If I can thank Teddy Price for anything—and to be honest, I have to thank him for a lot of things—but if I had to pick one it’s that he made me earn something.

And that’s what I did. I showed up at the studio, I tried to stay relatively sober, and I sang the songs they told me to sing. I didn’t sing them the way they wanted all the time, I gave a little pushback—and I do think the album is better for my having held on to a little bit of my own style. But I did what was asked of me. I played the game.

And when we were done, ten ballads in a pretty little package, Teddy said, “How do you feel?”

And I told him I felt like I’d made something that wasn’t exactly what I’d envisioned, but it was maybe good in its own right. I said it felt like me but it didn’t feel like me and I had no idea whether it was brilliant or awful or somewhere in between. And Teddy laughed and said I sounded like an artist. I liked that.

I asked him what we should call it and he said he didn’t know. I said, “I want to call it First. Because I plan on making a lot more of these.”

NICK HARRIS: Daisy Jones put out First at the beginning of 1975. They marketed her as a Dusty Springfield wannabe. On the cover, she’s looking in a mirror placed over a pale yellow background.

It wasn’t groundbreaking material, by any means. But looking back on it, you can start to see the grit and the edge under the surface.

Her first single, a version of “One Fine Day,” was more complex than most other takes of the song, and her second single—she recorded a take of “My Way Down”—was warmly received.

I mean, the album is fairly middle of the road but it did what it needed to do. People knew her name. She did a spot on American Bandstand, she did a great spread in Circus with her trademark hoop earrings.

She was gorgeous and outspoken and interesting. The music wasn’t there yet but…you knew Daisy Jones was heading somewhere. Her moment was coming.

Fresh out of rehab and at home with Camila and his new daughter, Billy Dunne started writing songs again. When he had enough material, The Six got back into the studio to record their second album. From June to December of 1975, The Six recorded the ten songs that would become SevenEightNine. But when the band was done, Teddy told them that Rich Palentino did not feel confident they had a number one single on the album.

BILLY: It felt like being cut off at the knees. We were ready to go. We were proud of that album.

EDDIE: To be honest with you, I was surprised Teddy had not brought this up sooner. I heard the master of the album and it felt soft to me—at least in terms of what we were making songs about. Everything Billy had written was about his family.

Pete said it best. “Rock ’n’ roll is about getting it on with a girl for the first time. Not about making love to your wife.” And that was Pete saying that! He was as whipped as Billy.

GRAHAM: I told Teddy we had a lot of songs that could be good singles. I said, “What about ‘Hold Your Breath’?”

He said, “Too slow.”

I said, “What about ‘Give In’?”

He said, “Too hard rock.”

I kept naming songs and Teddy kept saying that Rich was right. The songs were good but we needed something with crossover appeal. He said we had to aim for number one. Our first album had done well but if we wanted to grow, we needed to aim higher.

I said, “Sure, but we aren’t trying to get to number one, necessarily. That’s for lowest common denominator stuff.”

Teddy said, “You should be aiming to be number one because you’re making the greatest fucking music out there.”

It was a fair point.

BILLY: I don’t remember whose idea it was to do a duet. I know I wouldn’t have come up with it.

EDDIE: When Teddy said he thought we should make “Honeycomb” a duet, I was even more confused. He was going to take the softest song on the album, add a female vocal to it, and that was going to fix the problem? That just made it even more of a Top 40 thing.

I said to Pete, “I will not be in a fucking soft rock band.”

BILLY: “Honeycomb” is a romantic song, but it’s also kind of wistful. I’d written it about the life that I promised Camila. She wanted to move to North Carolina one day, when we were old and settling down. Her mother had grown up there. She wanted to get a place close to the water. Have a big lot of land with the closest neighbor a mile away.

It was a pledge I’d made her. That I would give her that one day. A big farmhouse, lots of kids. Some peace and quiet after all the storms I’d put her through. That’s what “Honeycomb” was about. It didn’t make any sense to have someone else come in on it.

Teddy disagreed. He said, “Write a part for a woman in it. Write what Camila would say back to you.”

