In Memoriam: Peter Green

In Memoriam pays tribute to those who have left this world, and the songs they left us to remember them by.

It’s five years today since the death of Peter Green, the architect of the initial blues-facing iteration of Fleetwood Mac. A reputable and reliable guitarist, he was the one the original bluesmen looked up to, holding his play in greater regard than some lesser “gods” as, say, Eric Clapton. Albert King, that giant of U.S. electric blues said of him “He has the sweetest tone I ever heard; he was the only one who gave me the cold sweats.” For five years, as the ’60s blossomed into the ’70’, he was the man.

When Clapton left behind John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers to form Cream in 1966, this left a sizeable hole. It was Green, a very quiet and somewhat reserved Londoner, still only 19 years old, who was drafted in, based on his burgeoning reputation. His time with Mayall was short, around a year, and he contributed a couple of compositions to the album released during that period, A Hard Road. One of these, “The Supernatural,” displayed his early knack for crafting an instrumental.

In 1967, he jumped ship to form his own band, naming them after the rhythm section rather than himself, drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John “Mac” McVie, each also graduates of the Mayall finishing school for British blues-rockers. It seems he felt Mayall, the Godfather of British Blues, was straying too far from blues orthodoxy. The fourth member was Jeremy Spencer, an adept practitioner of the Elmore James style of slide guitar. Both Green and Spencer wrote, each contributing to their first eponymous album, with Green contributing 5 to Spencers 3, the rest bulked out by covers.

By second album, Mr Wonderful, Green had begun to hit his stride, and contributed a greater proportion, mainly co-writes with C.G. Adams, aka Clifford Davis, the band’s manager, later to be seen as somewhat a malign influence. However, the critics were cooler in their response, there needing to be a greater step-up. That duly came, coinciding with the band becoming a five-piece, recruiting a third guitarist, in Danny Kirwan. Singles were a bigger thing than albums back in those days, and it was with a bevy of non-album releases that the band really hit pay-dirt. Beginning with “Black Magic Woman” and a relatively lowly UK chart position of 37 in 1968, the quintet moved swiftly forward, onward and upward. Apart from the cover, “Need Your Love So Bad,” which came next, it was all Green originals paving the way. This culminated with the evergreen and mercurial “Albatross” followed by “Man of the World” and “Oh Well,” a #1 and two #2’s, ’68 into ’69. (“Oh Well” was actually the first to dent America, becoming a #55 on Billboard.)

The plot had begun to unravel by the time a further LP release, Then Play On, and it showed Green deferring much of the songwriting to his new recruit, although a further non album single, “The Green Manalishi (with the Two Prong Crown)” came, from Green, in 1970. It is fair to say the title gives some clue as to where his mind was at. Green quit the band, in part initiated by his addled desire that the band donate all and any profit to charity.

His later years were besmirched, possibly the wrong word, by various demons, well documented elsewhere. Although he did regain and, partly, restore his career, if not so much his reputation, it is those classic years that remain his legacy and that we celebrate here. (If you seek the sores and suffering, this is as good a summary as any.)

Bernie Marsden — The Supernatural (John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers cover)

To start at the beginning, it is only fitting that we include this 1994 version of Green’s second best known instrumental, a tune he returned to in his Splinter Group days, but had been his calling card to anyone in doubt as to his abilities, as he freshly signed up to John Mayall. As we discussed here, Marsden, the one-time White Snake axeman, was never other than a faithful friend and support to Green, on his return to playing guitar. This came from an album dedicated to his friend, “Green and Blues”, which features Green originals with blues standards he had made his own along the way, with both Mayall and the Mac. Instrumentals aren’t always an easy cover, particularly if you are drawing attention to the licks and frets, but Marsden has a deft hand for imbuing a warmth into the material, sometimes overlooked by others.

Beverley Skeete — Black Magic Woman (Fleetwood Mac cover)

Hard to disregard the elephant in the room of Carlos Santana, most versions of this song turn out to be covers of the version most assume to be the original. But Skeete, one of the premier for-hire backing singers in the UK and beyond, as well as being Bill Wyman’s go-to for female lead vocals in his Rhythm Kings, manages something a little different for her rendition. It stems from her 2007 solo release, Unchained, which saw her tackle a range of rock standards with similar aplomb. Starting with more of a dance and trance rhythm track, yes, the conga eventually provide a link to the polyrhythms of Santana, but it is overall a splendid re-working, even as she takes responsibility for being the black magic woman, rather than one merely observed.

