Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac

[GuyLawley]

Mike, having just dipped into Jeff Gardiner’s “The Age of Chaos� again, I am reminded about certain allegations about you and Peter Green.

I was thoroughly seduced by the music he made with the early Fleetwood Mac line-up years ago, especially Live In Boston (with Duster Bennett’s Jumping At Shadows�). It's embarassing to have so much Fleetwood Mac on one's shelves. I have to point out to people that it's all Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac !

So, when I read in the Gardiner book… well, he says you like to tell the story, so would you care to do the honours?

[Michael Moorcock]

I don't tell a story, actually. I used to know a bloke called Pete Green in Soho. We were friends for a short while. My mum liked him, though thought him a bit strange. I and others taught him a couple of guitar chords and he started picking up guitar technique with extraordinary rapidity -- way ahead of me in what seemed a matter of minutes. I know nothing about Fleetwood Mac. Many years later I was watching TV. A band was on. I was surprised to see a face I recognised. That's Pete Green, I said. I then learned that Peter Green and Fleetwood Mac were much admired! I didn't have a huge interest in rock and roll, with the exception of a few bands, then. I probably have more now. But most of my rock and roll experience is about people I met when performing myself (or visiting performing friends at gigs). I knew Alex Korner, for instance, but didn't know most of the famous people who played with him. I've argued that my time was spent first in Soho, where all the skiffle and early R&B stuff went on, then later around Ladbroke Grove. This brought me in contact with a lot of the other people interested in cultural activities (art students, for instance), most of it casual. As I wrote books and they became musicians, say, a mutual admiration grew up. This is why the step into Hawkwind was so natural,
but Hawkwind was the only band that asked me to perform with them.
As with physicists and others, I happened to know people who were famous in their own fields, but I didn't know them as famous people, any more than they knew me as a writer with a following of my own. It's like people who were fans of what my daughter Sophie did in the gay community saying 'Gosh! Are you Sophie Moorcock's dad! Honoured to meet you!" or people who admire what Linda has done in building women's shelters. I suppose when you meet people you know to be famous you take some note of them in certain ways you don't otherwise. I've told the story elsewhere of meeting Christopher Lee and wondering what was wrong with his teeth ? They were far too normal.

[GuyLawley]

Enlightening. Thanks very much.

Here’s the way Jeff Gardiner tells the “story� as I called it:

“Moorcock enjoys telling the anecdote of how he taught one friend to play his first three guitar chords and then that friend, called Peter Green, went on to co-found Fleetwood Mac.�

BTW I heard Laurie Taylor making a reference to a recent book about the truth and myth of Dick Turpin. Had you heard about it? I think it must be this one:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...161275-4437258

[Michael Moorcock]

London Review of Books recently reviewed it and put me off it. The guy spends a lot of time 'proving' that the legend isn't true and that Turpin was nothing but a brutal butcher from Essex. Scarcely new information.
I'm interested in the myth of the highwayman, not the bald facts of the Newgate Calendar, just as I'm curious about Texas mythology. We all know that the Texas Rangers were a crude bunch of Indian killing bounty hunters, but it is what people make of such people in their myths and legends which displays their hopes and dreams.

[Marca]

Great story about Peter Green. It's easy to forget just how brilliant a guitarist (and songwriter) he was, gaining plaudits from B B King and the young Carlos Santana among others. In the late 60s, Fleetwood Mac were supposed to have outsold both The Beatles and The Stones. Green's career was wrecked by schizophrenia brought on by acid trips, like Syd Barrett from Pink Floyd, another high profile acid casualty. I think Mike knew Syd and the Floyd (however tangentially) in the 60s. Linking all this web together in a freaky Multiverse way is another guitarist 'Snowy' White, who was a good friend of Green in the late 60s and drove him to the local charity shop when he gave all his stuff away, went on to play on the Deep Fix New World's Fair album and also, shortly after that, with Pink Floyd in their live shows. Phew! Rock and roll!

[steeltsar]

Before he went severely off the rails for a while, Peter Green recorded some notable solo stuff in the late 60s/early 70s. I particularly recall one album, "End of the Game", my copy of which was sadly long since mislaid.

If it's as good as my memory insists it is, it's worth seeking out, if you don't already know it.

[HawkLord]

Fleetwood Mac are great, although these days they have kinda left the blues element out quite a bit. Peter Green was a great guitarist, I think he was probably Gary Moore's biggest influence, in fact Green gave Moore a Les Paul guitar once I believe.

