Daisy Jones & The Six

Chapter 1 introduces Daisy Jones, born in 1951 to a British painter and a French model. Daisy grows into a beautiful and lonely young girl, eager for connection. Her desire to be seen is unacknowledged as, according to the author of a biography about Daisy, “there’s no one in her life who is truly interested in who she is, especially not her parents. And it really breaks her. But it is also how she grows up to become an icon. We love broken, beautiful people” (8).

Around 1965, Daisy begins sneaking out of the house to the Sunset Strip, where her looks and ability to charm beyond her years get her into bars and clubs with musicians at age 14. Through partying, Daisy meets many men whom she has sex with and parties with. None of them stay around as viable romantic partners, but they use Daisy as a muse. Daisy is smart, artistic, and tough, but she floats around from man to man in the intoxicating world of music and drugs. Daisy reflects on her past of relying on men, saying, “I was drawn to him mainly because he was drawn to me. I wanted someone to single me out as something special. I was just so desperate to hold someone’s interest” (10).

Daisy meets Simone, who becomes her only real friend. Simone is a disco star who takes Daisy in and ensures that she finishes high school. When Simone is dropped by her producer and must move out and wait tables, Daisy moves back in with her parents at age 17. Daisy is resolved to make something of herself instead of acting as other men’s inspiration and groupie. She declares, “I had absolutely no interest in being somebody else’s muse. I am not a muse. I am the somebody” (16).

Billy and Graham Dunne are brothers from Pennsylvania who fall in love with music as young boys after their father leaves. They begin learning to play musical instruments and writing their own songs, eventually forming a band called the Dunne Brothers. They grow their band with like-minded and talented musicians: the bassist Pete Loving and the rhythm guitarist Chuck Williams.

At first, the band plays mostly dive bars. One night, they finally get a gig playing a wedding, where the brothers, in Billy’s words, “notice this fifty-something guy dancing with this twenty-something girl and I thought, Does this guy know what a creep he looks like? And then I realize it’s my dad” (22). Their father doesn’t seem to recognize his sons, and his lack of recognition adds to the scar of his leaving 10 years prior. “It messes with you, when your own father doesn’t care about you enough to say hello […] It was a lesson in what not to be” (23). As upset as Billy and Graham are, Billy meets Camila, who is working as a cocktail waitress at the bar, and falls in love.

On December 1, 1969, the U.S. Selective Service System conducts a lottery for the 1970 Vietnam War draft. All the band members but Chuck are spared, and Chuck is killed not six months later in Cambodia. Eddie Loving, Pete’s younger brother, replaced Chuck in the band.

In 1970, the Dunne Brothers impress the lead singer of the band the Winters, and they are invited to play as the Winters’ opening act on tour. The Dunne Brothers are inspired by Karen Karen (real name Karen Sirko), the Winters’ keyboardist, and when they are finished with the tour, they take Karen with them. Karen leaves the Winters because “I was sick of everyone in the band trying to sleep with me. I wanted to just be a musician” (27). Now that the band is much larger than Billy and Graham, the original Dunne Brothers, Karen calls for a new name. She helps the band book a replacement gig for the Winters at a music festival, where the name “The Six” catches on.

The Six begin playing gigs in New York, where they meet music manager Rod Reyes, who convinces them to move out to Los Angeles. The band is hypnotized by LA, and they are signed to Runner Records by music producer Teddy Price. After a brief break-up with Billy, Camila moves to LA to support Billy’s new career. As the success of the band grows, so do Billy’s partying habits. Rod says, “Billy would get so messed up after shows that I’d have to wake him up the next afternoon by slapping him across the face, he was that far gone” (35). 

Daisy pours herself into her creative outlet. Although she has no musical training, she writes hundreds of songs on her own. A musician boyfriend brings her to perform on stage with him, and she mesmerizes the crowd with her natural, gravelly voice. She’s a rocker socialite, “a girl that hadn’t ever released a single piece of work. No album, no single. But she was in the magazines in photos with rock stars. Everybody loved her” (45), according to Simone.

After hearing Daisy perform, men keep offering their services as a manager, and Daisy finds them controlling, with an agenda. She finally signs to a record label under the management of Hank Allen because “he was the least smarmy. He was the one that I could tolerate the most” (45). When the label doesn’t let her sing her own songs, Daisy tries to get out of the contract but is unable to and turns to “dexies to get through the day, reds to get through the night. Champagne to wash it all down” (48).