Peter Green & The Original Fleetwood Mac

Peter Green & The Original Fleetwood Mac

Genres: blues, guitar

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About Peter Green & The Original Fleetwood Mac

Fleetwood Mac are a British-American rock band formed in July 1967, in London. Although band founder Green named the group by combining the surnames of two of his former bandmates (Fleetwood and McVie) from John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, bassist John McVie played neither on their first single nor at their first concerts, as he initially decided to stay with Mayall. Fleetwood Mac were formed in July 1967 in London when Peter Green left the British blues band John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers. Green had replaced guitarist Eric Clapton in the Bluesbreakers, and received critical acclaim for his work on their album A Hard Road. After he had been in the Bluesbreakers for some time, Green asked if drummer Mick Fleetwood could replace Aynsley Dunbar. Green had been in two bands with Fleetwood—Peter B's Looners and the subsequent Shotgun Express (which featured a young Rod Stewart as vocalist). John Mayall agreed and Fleetwood became a member of the band. The Bluesbreakers now consisted of Green, Fleetwood, John McVie and Mayall. Mayall gave Green free recording time as a gift, in which Fleetwood, McVie and Green recorded five songs. The fifth song was an instrumental which Green named after the rhythm section, "Fleetwood Mac". Soon after, Green contacted Fleetwood to form a new band. The pair wanted McVie on bass guitar and even named the band 'Fleetwood Mac' as a way to entice him. However, McVie opted to keep his steady income with Mayall rather than take a risk with a new band. In the meantime Peter Green and Mick Fleetwood teamed up with slide guitarist Jeremy Spencer and bassist Bob Brunning, who was in the band on the understanding that he would leave if McVie agreed to join. The Green, Fleetwood, Spencer, Brunning version of the band made its debut on 13 August 1967 at the Windsor Jazz and Blues Festival as Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac featuring Jeremy Spencer. Brunning merely played at a handful of gigs with Fleetwood Mac. Within weeks of this show, John McVie agreed to join the band as permanent bassist. Fleetwood Mac's first album, Fleetwood Mac, was a no-frills blues album and was released on the Blue Horizon label in February 1968. In fact there were no other players on the album (except for the song "Long Grey Mare", which was recorded with Brunning on bass). The album was successful in the UK, hitting No. 4, though it did not have any singles on it. The band soon released two singles "Black Magic Woman" (later a big hit for Santana) and "Need Your Love So Bad". The band's second album, Mr. Wonderful, was released in August 1968. Like the first it was an all-blues album, but this time they made a few changes. The album was recorded live in the studio with miked amplifiers and PA system, rather than plugged into the board. This method provided the ideal environment for producing this style of music, and gave it an authentically vintage sound. They also added horns and featured a friend of the band on keyboards, Christine Perfect of Chicken Shack prior to her marriage to John McVie. Shortly after the release of their second album Fleetwood Mac added guitarist Danny Kirwan, then just eighteen years old, to their line-up, recruited from the South London blues trio Boilerhouse, consisting of Kirwan on guitar with Trevor Stevens on bass and Dave Terrey on drums. Green and Fleetwood had been to watch Boilerhouse rehearse in a basement boiler-room and Green was so impressed, he invited the band to play support slots for Fleetwood Mac. Green wanted Boilerhouse to become a professional band but Stevens and Terrey were not prepared to turn professional at the time, so Green sought to find another rhythm section by placing an ad in Melody Maker. There were over 300 applicants, but when Green and Fleetwood ran auditions at the Nag's Head in Battersea (home of the Mike Vernon Blue Horizon Club), the hard to please Green could not find anyone good enough to replace the pair, so he invited Kirwan to join Fleetwood Mac as their third guitarist. Green had been frustrated that Jeremy Spencer had little desire to contribute to Green's songs. A mature and accomplished self-taught guitarist, Kirwan's signature vibrato and unique style added a new dimension to an already complete band. With Kirwan the band released their first number one single in Europe, "Albatross". Around this time they released their second American album, English Rose, which contained half of