Peter Green - Can anyone school me?

lukedlb

Perhaps watch the Man of the world documentary for a good overview and understanding of what to listen to, why the Mac albums are divided between green and the others, why the solo albums are a bit free, why the splinter group is not reflective of green, why the hard road is important, why green manalishi is incredible and why the whole story is terribly sad. Eez a bit of a geezer too as evident on the outtakes. 

Phil_aka_Pip

robinbowes said:

I'd just like to point out that he's playing a Strat on Need Your Love So Bad. 

It's a good sound whatever the guitar. tbh I didn't know you could make a strat sound like that

richardhomer

duotone said:

I don’t want to sound ignorant but just wanted to ask, what is the fuss about Peter Green?

A bit like ‘what have the Romans ever done for us?’:

- Phrasing
- Taste
- Stunning vibrato 
- Dynamics
- Melodic sense
- He makes the hairs on the back of your arms stand up....

The most ‘elegant’ Brit blues player there’s ever been....

scrumhalf

Let's not forget his singing voice, which was spot-on for a lot of early Mac stuff.

RandallFlagg

cruxiform said:

That's what the fuss is about

I haven't heard this before, is it from the Live In London 68 album?

Luxxman

Its great to see some of the video posts which I hadn't seen before. Peter Greens work on Hard Road
is my favourite but there were also some great single tracks put out at that time with lovely guitar work on - Greenie is one and Blues for Jennie and Sitting in the Rain come to mind. Such lovely phrasing and feel.

cruxiform

RandallFlagg said:

cruxiform said:

That's what the fuss is about

I haven't heard this before, is it from the Live In London 68 album?

No idea, but it's the one I always go to when I need a bit of Greeny.

AlexC

Personally, I love Green’s playing. It’s true that time and context for music and musical style is everything. The 60s British Invasion players really pushed the sound and capabilities of what an electric guitar could do and could sound like (and I’m going to throw Hendrix in that ‘movement’). What they achieved with limited fx - essentially an amp and a guitar is phenomenal. And - dare I say it - I think the musical surrounding of the song was more prevalent. For example, that whole 80 LA scene of EVH, Vai etc just leaves me cold as the ‘songs’ just don’t move me in anyway. But that’s another conversation for another time maybe.

HAL9000

'The Best of Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac' album has pretty much all the 'essential' PG stuff. Personally I'd add 'Love That Burns' from FM's Mr Wonderful.

duotone

Cheers all for the replies!

 This evening I’ll have a couple Guinness’s & listen to the links & what I can find on GooglePlayMusic.

Reverend

poopot said:

When I was at college I had a part time job in a small music shop. We had a regular customer known as “John” he was homeless and back in the day what was know as a tramp! always had a battered old acoustic and was always buying single strings for it... Now the owner of the shop was quite a prim and proper type, she would not stand for more than two school kids at one time etc. I never understood why she let this John in the shop... tbh he was dirty and unkept, smelt quite bad and had the grime under his nails to show he lived on the street... nice bloke tho’...

before i I left the shop for good I asked the owner why she tolerated this guy when she’d happily show others the door...

turns out out she was a massive fleetwood mac fan... also turned out that “john” was none other than peter green himself!... absolutely gutted I didn’t recognise him or spend more time chatting to him.

This would have been 89-90. Apparently he compleatly dropped out of regular life as he’d had enough!...

i was also also told a tale that he once marched into his record label, pointed a shot gun at someone and told them in no uncertain terms to “stop sending me money”... how true that is I don’t know...

Was that in Richmond? 

mudslide73

If I could pick only one track that displays Peter's greatness it's this from Vol 1 of Live in Boston 70. He seems genuinely taken a ba k that everyone loves it so much. Gorgeous.

scrumhalf

duotone said:

Cheers all for the replies!

 This evening I’ll have a couple Guinness’s & listen to the links & what I can find on GooglePlayMusic.

If you see an album titled "Two Greens Make A Blues" avoid it like the plague. It's shockingly bad.

guitars4you

To me it is his touch - Not so hard to play the same notes as him, but for many, including me, it is hard to play them like he does - So much soul, expression and emotion - Many more technical players about then him, but that is a different story

In some ways I think how he plays and Karen Carpenter sings have similar qualities that few can match

The_Ethical

We used to call it soul, back in the day.

Fuengi

His playing looks and sounds easy, but the timing and phrasing are tricky to master. 

Tone71

Reverend said:

poopot said:

When I was at college I had a part time job in a small music shop. We had a regular customer known as “John” he was homeless and back in the day what was know as a tramp! always had a battered old acoustic and was always buying single strings for it... Now the owner of the shop was quite a prim and proper type, she would not stand for more than two school kids at one time etc. I never understood why she let this John in the shop... tbh he was dirty and unkept, smelt quite bad and had the grime under his nails to show he lived on the street... nice bloke tho’...

before i I left the shop for good I asked the owner why she tolerated this guy when she’d happily show others the door...

turns out out she was a massive fleetwood mac fan... also turned out that “john” was none other than peter green himself!... absolutely gutted I didn’t recognise him or spend more time chatting to him.

This would have been 89-90. Apparently he compleatly dropped out of regular life as he’d had enough!...

i was also also told a tale that he once marched into his record label, pointed a shot gun at someone and told them in no uncertain terms to “stop sending me money”... how true that is I don’t know...

Was that in Richmond? 

My wife always goes on about him living behind the Red Cow in Richmond, near where her gran lived, said he used to just stand on his doorstep with long nails looking down and out whilst they played in the park.

He was a genius though, timing was perfect.

Neill

scrumhalf said:

duotone said:

Cheers all for the replies!

 This evening I’ll have a couple Guinness’s & listen to the links & what I can find on GooglePlayMusic.

If you see an album titled "Two Greens Make A Blues" avoid it like the plague. It's shockingly bad.

I agree - you'd think two of the all time greats of British guitar would have produced something of note but it's truly forgettable. 

guitars4you said:

To me it is his touch - Not so hard to play the same notes as him, but for many, including me, it is hard to play them like he does - So much soul, expression and emotion - Many more technical players about then him, but that is a different story

In some ways I think how he plays and Karen Carpenter sings have similar qualities that few can match

I remember reading something Joe Jackson said in similar vein, he reckoned being a really good musician is only 20% technical, the rest is that nebulous thing we might call "soul".   

Iamnobody

He nailed the blues but it’s songs like Green Manalishi and Oh Well that do it for me. Especially the live extended cuts.

https://youtu.be/WO45GB1yRiE

I agree that Kirwan’s playing was up there - I think they brought the best out of each other.

StageStruck

Iamnobody said:

I agree that Kirwan’s playing was up there - I think they brought the best out of each other.

Oddly the two never got on, although it was at Peter's insistence that Kirwan joined Fleetwood Mac in the first place. Peter's story and situation is fairly well documented, but if anything, Danny Kirwan's story is as tragic, if not more so.