GRAHAM: I thought we should give Karen a shot at the duet. She had a great voice.

KAREN: I don’t have the kind of voice that can carry a lead part. I can do you a solid and back you up in the chorus but I can’t hold my own.

WARREN: Graham was always tripping over himself to pay Karen a compliment. I was always thinking, It’s not gonna happen for you, man. Get over it.

BILLY: Teddy had all these ideas about bringing in a woman from the dance club scene. I did not like that.

KAREN: Teddy named about ten girls until Billy finally relented. I watched it happen.

Billy was going down the list Teddy had written just going, “No. No. No. Tonya Reading? No. Suzy Smith? No.” And then Billy goes, “Who is Daisy Jones?”

And Teddy got all amped up, said he was hoping Billy would ask that because he thought Daisy was the one.

GRAHAM: Now, I’d heard Daisy sing at the Golden Bear a few months back. I thought she was sexy as hell. Her voice was so raspy and cool. But I didn’t think she fit on the record. She was younger, poppier. I said to Teddy, “Why can’t you get us Linda Ronstadt?” Everybody had a thing for her back then. But Teddy said it should be someone from our label. He said Daisy had a more commercial vibe that we could benefit from.

I had to admit I saw where Teddy was coming from.

I said to Billy, “If Teddy is trying to bring in a different demographic, Daisy makes sense.”

BILLY: Teddy wasn’t letting up. Daisy Daisy Daisy. Even Graham started in on me. I said, “Fine. If this girl Daisy wants to do it, then we’ll try it.”

ROD: Teddy was a good producer. He knew people in town were just starting to get excited about Daisy Jones. If this song turned out well, it could make a splash.

DAISY: I had heard of The Six, obviously, being on the same label and everything. And I’d heard their singles on the radio.

I hadn’t bothered to listen to their debut album that much but when Teddy played me SevenEightNine, I was blown away. I loved that album. I must have listened to “Hold Your Breath” about ten times in a row.

I loved Billy’s voice. There was something so plaintive about it. So vulnerable. I thought, This is the voice of a man who’s seen things. I thought it was so evocative to sound broken the way he did. I didn’t have that. I sounded like a cool new pair of jeans and Billy sounded like the pair you’ve had for years.

I could see the potential of how we could really complement each other. So I kept listening to their cut of “Honeycomb,” and I could feel something missing. I read the lyrics and I…I really got that song.

This felt like my shot to offer something up, to add something. I was excited to get in the studio because I thought I could really be of use.

BILLY: We were all there in the studio that day when Daisy came in and I thought everybody but me and Teddy should have gone home.

DAISY: I was going to wear one of my Halstons. And then I woke up late and lost my keys and couldn’t find my pill bottle and the morning got away from me.

KAREN: When she showed up, she was wearing a men’s button-down shirt as a dress. That was it. I remember thinking, Where are her pants?

EDDIE: Daisy Jones was the most gorgeous woman I ever laid eyes on. She had those big eyes. Those super-full lips. And she was as tall as I was. She looked like a gazelle.

WARREN: Daisy had no ass, no tits. A carpenter’s dream as they call ’em. Flat as a board, easy to nail. Well, I don’t know if she was easy to nail. Probably not. The way men reacted to her, she held all the cards and she knew it. When Pete saw her, he might as well have let his tongue roll out of his mouth.

KAREN: She was so pretty that I worried I was staring at her. But then I thought, Hell, she’s probably been stared at her whole life. She probably thinks looking means staring.

BILLY: I saw her and I introduced myself, and I said, “Glad to have you here. Thanks for helping us out.” I asked if she wanted to talk about the song a bit, practice what she was gonna lay down.

DAISY: I’d been working on it all night. I’d been in the studio with Teddy a few days before, listening to it over and over. I had a good idea of what I wanted to do.

BILLY: Daisy just said, “No, thanks.” Like that. Like I had nothing of value to offer.

ROD: She went right into the booth and started warming up.

KAREN: I said, “Guys, we don’t all need to be here watching her.” But nobody moved.

DAISY: I finally had to say, “Can I have some room to breathe, please?”