Peter Green & Fleetwood Mac

Not a difficult decision to do a Peter Green / Fleetwood Mac post. Very many years ago I got a second hand vinyl copy of ‘Mr Wonderful’. At the time I knew Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck & Free, but this was something new and old at the same time. I still have that disc somewhere in it’s battered cover but it was only a year or more ago that I started to really get them. I would go with the opinion that if Peter Green had stayed on track he would have eclipsed Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck & Jimmy Page as the number one blues guitarist of the late sixties.

I’ve since collected all the early Mac albums and the classic ‘Hard Road’ John Mayall album and they all ooze quality. I can very highly recommend the ‘Live in Boston’ albums as some of the best live electric blues recordings out there. Some of these recordings were made by the Grateful Dead’s sound crew and it was Jerry and the boys that informed Green & Spencer in the use of psychedelics when they toured to break the state.

Peter Greens personal issues caused the original band to crash and burn before their time. Peter’s life after the initial success of Fleetwood Mac is variously documented, perhaps best in the recent BBC Documentary ‘Man of the World’. You can watch that here if you want. It’s an amazing affirmation of the strength of the human spirit in adversity and an awful indication of what can go wrong with the poor treatment of the mentally ill. Hopefully we have moved away from kind of treatment used in his case.

Heres a short version of ‘Oh Well’ from around 1969….

The industry have done a good job in releasing most of good quality live recordings although many are now expensive and hard to come by. Equally, good quality boots are very scare. Of the dozen or so that I have this one is fairly short but the quality is a good ‘A’. The guitar is very up front even if the vocal is a little low. The track ‘Greeney Alone’ includes some identifiable riffs and is worth the download on its own.

Fleetwood Mac – Amsterdam – 1969

01 Introduction

02 Merry Go Round

03 One Side Love

04 Dust My Broom

05 Got to Move

06 Greeney Alone

07 Sugar Mama

08 I Can’t Hold Out

09 Talahassie Lassie

I hope you enjoy this post. Peter Green still tours quite regularly and I can recommend his live performances, not just for his history but also for his current place. His ‘Robert Johnson Song Book’ is worth finding out also for anyone with an interest in the origin of the blues and everything that it led to.