Sad news. The band were never better.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/12223552/peter-green-dead-fleetwood-mac/
RIP: Peter Green
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Musings on the byways of popular culture
RIP indeed.
Sad News.
Simply the best British blues guitarist. Great songwriter and singer. Sadly the last and only time I saw him live was a sorry affair in a shitty pub some 30 odd years ago.
BB King allegedly said he was “the only white boy that gave me chills.”
Like Feedback the one time I saw him was at a ghastly place called The Venue where he had a horrible unsympathetic band who kept calling him Pete and “THE LEGEND” despite him barely being able to play. But I’m remembering the music, not that. As a teen blues nut I loved the early albums and cut my teeth trying to play it in songs like this. “That doesn’t sound too hard,” I thought. I’m still working on it.
RIP maestro. The very best.
The greatest song I ever heard (some days)
https://youtu.be/OJWOtL-PZiE
I concur (most days) – certainly one of the very best
Agreed.
The spine tingling drop to silence at the very end says more than most writers get to express in a whole career.
A great talent. Only saw him live once, when he was working with the Splinter Group around the milennium. Everyone, band and audience, gave him as much love and encouragement as they could, but he seemed to be present in body only. His mind was elsewhere.
It could be argued that he died in Munich in 1970. I, too endured a Slpinter Group gig
I love Albatross. Maybe it’s soft and mainstream and doesn’t really represent his blues chops, but I don’t care. It’s a beautiful record.
I agree
Nicked by the Beatles too!
If I was Peter Green I would consider that an honour! I always wondered why there was never a court case. Maybe it’s just melodically different enough that you couldn’t pin it down as plagiarism, even though it sounds obvious to anyone that hears it.
“Talent borrows, genius steals”.
I doubt that Greeny was in any fit state to care, at the time. He certainly wouldn’t have wanted the money, as he was trying to give everything he had away and refusing to accept cheques from his accountant.
In 1969?
Within the next year or two.
99.99% of musicians and their managements weren’t thinking along those sort of lines then.
That plagiarism claim culture thing only really got going when George’s “My Sweet Lord” got hammered.
Albatross is a lovely tune and best—selling rock instrumental in the UK. Here is Dave doing a cover. https://youtu.be/Aa9vpzzOpSI
It was only very recently that I realised that it was inspired by Coleridge’s Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner.
In a nod to Samuel Taylor C, the Mac’s 1969 compilation was titles Pious Bird of Good Omen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pious_Bird_of_Good_Omen
STC has been quite an inspiration in the music world. If you haven’t already heard this, crank it up. Tremendous stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7zk4as9kzA
Me too, Kai. I never spotted the connection at all.
I prefer thinking it just about the grace of a sea bird though, to be honest. Linking it to a portentous tale of guilt and redemption ruins it a bit….
What must George have felt when (or if) in 1980 he first heard Start by the Jam?
“My Sweet Lord” has, at best, a passing resemblance to “He’s So Fine,” while the, erm, start of “Start” is E.X.A.C.T.L.Y. like “Taxman.”
I was lucky to have seen him twice with John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers. First time in a pub, then at the Marquee. McVie was with him both times but Mayall’s revolving drum stool featured Ainsley Dunbar then Keef Hartley. I also saw Fleetwood Mac briefly while Albatross was No 1 but crowd trouble restricted them to just three songs. So overall I got a satisfying dollop of his beautiful guitar but sadly hardly any of his beautiful voice.
I know Marc Maron is a big fan so I suspect there’ll be a tribute on WTF next week.
Never saw him with Mayall, but saw the original Fleetwood Mac twice in 1968. Once at a free Hyde Park concert and once before that at the Railway Hotel in Wealdstone. Magnificent.
Apparently Weller got his permission, as did Kula Shaker for using the guitar riff from ‘Ski-Ing’ from ‘Wonderwall’ for their ‘Gokula’. In his dry funny way, George pointed out that it was Eric anyway.
Am I right in thinking that there was a documentary in which a journalist claimed that he persuaded PG to quit much of his medication, resulting in big improvements in his mental health?
