Peter Green (and early Fleetwood Mac) Thread

[Nowhere Man]

I know its kind of hipster and whatever to say you like the less famous line up of a popular group (and on that front they're pretty much 50/50 as to which version I prefer) but christ, Peter Green was phenomenal wasn't he?

He burned so brightly at the start of his career, but underlying mental issues got to him, like with Syd Barrett. But at least Green managed to somewhat recover from his acid days. Of course nowadays him still being around and hopefully in a better place mentally is the best we can hope for.

But those FM songs and his early solo stuff were just brill. I'm not much for white guys singing the blues (Clapton bores me to tears) But it obviously came from a very genuine place in Green's case. BB King was a fan of his stuff.

Here's a few of my favourites:

Man of The World
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJWOtL-PZiE

Need Your Love So Bad
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtmW2ek7WkQ

The Green Manalishi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTvKaLW5bu8

and of course the brilliant Albatross, which was surprisingly The Mac's only Number 1 hit in the UK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8scHKFwr0og

He spent most of the 70s in a state of bad mental health, but made a glorious return to form at the end/dawn of the new decade, one of my favourites from that time is Fool No More:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oWmfG0uFBc

This might be one of the all time best 'Greatest Hits' records:



Danny Kirwan is also a major reason they were so good in those days, two phenomenal guitarists right there.

[Shit Good Nose]

Danny Kirwan is also a major reason they were so good in those days, two phenomenal guitarists right there.

Three - Jeremy Spencer (if we can leave aside his later alleged nonceing), one of the finest slide guitarists this country has ever produced, even if his improv chops weren't up to Green and Kirwan standards.

The proper Mac, in my opinion.  Some great songs and some amazing live shows - Boston Blues is essential listening for any British blues fan and guitarist.

It still amazes me that so many people, even those I would otherwise describe as hardcore Mac fans, don't realise there was life before Buckingham and Nicks.  Mind you, there are plenty of Green-era fans who don't realise there was life immediately after as well...

Sadly, the two times I saw Green on his first comeback tour were quite disappointing.  One of them he barely played or sang, leaving most of the work to Nigel Watson (was it ever revealed what actually happened between those two?), and the other it was wall to wall bum notes and playing out of time.  I don't really know why I should have expected more, but to see a once great reduced to parading on stage looking utterly confused and bemused and holding a guitar like he'd just picked one up for the first time.  Which, in a way, was the case.  Sad.  At least he's still alive, I guess.  But, in many ways, Danny Kirwan's story is even more heartbreaking.  Last I heard he was a homeless alcoholic.

[Howj Begg]

That Greatest Hits was a revelation to me when I picked it up at age 16 I think. However, good as it is, if there's one record I would put on to demonstrate the greatness of Greeb-era FM, it would be Then Play On. Full playlist here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSPB15MLHD0&list=PLZpy-cNrzFRvLbX_NlXNCO1NPM3fPhvjX

Tracks like Coming your Way, Closing my Eyes, My Dream, are exquisite, and their relative untoucheed obscurity is more alluring to me than the great known tracks like Green Manalishi, and Man of the World, fantastic as both of those are. And they are: Man of the World was one of my favourite songs from the moment I heard it.

[Nowhere Man]

Three - Jeremy Spencer (if we can leave aside his later alleged nonceing), one of the finest slide guitarists this country has ever produced, even if his improv chops weren't up to Green and Kirwan standards.

The proper Mac, in my opinion.  Some great songs and some amazing live shows - Boston Blues is essential listening for any British blues fan and guitarist.

It still amazes me that so many people, even those I would otherwise describe as hardcore Mac fans, don't realise there was life before Buckingham and Nicks.  Mind you, there are plenty of Green-era fans who don't realise there was life immediately after as well...

If 1/10th of the people who always bang on about Stevie Nicks this or that gave the Peter Green era of Fleetwood Mac the time of day I'm sure they'd find a lot to enjoy. and yeah, you're right about Jeremy Spencer, even though he  makes me a bit queasy/uncomfortable he was a fantastic guitarist.

I think Green and Spencer still play sporadic Live shows. Rather tragically Kirwan was homeless in the 80s/90s for a spell. Wonder what his current situation is?

