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Peter Green - Can anyone school me?

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duotoneduotone Frets: 971
Buying various Guitar magazines over the years, his name is regularly mentioned & once in a while his songs appear...Man of the World I think is the last one I remember seeing.

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


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  • FretwiredFretwired Frets: 24601
    Buy a copy of Fleetwood Mac's greatest hits (early Mac not Rumours mob), pour glass of scotch, turn on CD player and sit back and relax. Amazing blues player .. many of the black blues guitarists, such as BB King, rated Green and thought him the best white blues guitarist.

    Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
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  • cruxiformcruxiform Frets: 2533
    edited December 2017



    That's what the fuss is about
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  • I think the word that best fits with Peter Green is 'tasteful'. The early Mac stuff was devoid of flashiness or throwing in extra notes/fills/locks needlessly. Some of the most reserved, economical blues playing you'll hear.

    Plus he had the distinctive 'out of phase' tone from his Les Paul, which makes him instantly recognisable.

    As @Fretwired says above, glass of your favourite tipple, kick back and relax with this... 




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  • FelineGuitarsFelineGuitars Frets: 11495
    tFB Trader
    Amazing  track...
    Even if you only know the hits or better known songs they had they are pretty amazing by any standard:
    Albatross
    Black Magic Woman
    The Green Manalishi
    Man of the World
    Oh Well
    Need Your Love So bad


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    Pickups from BKP, Oil City & Monty's pickups.

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  • scrumhalfscrumhalf Frets: 11262
    The first Fleetwood Mac album - Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac - is a textbook.

    The live stuff recently released when he was part of John Mayall's band are stunning.
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  • NeillNeill Frets: 941
    This, in my humble opinion, is as good as blues guitar ever gets, the very reason why BB king said Peter Green was the only guitar player who made him sweat.



    I was lucky enough to get this on tape way back in the 70's, - the live album Shrine '69 (recorded, IIRC on a simple 2-track) was initially only released to radio stations and only went on general release in 1999 for some reason.  it's Greenie at the top of his game, just before he quit Fleetwood Mac.
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  • I got into blues around the age of 16, which is why I took up guitar.  I listened to most of the likely suspects (Taylor, Clapton, Winters, Gallagher, Kossoff, Rush, The Kings etc) but Green was my blues guitar hero.  It's very difficult to define why - he clearly wasn't the best technician, or the most highly regarded (at the time that was Clapton).  You end up talking about nebulous things like feel, taste, tone, sense of melody.  It felt like a quirky preference - most of my musical mates preferred more obviously flashy players and I remember taking quite a bit of stick from Hendrix fans in particular (not that I had any problem revering Hendrix, but Green was my guy).

    What surprised me later was realising that my preference wasn't as idiosyncratic as I thought - there's a significant and quite hard core minority of blues players and fans who continue to regard him as the epitome of blues guitar playing.

    I'm no longer much of a blues fan to be honest - all the juice got squeezed out of the genre long ago for me - Green and BB King are pretty much the only guys I'd listen to now and that rarely (although I did give some listening time to Marcus King's album this year).

    In the end you check him out and you either agree with us or don't.  One particular favourite track not widely mentioned is "Out of Reach" a very basic reverb-drenched minor blues by John Mayall that Green also sings lead vocal on.
    “To a man with a hammer every problem looks like a nail.”
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  • p90foolp90fool Frets: 31367
    He was a gifted and tasteful player, but you still need to be well schooled in the context in which he came to prominence to really get it IMO. 

    It's easy for old folks to say someone was fantastic in their day, but it doesn't necessarily sound immediately impressive now. 

    He's before my time tbh, as he was burnt out by the time I was six, but I know enough about the course of rock music in the 60s to appreciate him as someone who's very difficult to emulate, even now. 
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  • poopotpoopot Frets: 9098
    edited December 2017
    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...
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  • NeillNeill Frets: 941
    I got into blues around the age of 16, which is why I took up guitar.  I listened to most of the likely suspects (Taylor, Clapton, Winters, Gallagher, Kossoff, Rush, The Kings etc) but Green was my blues guitar hero.  It's very difficult to define why - he clearly wasn't the best technician, or the most highly regarded (at the time that was Clapton).  You end up talking about nebulous things like feel, taste, tone, sense of melody.  It felt like a quirky preference - most of my musical mates preferred more obviously flashy players and I remember taking quite a bit of stick from Hendrix fans in particular (not that I had any problem revering Hendrix, but Green was my guy).

    What surprised me later was realising that my preference wasn't as idiosyncratic as I thought - there's a significant and quite hard core minority of blues players and fans who continue to regard him as the epitome of blues guitar playing.

    I'm no longer much of a blues fan to be honest - all the juice got squeezed out of the genre long ago for me - Green and BB King are pretty much the only guys I'd listen to now and that rarely (although I did give some listening time to Marcus King's album this year).

