BOOK REVIEW: Play On by Mick Fleetwood & Anthony Bozza

Shane | 19 December 2014 | Reply

BOOK REVIEW: Play On by Mick Fleetwood & Anthony Bozza
Hatchette Australia
Released October 2014, rrp$32.99
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
7/10

As a member of Fleetwood Mac, Mick Fleetwood was the 6’ 6” towering madman that powered the engine room of one of the finest British blues bands of the ‘60s, and – although rarely authoring any songs himself – went on to preside over the band as leader (and often manager) as line-ups and direction changed radically, the band eventually emerging as middle-of-the-road chart-toppers after Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham joined up.

Similarly, the once gregarious overgrown child who was practically THE poster boy for cocaine abuse in the ‘70s and ‘80s has delivered a biography which promises much and flirts around all sorts of misadventures, but delivers very little of substance.

Fleetwood is painstakingly honest about his overuse of cocaine, the affairs which rocked his marriages – including one with bandmate Nicks – and the trials and tribulations which beset his band time and time again.

The trouble is that no great depth is given to any of these subjects. Affairs dissolve and Fleetwood shows regret – only to repeat the behaviour within a few pages. Drugs are snorted – but there’s no real analysis of the fallout from that, or even responsibility taken for these dramas.

Play On is an interesting book about a life far less ordinary – but Fleetwood never gives us the big juicy steak we really want to read, instead delivering an enjoyable appetiser carried along by the force of his rather ‘nice guy’ personality, and whilst that achieves the minimum we need from such a tome, it leaves some gaping holes in our appetite – not least of which is summarising the past 25 years in just a handful of pages.