If I had to choose only one guitarist, it had to be Peter Green. I've loved many great guitarists in my life (Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Gary Moore, and many more), but Peter has always been very special to me. I first heard him when I was 17, in a Spanish John Mayall compilation, where I found 3 tracks from the album A hard road. The only Mayall guitarist I had heard till then was Eric Clapton. That compilation contained 3 tracks with Eric, 3 tracks with Peter ('A hard road', 'Another kind of love' and 'Sitting in the rain'), 3 tracks with Mick Taylor, plus a song recorded alone by John Mayall and great drummer Keef Hartley ('Sonny Boy blow'), and another one. Since then, I love all the people in this album, but Peter really shocked me.
I tried to find their album A hard road, but didn't find it. So, next thing was trying to get the Fleetwood Mac albums. The band's original name was "Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac", although they shortened the name later. It's a thing that many current FM fans even don't know. To me, Fleetwood Mac WAS Peter Green. I was unhappy to know that the band found their biggest success with a lineup that didn't deal with the blues. It was so strange to me that they didn't reach the highest peaks. Songs like 'Black magic woman' (later covered by Santana), 'Albatross', 'The green Manalishi' (played live by Judas Priest), 'Oh well', and my all-time favourite, 'Man of the world', are so great!
I finally found one of his solo albums, Little dreamer, and I was very glad. I love this album, and since then, I've bought all his albums. In the mid 80s, he seemed to disappear again, but the great surprise was when I read about Peter coming back to music with a great lineup, under the monicker Splinter Group, backed by some of my Olympus musicians (Cozy Powell and Neil Murray).
As far as I know, Peter has played in Spain twice. First time was in 1984, with his band Kolors. I saw the ads, but never read any review, so I finally never knew if the concerts really happened. And last time, he came to play in Madrid in July 1997, but I couldn't go. I hope he'll give me the chance of watching him playing in the future.
Some months ago, I saw a 2CD tribute to him, called Rattlesnake guitar: the music of Peter Green. There are 29 songs, played with great taste and distinction by great musicians, such as Ken Hensley, Bobby Tench, Ray Gomez, Kim Simmonds, Billy Sheehan, Mick Abrahams, Luther Grosvenor, Max Middleton, and the late Rory Gallagher, who performed here his last work.
A friend of mine once told me that guitarist Bernie Marsden also recorded a previous tribute to Peter Green, but I don't remember its title.
In 1995, Gary Moore released his album Blues for Greeny, dedicated to Peter. It wasn't his first tribute, as he already played a Peter Green track in his album Still got the blues, called 'Stop messin' around'. More details? We can read in the booklet, "This record is dedicated to Peter Green". We also can see the Mayall & Green album, A hard road, in the back cover of Gary's album. Plus, the singles and 12" Gary released included non-album tracks, usually Peter Green songs, such as 'The stumble'.
Peter himself makes a guest appearance in Gary's live video Blues for Greeny live, although he doesn't play there.
Next thing was to release a new album, The Robert Johnson songbook! As you can guess, it's a tribute to the legendary bluesman. Quite acoustic, it contains the guest collaboration of Paul Rodgers singing in one track.
In 1999, Peter released a limited edition of a 2CD live, The Soho session. Very lovely, it includes several Fleetwood Mac renditions.
Peter, please, keep on playing the blues!!!
Other albums where he plays:
Links:
Pages in my site somewhat related
Thanks section:
Special thanks to: Bill Liska, for
his wonderful presents; Spookie, for her lovely messages
and her great kindness.
If you can contribute (with additions, corrections, opinions, etc.), please, send me an e-mail message at mterol@myrealbox.com
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Page created by Miguel Terol on: 14/April/1998. Last modified on: 22/July/1999.