “The Parrot Head Documentary” – The devotion of Jimmy Buffet fans, known as Parrot Heads, is off the charts, and in the best way. They’re a community who are dedicated to good works, one another and other “Trop Rock” musicians as well as their icon Buffett. A fascinating subcultural phenomenon.
Rob Patterson is a music and entertainment writer in Austin, Texas. Email robpatterson054@gmail.com.
From The Progressive Populist, June 1, 2023
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