Mr. Wonderful, new songs from Kirwan, and their third European album called The Pious Bird of Good Omen, which was a collection of singles, B-sides, and a selection of some work the band did with Eddie Boyd. When the band went to the United States in January 1969 they recorded many songs at the soon-to-close Chess Records Studio, with some blues legends of Chicago including Willie Dixon, Buddy Guy and Otis Spann. These would prove, however, to be Fleetwood Mac's last all-blues recordings. Along with their change of style the band was also going through some label changes. Up until this point they had been on Blue Horizon. With Kirwan in the band, however, the musical possibilities were too great for them to stay on a blues-only label. The band signed with the Immediate Records label and released "Man of the World", another British and European hit single. For the B-side Spencer fronted Fleetwood Mac as "Earl Vince and the Valiants" and recorded "Somebody's Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In Tonite", typifying the more raucous rock 'n' roll side of the band. Immediate Records was in bad shape and the band shopped around for a new deal. Even though The Beatles wanted the band on Apple Records (Mick Fleetwood and George Harrison were brothers-in-law), the band's manager Clifford Davis decided to go with Warner Bros. Records (through Reprise Records, a Frank Sinatra-founded label), the label they have stayed with ever since. Fleetwood Mac's first album for Reprise, released in September 1969, was the well-regarded Then Play On. Although the initial pressing of the American release of this album was the same as the British version, it was altered to contain the song "Oh Well", featured consistently in live performances from the time of its release through 1997 and then again starting in 2009. Then Play On, which was the band's first rock album, featured only the songs of Kirwan and Green. Jeremy Spencer, meanwhile, recorded a solo album (he was backed by the rest of the band) which consisted of many 1950s-style rock and roll songs. In July 1969, Fleetwood Mac opened for Ten Years After at the Schaefer Music Festival at New York City's Wollman Rink. They re-appeared at the festival in 1970. Fleetwood Mac were an extremely popular band in Europe at the time. However, Peter Green, the frontman of the band, was not in good health. He had taken LSD in Munich, which may have contributed to the onset of his schizophrenia. German author and filmmaker Rainer Langhans mentions in his autobiography that he and Uschi Obermaier met Peter Green in Munich, where they invited him to their "High-Fish-Commune". They were not really interested in Green; they just wanted to get in contact with Mick Taylor: Langhans and Obermaier wished to organise a "Bavarian Woodstock". They wanted Jimi Hendrix and The Rolling Stones to be the leading acts of their Bavarian open air festival. They needed Green just to get in contact with The Rolling Stones via Mick Taylor.[citation needed] Green's last hit with Fleetwood Mac was "The Green Manalishi (With the Two-Prong Crown)" (first recorded at the Boston Tea Party in February 1970 and later recorded by Judas Priest). This recording was released as Green's mental stability deteriorated, and he wanted to give all of the band's money to charity. Other members of the band did not agree, and subsequently Green decided to leave the band. His last show with Fleetwood Mac was on 20 May 1970. During that show, the band went past their allotted time and the power was shut off, although Mick Fleetwood kept drumming. Some of the Boston Tea Party recordings (5/6/7 February 1970) were eventually released in the 1980s as the Live in Boston album, with a more complete remastered 3-volume compilation released by Snapper Music in the late 90s. Transitional era (1970–74)[edit] Kirwan and Spencer were left with the task of having to fill up Peter's space in their live shows and on their recordings. In September 1970, Fleetwood Mac released Kiln House. Kirwan's songs moved the band in the direction of rock. Meanwhile, Spencer's contributions focused on re-creating the country-tinged "Sun Sound" of the late 1950s. Christine Perfect, who had retired from the music business after one unsuccessful solo album, contributed to Kiln House, singing backup vocals, and drawing the album cover. Since Fleetwood Mac were progressing and developing a new sound, Perfect was asked to join the band. They also released a single at that time; "Dragonfly" b/w "The Purple Dancer" in the U.K. and certain European countries. Despite good notices in the press, the single was not a success and the B-side has been reissued only once, on a Reprise German-only "Best of" album, making it one of their most obscure songs. 