PETER GREEN
OCTOBER 29, 1946-JULY 25, 2020
FROM THE DJ'S STUDIO DESK:
Fleetwood Mac has been an essential part of my life for nearly then entirety of my life, and to that end, so has Peter Green. Because of that reality, I would be remiss if I did not offer some words of tribute at this time as Peter Green, singer/songwriter/guitarist and creator of Fleetwood Mac, and after decades of suffering from debilitating mental illness, passed away on July 25th. He was 73.
Now truth be told, my introduction to the musical world of Fleetwood Mac arrived during my upbringing during the 1970's as both the albums "Fleetwood Mac" (released July 11, 1975) and "Rumours" (released February 4, 1977) dominated the radio airwaves, as well as my family car during all manner of road trips near and far as we owned "Rumours" on 8 track.
Yes indeed, this particular incarnation of the band--featuring Lindsey Buckingham (guitar, vocals), Stevie Nicks (vocals), Christine McVie (keyboards, vocals), John McVie (bass guitar) and Mick Fleetwood (drums)--is the most popular, to the point of being iconic, and it could be argued, deservedly do as their fully idiosyncratic blend of bulletproof songwriting, performances, vocals and production amassed a timeless body of work, including one in particular, which would be the double album masterpiece "Tusk" (released October 12, 1979), that I still contend was far ahead of the curve, quite possibly has been a massive influence to the post rock alternative and indie genre, and might even be the band's finest artistic statement.
And even so, with all of their fame, fortune and even infamy, none of it would mean a lick if not for what Peter Green began in 1967 and continued to influence for every single year thereafter. His gift, sound, spirit and presence is immeasurable to the overall legacy of Fleetwood Mac, and believe me, once you hear his voice, if you have not been already familiar with it, you will always hear him regardless of whether he is present, so to speak. Like Syd Barrett with Pink Floyd, within Fleetwood Mac, Peter Green is forever and always present.
I first became aware of Peter Green during my college years in the late 1980's. Fleetwood Mac's "Tango In The Night" (released April 13, 1987) was burning up the charts, while internal band turmoil culminated with Lindsey Buckingham's first departure from the band and right before the scheduled tour during which both Billy Burnette (guitar, vocals) and Rick Vito (guitar, vocals) entered the band as his replacements.
My treasured roommate, Bob and I were deep Fleetwood Mac fans and we even saw the band on that particular tour but as preparation and also for some personal musical education, we each began to delve backwards into the history of Fleetwood Mac. Bob, who majored in Chemical Engineering and Math, has a part time job cleaning test tubes, and every two weeks upon receiving is paycheck, he would venture down to the variety of record stores that then populated State Street to purchase two albums upon the then new format of compact discs. And as he went, I ventured with him, as we both were record store devotees. Bob tended to devote himself to a band at a time and therefore, went through phases as times spent discovering the discographies of King Crimson, Jethro Tull and The Moody Blues come to mind instantly.
Bob's Fleetwood Mac phase arrived at the perfect time as our interests in what happened before the arrival of Buckingham and Nicks congealed in perfect symmetry. In dong so, we each discovered what a formidable unit Fleetwood Mac already was and that classic albums, albums that stood as tall as their chart topping work was more than evident, as "Future Games" (released September 3, 1971), "Bare Trees" (released March 1972) and "Heroes Are Hard To Find" (released September 13, 1974) became personal favorites.
Further backwards we traveled until we finally arrived at "Then Play On" (released September 19, 1969), our introduction to the band under the leadership of its originator, Mr. Peter Green, although it was the final album to feature him. This was a Fleetwood Mac as we had never quite heard before and yet, the seeds of all to follow were firmly planted with this unquestionable masterpiece of an album.
Yes, we did receive healthy doses of the British blues under which the band was formulated and inspired, as with the scorching "Coming Your Way," the dusty back porch gospel tinged "Show-Biz Blues," the sizzling dirty joke that is "Rattlesnake Shake," and guitar daydreams of "Underway" and "My Dream."
But, there was also a grandeur to the album, a breadth and scope that firmly announced itself as a full artistic statement. Certainly with tracks, like the lengthy instrumentals "Searching For Madge" and "Fighting For Madge," this was a Fleetwood Mac on which we had never heard them play as hard as they did here. It is also the place where Peter Green unleashed his two-part suite of "Oh Well," the first half of which has remained as a barn burning live staple ever since, and the second half of which feels like Green's take on an Ennio Morricone/Sergio Leone "spaghetti Western" meditation of desert wasteland loneliness, an emotion that culminated in the album finale, "Before The Beginning," a song and sound of a soul in eternal ache.