(In passing, I guess the ultimate fusion came from when Green and Santana both did the song together.)

Jan Akkerman — Albatross (Fleetwood Mac cover)

Pipping the Grassmasters to the post, Akkerman, the erstwhile guitarist of Dutch proggers Focus really spins subtle alchemy into this uber-chilled version. Sticking broadly to the notes offered, by dropping the key just a tad, somehow the melody becomes infinitely sadder, and it bleeds tears across the grooves. I hadn’t previously heard it, and I now can’t hear it enough. Akkerman left Focus in 1976, if returning for five years in the 90s, but has tended largely to plough his own furrow, increasingly bringing in elements of jazz and fusion into his solo work. This comes from 1993’s Puccini’s Café.

Ian Anderson — Man of the World (Fleetwood Mac cover)

Yes, that Ian Anderson, the manic Jethro Tull flautist, perched on one leg, grimacing wildly. From another Green tribute album, Rattlesnake Guitar, this time an all-star vehicle of, largely, guitarists, p(l)aying their dues to Green. Dig through the gurnfest of axe-wranglers, however, and there are pockets of, as with this, distinct charm. Tull too started life as a blues band, switching then to the for-prog that Anderson excelled at. Here his vocals give a similar hue to the song, without taking away any of the greatness of the composition. The album, away from the guitars, includes also such stalwarts as the singing pyromaniac, Arthur Brown, and Paul Jones, once of Manfred Mann and latterly the Blues Band, an authority on the Blues, broadcasting a weekly show on national radio for very many years.

2Cellos feat. Elton John — Oh Well (Fleetwood Mac cover)

This is an outlier by any measure. I sort of get the idea, and approve of, having a couple of cellists tackling a gamut of rock standards. But, to also have on board the participation of any number of special guests suggests either very deep pockets or a little black book of who done what and where, where they shouldn’t. So, as well as Elton John, the rest of the album, In2ition, includes Zucchero, Steve Van and Sky Ferreira. John actually does a very credible blues moan, as it happens, and I like the arrangement. He had heard the Croatian duo and their version of “Smooth Criminal” promptly inviting them out on tour. They made six albums of similar cover crossovers, ahead of returning to the classical arena from whence they had come.

Mike Bess — The Green Manalishi with the Two Prong Crown (Fleetwood Mac cover)

The covers of this one are largely pretty heavy affairs, as in metal; I had no idea that Judas Priest had covered the song or that it would then appear on various Priest tribute albums. Bess is a largely acoustic bluesman who hails out of the Bristol satellite town of Portishead, playing gigs in bars and clubs. And that is about as much as I know. I like the stripped back feel he gifts the song, and can imagine Green playing it, in this way, to the rest of the band, to see what they might think.

It would have been good to have been able to provide more examples of Green’s later songwriting, whether in the years post Mac, up until the early ’80s, from his run of solo albums. But it seemed his muse had deserted hime, songwriting duties largely delegated to his elder brother, Mike Green. And, by the time he was brought back into circulation, in the mid ’90s, for his supposedly eponymous Splinter Group, they were near all a strict covers and recycling unit, wheeling him on and offstage to try and be the man he no longer was. But let’s finish with a bit of fun. One of the songs that Green wrote for the Mac debut was “The World Keeps On Turning.” In 1975 the now quite different version of the band, with a couple of other Green-less versions tucked in before that, revisited that arguably simple and generic bit of blues bluster, with Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie giving it a bit of a wash and brush up. Hey presto, “World Turning,” part of the eponymous album that started the Buckingham Nicks transformation of the band skywards. OK, the source is buried pretty deep, but Green got a credit and I am sure the royalties came in mighty handy, if not then, certainly as his mental health entirely imploded.

Tony Trischka — World Turning (Fleetwood Mac cover)

Tony Trischka is a celebrated banjo player. He chose to cover this song for his 1993 album, calling the album after the track. A record of some academic importance, Trischka used it to represent 19th century and earlier period banjo music over half of it, while the latter portion showcases 20th century banjo music and beyond. The Buckingham/Green/McVie rendition is sole pice neither traditional in origin (although you might and could argue that point) or by Trischka himself. It’s good and, if you squint, you can just about get the taste of Green’s 1968 “original”.

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