1973 line-up with Christine McVie, Mick Fleetwood, Bob Weston, John McVie, and Bob Welch. Christine Perfect, who was married to bassist John McVie, made her first appearance with the band as Christine McVie at Bristol University in May 1969 just as she was leaving Chicken Shack. She had success with the Etta James classic, "I'd Rather Go Blind", and was twice voted female artist of the year in England. Christine McVie played her first gig as an official member on 6 August 1970 in New Orleans. CBS Records, which now owned Blue Horizon (except in the US and Canada), released an album of previously unreleased material from the original Fleetwood Mac called The Original Fleetwood Mac. The album was relatively successful, and the band continued to gain popularity. While on tour in February 1971, Jeremy Spencer said he was going out to "get a magazine", but never returned. After several days of frantic searching, the band discovered that Spencer had joined a religious group, the Children of God. Liable for the remaining shows on the tour, they convinced Peter Green to help finish the tour. He brought along his friend, Nigel Watson, who played the congas (twenty-five years later Green and Watson collaborated again to form the Peter Green Splinter Group). Green, however, would only be back with Fleetwood Mac temporarily, so the band decided to search for a new guitarist. In the summer of 1971, the band held auditions for a guitarist in their large country home, "Benifold", which they bought prior to the Kiln House tour. A friend of the band named Judy Wong recommended her high school friend, Bob Welch, who was living in Paris at the time. The band had a few meetings with Welch and decided to hire him, without actually playing with him or listening to any of his recordings. In September 1971, the band released Future Games. Due to Welch's arrival and Spencer's departure, the album was different from anything the band had done up to that point, and there were many new fans in America who were becoming more and more interested in the band. In Europe, CBS released Fleetwood Mac's first Greatest Hits package, which was predominantly composed of songs by Peter Green, though there was one song by Spencer and one by Kirwan. In 1972, six months after the release of Future Games, the band released the well-received album Bare Trees. Though mostly composed by Kirwan, Bare Trees featured Welch's "Sentimental Lady", which would be a much bigger hit for him five years later when he re-recorded it for his solo album French Kiss, backed with Mick Fleetwood and Christine McVie. It also featured "Spare Me a Little of Your Love", a bright Christine McVie tune that became a staple of the band's live act throughout the early to mid-1970s. While the band was doing well in the studio, their tours were more problematic. Danny Kirwan developed an alcohol dependency and became alienated from Welch and the McVies. It was not until he smashed his Les Paul Custom guitar before a concert, refused to go on stage, and criticised the band afterwards that Fleetwood was finally convinced that he had no choice but to fire Kirwan. The next two and a half years proved to be the most challenging for the band. In the three albums they released in this period, they constantly changed line-ups. In September 1972, the band added guitarist Bob Weston and vocalist Dave Walker, formerly of Savoy Brown and Idle Race. Bob Weston was well known for playing slide guitar and had known the band from his touring period with Long John Baldry. Fleetwood Mac also hired Savoy Brown's road manager, John Courage. Mick, John, Christine, Welch, Weston, and Walker recorded Penguin, which was released in January 1973. After the tour, the band fired Walker because his vocal style and attitude did not fit in with the rest of the band. The remaining five carried on and recorded Mystery to Me six months later. This album contained Welch's song "Hypnotized" which got a lot of airplay on the radio and became one of the band's most successful songs to date in the US. The band was proud of the new album and anticipated that it would be a hit. However, things were not well within the band. The McVies' marriage at this time was under a lot of stress, which was aggravated by their constant working with each other, and John McVie's considerable alcohol abuse. During the tour, Weston had an affair with Fleetwood's wife, Jenny Boyd Fleetwood, the sister of Pattie Boyd Harrison. Fleetwood soon fired Weston and the tour was cancelled. Due to lack of touring, the album sold less than its predecessor.

Taken from Last.fm

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