While I am uncertain about Bob, for me, that album served as a simultaneous education as well as an introduction. Where the work led me back further to more Peter Green compositions like the gorgeous "Man Of The World," and "Need Your Love So Bad," I heard the romantic sorrow that would fuel every Fleetwood Mac ballad to follow. His "Black Magic Woman" gave me the source material to not only the now iconic Santana cover version but to the sound that would help to birth what would become classic rock while also pointing directly to the Black blues artists that inspired him.
Yet, even further, there was Peter Green as mystic or shaman or prophet, the earthly mortal man touched by some semblance of the otherworldly, the spiritual, the ominously supernatural. Where else would a selection like "Albatross" (a song which inspired no one less than The Beatles) arrive from, with its ocean bed of serenity tinged with despair (or is it the other way around?)
Or what of the paranoid midnight terror of the monolithic "The Green Manalishi (With The Two Prong Crown)," his final song before departing the band. If you do not happen to know that song, just take some time to listen to it. And then, try to imagine a Fleetwood Mac if that song had never become apart of its canon.
Stevie Nicks once expressed that when she and Lindsey Buckingham were officially invited to join the band, she went out and purchased the entire Fleetwood Mac discography so she could see how they could or would fit into their already established legacy. Extremely wise move on her part and I wonder if everyone who ventured through the ever changing lineups of the band also took stock of all that arrived before themselves. Because to me, without Peter Green, and those two songs specifically, we would never have had tracks including, but not limited to, "Earl Grey," "Sands Of Time," "Future Games," "Sunny Side Of Heaven," "The Ghost," "Bermuda Triangle," "Hypnotized," "Coming Home," "Rhiannon," "I'm So Afraid," "Gold Dust Woman," "Storms," "Gypsy," "Mystified," "Tango In The Night," "In The Back Of My Mind," "These Strange Times" (starring a rare lead, albeit spoken word vocal from Mick Fleetwood) and "Come."
The through line created by Peter Green is indeed immeasurable, from songwriting content to even his prowess as a guitarist and singer. Unlike a guitarist, say like Jimi Hendrix, where it could be argued the guitar essentially was Hendrix's true voice.
Yet, for Peter Green, there was just this inexplicable way where his excellent singing voice felt to influence his exquisite guitar playing and vice versa. The way he bent the strings, the vibrato he achieved while playing, the overall searching, seeking tone, all of those qualities and more were reflected back to his actual signing which then reflected itself back to the hands holding the guitar. It is a remarkable quality.
It has been more than obvious that Mick Fleetwood has served as the official Keeper Of The Flame for the band through its full duration, ensuring its endurance, and serving as its architectural phoenix, every single time the band was faced with all manner of musician departures, entrances, implosions and evolutions.
To that end, Fleetwood served as the Keeper Of The Flame for Peter Green, always extolling his brilliance, forever expressing his gratitude for being invited to join him in the birth of the band, and also discovering the talents that could only extend the Fleetwood Mac legacy by standing within the space of the mammoth shoes in which Peter Green walked. Just listen to a song like "Why," the finale to "Mystery To Me" (released October 15, 1973) created years after Green's exit and yet, it sounds just like him, as if he was still in the room. Or to any live version of the aforementioned "I'm So Afraid," and his spectre stalks the stage during that marathon exorcism of a song.
From Green's own contemporaries and bandmates in Jeremy Spencer and Danny Kirwan, to (then) future members like Bob Welch and the aforementioned Buckingham, Burnette and Vito to current members Neil Finn and the extraordinary Mike Campbell of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Fleetwood Mac has collected a rich collective of guitarist/singer/songwriters who all established their own musical vocabulary yet miraculously fit into the Peter Green aesthetic beautifully. In an eerie fashion, richly so, you can and will always hear Peter Green within those players and this music for his voice is the definition of eternal.
The meaning of Fleetwood Mac is one of free flowing liquidity as the musical road carved is one that has seen its fair share of peaks and valleys, blues based roots and pop superstardom with all manner of internal conflicts and connections raging and growing within itself, extending outwards for our benefit.
For now, I extend to you an invitation, especially for those unfamiliar, to venture out and either reunite or discover precisely what Peter Green unleashed to the world and how his vision has reverberated though time and how his roaring yet fragile spirit represented a soul that touched so very many.
Including mine.
PETER GREEN
REST IN POWER
