South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
‘Celebrating the joy of who Peter Green was’
Fleetwood Mac’s founder saluted in concert film, album
Few music legends have burned as brightly or faded as quickly and tragically as the late Peter Green, the brilliant guitarist, singer and songwriter who in 1967 founded the English blues band Fleetwood Mac and steered it to rock stardom before quitting in 1970.
He is saluted by an all-star lineup in the concert film and doublealbum being released this month, “Mick Fleetwood & Friends Celebrate the Music of Peter Green and the Early Years of Fleetwood Mac,” which was held in 2020. Guests range from ZZ Top’s Billy F. Gibbons, Metallica’s Kirk Hammett and Oasis co-founder Noel Gallagher to The Who’s Pete Townshend, Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler, original Fleetwood Mac guitarist Jeremy Spencer and three current members of the band Green once led — Fleetwood, Christine McVie and Neil Finn.
“Peter Green was most likely unaware of how significant his contributions remain, yet there are legions of us who still follow the path he trod so early on,” Gibbons said.
A famously troubled soul, Green was 73 when he died in his sleep in July. As a young man, he wrote and sang such enduring Fleetwood Mac classics as “Black Magic Woman,” which became a hit for Santana, “Oh Well, Pt. 1,” which has been covered by everyone from Haim and Aerosmith to Jason Isbell and Tom Petty, and “The Green Manalishi (With The Two Prong Crown),” which has been covered by such bands as Judas Priest, The Melvins and Corrosion of Conformity.
That his music endures is as undeniable as the fact that Green, sadly, started his downward spiral as a young man and never recovered in his lifetime.
Green, who suffered from schizophrenia and the cumulative effect of too many LSD trips and prescription tranquilizers, left music altogether in 1971. He did not record again until the end of that decade. His sporadic, on-again/off-again career after that came to a complete standstill in 2009. He died barely five months after the 2020 London tribute show in his honor, which he was invited to but did not attend.
“The concert was about celebrating the joy of who Peter Green was and what he did, creatively, so I’ve always steered away from (discussing his decline),” said drummer Fleetwood.
Thankfully, there is much to celebrate about
Green’s short but inspirational musical heyday. No less an authority than B.B. King once told Fleetwood that Green was the only English guitarist whose playing “made me sweat — he had the sweetest tone.”
Green formed Fleetwood Mac in 1967 with two other members of John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, the band in which the then-teenaged guitarist had replaced Eric Clapton in 1965 and again in 1966. Green named the new band after Mayall’s soon-to-be-former rhythm section of drummer Fleetwood and bassist John McVie. But Fleetwood is quick to stress that he, Green and McVie never had a plan to leave Mayall, who also performed at last year’s tribute concert.
“There was no inclination to form Fleetwood Mac when any of us were in the Bluesbreakers,” the drummer, 73, said.
Green quickly established
the new band, whose first album was credited to “Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac,” as one of England’s top blues attractions. By 1968, he began to deftly add elements of Latin music, rockabilly, jazz and more. The music that resulted influenced artists on both sides of the Atlantic, from the young Carlos Santana in San Francisco to The Beatles in London.
“Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac truly remains a revelation for the many of us who took to the sounds of the four stalwart bluesy interpreters of those famed three chords and more,” Gibbons said. “Here was an English band that had mastered an American idiom and melded it with rock and rhythm. They blazed a trail we’re still on, and we were glad to have participated in the tribute concert.”
Conspicuously missing from the lineup of musicians who performed at the tribute is John McVie. He has been one-half of Fleetwood Mac’s rhythm section in each of the band’s many iterations since its inception 54 years ago.
“John was not able to be there, somewhat ironically,” Fleetwood said. “He is my best friend. John was one of the first people I asked, and he said: ‘I’ll try to do it.’ Then, the planning of the concert drifted over two years. I would have loved for John to be there. He was unconditionally forgiven ahead of time for not coming. And I’m amazed at how many people I asked two years earlier to play the show came and did.”
The subsequent concert brought Fleetwood full circle during the performance of “The Green Manalishi (With The Two Prong Crown),” which was the last song Green wrote and recorded with
Fleetwood Mac before quitting the band in 1970.
The version performed at the 2020 tribute features Metallica’s Kirk Hammett soloing on the fabled 1959 Les Paul guitar that Green played on such Fleetwood Mac classics as “Black Magic Woman” and “Oh Well.” Hammett bought the guitar, which had several previous owners after Green, in 2014.
“Peter Green had that Les Paul the first time I met him in 1965 when I was in Peter Bardens’ band, The Peter B’s,” Fleetwood said. “He came into audition — a little guy, very handsome, with a lot of confidence.”
Fleetwood admits to having been nonplussed at first by Green’s economical, no-nonsense playing. So, he notes, was Dave Ambrose, The Peter B’s bassist.
“After Peter (Green) played, Peter Bardens said: ‘That guy’s incredible!’ ” Fleetwood recalled. “I confess that I said to Peter (Bardens): ‘But he doesn’t play very much.’ And Dave said: ‘Yeah, I noticed that, too.’ Peter Bardens turned around and, basically, pulled rank on us. He said: ‘You’re both wrong. This guy is really special.’ So, Peter Green joined the band and, within a week, I was thinking: ‘Thank god, no one listened to what I said.’
“I didn’t understand then that less is more, musically. Playing-wise, I learned that from Peter Green. That was a reflection of the power of someone who had the confidence, didn’t buy into showing off and wanted to work . ...
“That’s the lasting lesson for me that I learned from Peter. I can look at Christine (McVie), or Stevie (Nicks), or other people who have been in Fleetwood Mac, and my comment has always been: ‘Is what they’re doing moving me?’ That’s what I learned from Peter — I’m always looking for passion.”