    In the end you check him out and you either agree with us or don't.  One particular favourite track not widely mentioned is "Out of Reach" a very basic reverb-drenched minor blues by John Mayall that Green also sings lead vocal on.
    I agree with this, I know when I started getting interested in the blues Johnny Winter was my hero because like all young people who take up the guitar I thought it was about how fast you could play.  I find it hard to listen to any of JDW's stuff now as I just want him to slow down.

    There's that famous story about when Stevie Ray Vaughn was on stage with BB King and when it came to the break of course SRV tore it up, then he signalled to BB who just played one note, twisted and sustained it and of course brought the house down.

    Yes, the problem with the blues is with the odd extremely rare exception it has been done to death and hardly anyone sounds original any more.  I remember when Kenny Wayne Shepherd came along everyone was raving about him and I was thinking well he sounds to me just like Chris Duarte and he's just a Stevie Ray Vaughn clone...  


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  • scrumhalfscrumhalf Frets: 11262
    Listen and enjoy:






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  • zepp76zepp76 Frets: 2534
    I'm a huge Greenie fan, he's not just a fantastic guitar player but a great singer and harmonica player too. But if you want to know what all the fuss is about listen to this:


    Tomorrow will be a good day.
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  • If you want to hear how good Green could get in his prime, seek out the Boston Tea Party series of gigs, recorded a few months before he departed from Fleetwood Mac. The guitar interplay and impovisation between him and Danny Kirwan is excellent. 
    On studio recordings, Mr Wonderful and Then Play On (or a Best Of...) are where to look. The first FM album is good, but Jeremy Spencer's Elmore James covers can be a bit wearing.

    The late 70s/early 80s comeback are so-so, it can be sampled cheaply on a number of cheapo CDs. There's occasional flashes of his former self, but you can tell he's not fully at the races.
    The Splinter Group material is better than the 70s comeback although he seems more at home on the acoustic songs than the full electric band. Much of the time however, the music is being driven by his co-guitarist Nigel Watson.
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  • NeillNeill Frets: 941
    Interesting that there's a Danny Kirwan thread coincidentally running alongside this one, the two guitarists fate being intertwined - at least Peter Green did resurface but AFAIK no-one even knows if Kirwan is still alive..?
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  • I think of any of the 60's British blues guys Greenie had it in spades, there was an amazing expressive quality to his playing and his voice. He was barely 20 when he hit the road with the Blues Breakers and ISTR 6 string had only been his instrument for a few years at this point having played bass in various minor 60's bands. 

    Nothing by modern standards is very technical or flash but the timing and feel was in a different league....

    If you are not from that era it will take some listening too but you just have to let wash over you especially the haunting minor blues stuff.

    The comebacks were nice in sentimental terms but the first attempt ISTR was largely Snowy White pretending to be Greenie and the 2nd coming was heavily dominated by Nigel Watson who held it all together really with occasional moments of old Peter. 

    Its a story as sad as any in Rock as I always hoped he might one day find a way back.
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  • Theres about 4 or 5 notes in this intro, listen without the video. More out of less, deceptive simplicity etc
    Nobody is guaranteed tomorrow.....


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  • peteripeteri Frets: 1283
    I think the context point is key. For me the ‘Beano’ album hasn’t aged at all well because you lose the context. 

    Peter Green has aged less somehow - maybe it’s the reverb, but the note choices and phrasing are amazing and the vibrato alone is worth listening for. 

    Also makes you realise quite how much JoBo has lifted from the past 
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  • duotone said:
    Buying various Guitar magazines over the years, his name is regularly mentioned & once in a while his songs appear...Man of the World I think is the last one I remember seeing.

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


    Mate, if you don't know but genuinely want to know, it's cool to ask. Don't feel you have to apologise for wanting to learn.

    For me, it's the sound (check out Need your love so bad) but also as @peteri has said, the note choices and phrasing.

    Listen, dig it, imbibe it. Play it if you can, or at least let it influence your own playing. The latter would be the best possible tribute.
    "Working" software has only unobserved bugs. (Parroty Error: Pieces of Nine! Pieces of Nine!)
    Seriously: If you value it, take/fetch it yourself
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  • I'd just like to point out that he's playing a Strat on Need Your Love So Bad. 
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  • The_EthicalThe_Ethical Frets: 27
    edited December 2017
    It's worth looking for early FM on youtube. There's lots of great clips of Peter Green but you'll also notice how good Danny Kirwan was and that quite a lot of playing attributed to Peter was actually Danny. No disrespect to to Peter but Danny was right up there with him in my opinion.

    Shoutout to Stagestruck for saving me the needi to mention the Boston Tea Party sessions which were truly exceptional in capturing the spirit of the early Fleetwod Mac.

    As a humorous aside, I now live in the house where several members of the original lineup attended my eldest sister in law's birthday party! Back in the day, of course.


    Stay sharp (unless you're playing with a brass section)...


    "When the train, it left the station, there was two lights on behind,
    Well, the blue light was my baby, and the red light was my mind.”
    Robert Johnson
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