[maett]

Had that album back in my discovering old music late teens. Loved it. Funnily enough was watching this Fleetwood Mac complilation of Peter Green era live stuff just this morning. Danny Kirwan looks like a 6th former in the first clip.

https://youtu.be/T8v_OC3zWCM

The other Fleetwood Mac mean nothing to me. Mate I used to work with often used to see Peter Green wandering around looking and smelling like a tramp back in the 80s

[jobotic]

Yeah, me and my friends used to play that compilation to death as teenagers. I loved blues because of my dad, although he never seemed to have much interest in Fleetwood Mac, despite having John Mayall and Alexis Korner albums.

I love Dragonfly on that album too.

[jobotic]

Oh and I agree - bothered about the other Fleetwood Mac.

[NoSleep]

Danny Kirwan has died (RIP).

https://news.avclub.com/r-i-p-danny-kirwan-former-fleetwood-mac-guitarist-1826697313

[Howj Begg]

I love Kirwan's tracks as much as any other FM songs, often more. Here are some of his compositions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssHffZNfPuA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8XSVZbwLcI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPS13eb4U_8

[wosl]

Danny Kirwan has died (RIP).

Fucking hell.  Always held out some faint hope that he could make it back to performing again, like Green and Spencer did.  Love his playing and have a real soft spot for his singing, as well as many of his solo songs, on top of all the great things he did in FM.  Such a sad loss, albeit one that began long before he physically left us.  Rest easy, Danny.

[wosl]

A few DK favourites:

Sunny Side Of Heaven
Second Chapter
Windy Autumn Day
Angel's Delight

[timebug]

Speaking to a lady who seemed to know her stuff about
music a couple of weeks back, when she mentioned that
she knew Mick Fleetwood slightly, through his (late) sister
Susan. She then remarked that it was a pity Lindsay thingy
had quit 'the band'. I said that the departure caused me no
feelings whatsoever, as I was a lifelong Greeny fan,and had
spent twenty years of my life trying to replicate his guitar
mastery and tone (and failing,I must say in fairness!) The
band that went super-mega-fucking-sonic with 'Rumours'
were only a pale imitation of the band that I favoured, and
had followed, since Greeny left John Mayall and formed it.
Saw them once at the Lyceum playing a 'Midnight Rave' where
various acts played from around ten at night until seven the
following morning. Fleetwood Mac played at around one in the
morning and were truly awesome. This would have been only
a couple of months or so before Peter left the band, and the many
line-up changes began in earnest.
Fleetwood Mac, to me, and many other would be blues musicians,
were THE band to aspire to be,and imitate to the best of
your ability. Or lack of, in far too many cases!

[wosl]

Spot on, timebug; that Green/Spencer/Kirwan line-up slayed (there's a great BBC live recording somewhere, where they kick-off with an awesomely ferocious version of Oh Well), although I'm very partial to a good bit of what the Rumours line-up did as well. I also like what Bob Welch brought during his tenure, a period between the Green and Buckingham/Nick eras that gets a bit overlooked.

I like a good deal of Mick Fleetwood's drum work (which is often beautifully and tastefully judged), but as person he sometimes comes across as a bit of an out-of-touch twerp.  For a bloke who doesn't write or lead the band creatively, he doesn't half seem to wield a lot of power, and almost gleefully; you get the feeling that firing those band members over the years hasn't robbed him of much sleep.  For a while in the '80s (very much post-Rumours success, in other words), Danny Kirwan was living in a St. Mungo's shelter (I think it's Bob Brunning's FM book that mentions this), and it's hard to credit that someone who'd played such a key role in a band that became one of the very richest in the world could end up in such a position (Syd Barrett, whose withdrawal, musically and socially, followed a somewhat similar path to Danny's, was apparently always diligently looked after by the other members of Pink Floyd, re. receiving regular royalty payments, etc, and was never on his uppers).  If Kirwan had aggressively issued a demand to be left completely alone by Fleetwood and co. then fair enough and I take it all back, but for all Mick's eulogising of Danny in the wake of his passing, something seems not have totted up properly for a while back there.

[Famous Mortimer]

He did, apparently, get miniscule royalty payments from time to time (I read an article about him a few weeks ago) but that was it. It might have been nice if they'd put a Kirwan composition on a greatest hits compilation (the most popular of which omits anything before 1975, for instance).

[wosl]

I'd like to have a read of that; is it online?  Maybe I was a bit hard on Mick (in this 1993 Independent article, Danny puts his getting accepted into the band in the first place down to the kindness of Mick especially); at any rate, he lived through it and knows the story a lot better than I do, and Danny's death will have hit him hard, so I'll ease off.  Also, minor correction: the live track that Peter Green's 'Mac open with on that BBC live recording is not Oh Well, but Rattlesnake Shake.