Shall I tell you about my life? Best beginning to any song. Ever.
I wish I’d never been born.
There’s some anguish in that line
He lived longer than anyone expected, so raise a glass to that.
ianness gave me the skinny on his infamous bad acid trip, after which he was never the same. (Peter Green, that is).
There were views that he was fucked up before that incident. Was that Ian’s view.
In 2 minds about his re-entry into performing. Good for him to get some money, but he always had the recognition for his legacy and the music being created with Splinter was lumpen at best.
Not the way Mick Fleetwood tells it. He was a tough pushy East London kid and came back from that party a zombie.
That is why I am asking HP what Ianness said.
I know this is going to ruffle Rob C’s feathers, but it was the same guy with the same bad acid who tipped Syd over the edge.
Not at all, Sauceypants. Completely unruffled. Please give my fond regards to Ianness when you next talk to him.
I get the impression that Fleetwood & McVie have always been a bit defensive since Greeny’s breakdown about failing to notice the signs.
Realistically he’s been gone for half a century, but still sad news. What he could have become if he hadn’t taken the brown acid. And as a friend remarked on FB, he was the “best of that British lot”. Beautiful guitar tone and playing, such a soulful older-than-his-age voice, and a songwriter who came up with totally original classics.
Beautiful singing and guitar on this…
I got a good mind to give up living
And go shopping instead
I got a good mind to give up living
And go shopping instead
Pick me a tombstone and get pronounced dead
schizophrenia I think it was. I have a family member that unfortunately has the same affliction. He’s great though. He makes me laugh and he says the most profound things that you and I aren’t paying attention to. Who’s Mad?
I saw the Mac when Then Play On was released. He was in full-on Rock Jesus mode, white robes … astonishing gig, most of it segueing together. Not too keen on the album, though.
Worth mentioning he invented Santana with “The Supernatural” from the Hard Road album.
Junior is right. He had been a shadow of his former self for a long time. I saw him In Stockholm with the Splinter Group and it was painful to watch.
But I was also lucky enough to see Fleetwood Mac at the Albert Hall ar the height of their powers. They were astonishingly good. Such variety!
What a remarkable development from being superlative 12 bar bluesers
to a superlative rock/pop/prog/blues band.
I’m sure that there are several great live clips from German, Scando, French etcc TV from that era.
Here’s one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgJGcJ-EiXs
Probably my all time favourite guitarist.
I recall reading an interview with Bernie Marsden (ex-Whitesnake) a few months ago and if I remember correctly, he mentioned that Peter Green was a friend and would come round and they would play together, talk about fishing etc etc. So it seems at least he was contented in the last few years of his life.
Bernie posted a nice piece on Twitter. He was round Peter’s house on the day of the recent tribute concert. He sounded happy. RIP
Finally found what I recalled – it was in Uncut a few months ago……
https://www.uncut.co.uk/features/fleetwood-mac-on-peter-green-every-guitar-player-adores-him-123080/
That is great to hear, Chris and Grac.
Quiet, simple , good news like that never makes the headlines
One thing though, I’d never heard this The Green God thing till this week. And I’ve read quite a bit about that era. Anyone else?
Me neither. I reckon it’s apochry, er, apocri, um, apocrifa, ah, it’s bollocks.
I think someone coined it last week.
Good to see Lesley Anne Jones on Facebook, using Green’s passing to promote her new book, about “EMI’s Greatest A&R Man Of All Time” David Ambrose, who briefly played bass alongside Peter in pre-Mac outfit.
“Not so much a ‘Man of the World’ as a genius on a different plane. Torn before his time, Peter Green is honoured by David Ambrose, the original bassist of Fleetwood Mac who walked away from personal superstardom to become the most successful A&R man EMI ever had. Mick Fleetwood himself has generously penned the foreword to this rollercoaster of highs, lows, wows and woes, by a man who was there, and who played it. It was my honour and great pleasure to co-author this cool book. From Little Wing Books this autumn. Pre-order here: …”
Nice.
I loathe the word ‘cool’. It’s not a ‘cool’ book; it’s a book.
*Takes Colin’s books out the fridge.
😀