[Mikey_C]

The contemporary rhythm 'n' blues scene isn't exactly my home territory, but I have it on very good authority that the stuff Pete Green's doing now with "The Splinter Group" is of top notch quality.

[Michael Moorcock]

Didn't know Snowy knew Peter Green. A friend of mine went to a Green gig a year or two back. He said that sadly it was a shambles, but he had heard that it was just his bad luck. Some of the other gigs were superb.
My link with Pink Floyd was a very weird couple of days we spent together engineered by Bill Harry, a friend of mine who had become their publicist. None of us quite knew what we were doing together. Bill had come to fame as the editor of Mersey Beat. He was also the bloke who was later the go-between for me and the Beatles, when he was trying to get us an Apple handout for New Worlds. Nice of him, but after I saw all the wankers trying to get money out of them, I
told them I'd settle for selling them an ad, if that was okay. Anyone know what Bill's doing now ?

[GuyLawley]

I went to an early Splinter Group gig at Shepherd’s Bush, and it was odd. A man called Nigel took all the Peter Green solos you know and love on the F Mac songs, while Peter Green stood at the back of the stage playing a bit of rhythm or something and looking embarrassed.

Green only came to life on the blues covers and even then he was playing very basic stuff, noticeably not bending any notes, for example. He sang, but not well or powerfully.

Later I saw a documentary that showed how Nigel Wossname had persuaded Green to come out of retirement (though it didn’t state how much he took the lead guitar role in the band). Green himself stated clearly that he wasn’t interested in playing in his old style any more, didn’t like bent electric guitar notes, wanted to play very basic blues, and mainly covers / old songs. He pretty much said he’d had to re-learn the guitar after being ill.

I was left after the gig feeling that Green should have been allowed to rest on his very impressive laurels. It was verging on the sordid to see another guitarist effectively impersonating Green while the man himself virtually just looked on, possibly wishing he was elsewhere. (In fairness, I should say the friend I went with was a lot more sympathetic to the whole venture.)

I also thought the first Splinter Group album was less than brilliant. I've heard they got better but I haven't tried later ones.

I think End Of The Game is available on CD. Have to say I never liked any of his solo stuff as much as the Mac material.

I believe Gary Moore recorded a whole album, of blues and Mac covers if memory serves, using the guitar Green gave him. It was called Blues For Greeny and it was pretty good. But not as good as Green at his best.

[Michael Moorcock]

I never fell out with him, but he was known to be moody -- and would disappear suddenly for weeks at a stretch. So I doubt if the acid 'caused' his problems. Might have accecerbated a condition, however, as do many drugs. That's why some people think drugs turn you crazy and others find they keep them sane! I learned years ago that ANY drug can have very different effects on people -- valium wired Bob Calvert, for instance. Others go to sleep on speed or coke. And not everyone gets addicted to anything, including heroine and nicotine. I think some people find their cherished anonymity is threatened by fame, even blaming their talent for their problems. I've been through some of that in my time. A friend of mine in Wales had pretty much the same thing to report, incidentally, about a fairly recent Green gig. He felt that Green was reluctantly pulled into performing. Probably, as with a lot of 'revival' tours, because the money's run out. A lot of great guitarists who haven't written too much original material find that they are close to penury, whereas people a lot less talented (like me) do better because they go on getting royalties on stuff they've written. I'm very sympathetic to PG and the older I get the more I understand people like him. I have a number of highly talented friends who see fame as an intrusion they can't escape -- so they've stopped doing what makes them famous.

[Michael Moorcock]

Eeek! Folks, I really CAN spell exacerbate. At the moment, anyway. Is this premature senility (or just senility) ?

[Mikey_C]

Oh well, obviously my authority's not so good after all. It sounds a bit sad. Thought it might have augured well for the long-rumoured Syd Barrett comeback, but obviously not. :( Some legends are best left alone...

[Marca]

Was just listening to some Fleetwood Mac so I thought I'd go hunting for this thread again. Was it really nearly two years ago? Syd is now no longer with us of course...

[Michael Moorcock]

A musician (novelist) friend of mine was at one of Pete's last gigs. He said he wished he hadn't gone and would rather remember him in his prime. I'm getting sick and tired of seeing more names I recognise in the obits than I do in the books pages.