Entertainment For Lively Minds
Meeting Peter Green
Early 1967.
Matlock Bath Pavilion , Derbyshire.
John Mayall's Bluesbreakers with Peter Green
It’s hard to credit now, but in the mid 60s blues guitarists such as Peter Green, Mick Taylor and, of course, Eric Clapton were something akin to teen idols. There were always plenty of excitable young girls at blues gigs and I knew several who could distinguish Savoy Brown from Chicken Shack and tell a Jeff Beck guitar lick from a Clapton solo at 50 paces.
Those were different times indeed, so when Peter Green replaced Eric in the Bluesbreakers, it was big news for young and old alike. After weeks spent devouring every note of the A Hard Road LP, I was keen to check out the pretender to Eric Clapton's guitar god title. So, together with a school chum, we skipped lessons and hitch-hiked to the Derbyshire spa town of Matlock Bath.
Although details of the show itself have long since faded I vividly recall speaking with Green afterwards. He was cocky, confident and his speech was peppered with expletives. With his black curly hair and washed-out Levi's 501s (next to impossible to find in Britain at that time) he couldn’t have looked cooler.
To a couple of 16-year-old provincial oiks like us, he was everything we wanted to be - and much more besides.
As we walked away, Mayall was actively engaged in chatting up a couple of the girls hanging around outside the venue, while Green seemed more interested in going back to his hotel with a bottle of Johnnie Walker.
1982.
Richmond, Surrey.
Peter Green breaks cover.
In 1982 while browsing through records in a Richmond Oxfam shop, I noticed the light hearted banter between the two ladies behind the counter had taken on a more conspiratorial tone. "Look, Mabel" whispered one, "there's that strange man again." I turned to see what was occurring and there, peering into the shop window, hands cupped to his face to cut out the glare, was a hunched, yet curiously familiar figure. Although looking vastly different to the last time I'd seen him, it was unmistakably Peter Green.
I left the shop and followed him as he shuffled along the street. With his matted hair and shambling gait he cut a sorry figure. He was grossly overweight and by the look of his clothes he had been sleeping rough. Unable to restrain myself, I stepped in front of him and uttered the immortal words "You’re Peter Green! You used to be my hero".
Noticing this brought little response other than an embarrassed shrug and an incomprehensible mumble, I made matters worse by insisting on shaking his hand while making inane small talk about his earlier triumphs. While gripping his flaccid, seemingly boneless hand, I noticed that the heavily nicotine-stained fingers ended in grotesquely long fingernails which would have made playing guitar next to impossible. Where was the guitar hero of yore? What had happened to the whisky-drinking character I had first met 15 years previously with John Mayall? Back then he had the world at his feet and now it had come to this.
Clearly something was very wrong here. I'd read stories about a breakdown, naturally, but nothing could have prepared me for this. The Peter Green whose hand I was shaking was little more than a bloated caricature of his former self. Deciding not to prolong the agony, I let him go, watching in quiet disbelief as he shuffled off up the road.
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I've said it before, Moje...
....you rise above all comers as the one true Zelig of Rock.
Even wayward guitar icons have their wayward guitar icons: at the nadir of his own career/midst of his own addictions, circa 1983/4, B*rt J**sch visited a recording session by a mutual friend simply because Peter Green was going to be there and BJ was fascinated to meet him. For many years later the mutual friend kept a photo in her wallet of BJ sitting next to PG in that studio, looking at him in a mix of wonder and bemusement, each of them like just-about survivors from a lost age.
He was the Green Manalishi with the two pronged crown, lest we forget:
Great stuff,,,
P.G. is my first "true blues" inspiration, and no British player yet has even come close to touching him at his peak.
Thanks Colin & Shane
you're too kind.
One small detail of the 1967 Mayall gig has stayed with me. The Matlock Bath Pavilion had a tiny stage back then (it was little more than a church hall) and Peter Green appeared to play the entire set semi obscured behind his Marshalls.
As Mayall introduced the band at the end he said "...and on guitar, the man in the shadows, Peter Green!".
And Shane, how good is that Fleetwood Mac complete Blue Horizon box set? It contains endless amazing outtakes including several featuring Green swearing at the band and producer Mike Vernon for stopping the takes without warning. It's cheap too.
Not long after that 80s encounter with Green above, yet another attempt was made to clean him up and get him back in the studio. I read an interview in (I think) Mojo mag where a clearly dazed and confused Green said that he spent his days at home watching MTV and confessed that his favourite artist was Bjork. That sums it up, doesn't it?
Great story
I loved the dustbin album. Played it to death. Perfect for a sensible young lad in suburban Wellington NZ.
Now I'm obviously going to have to fork out for the Blue Horizon box which I didn't know about.
When I revisit those early Fleetwood Mac tracks I am just amazed at the beauty of Peter Green's guitar playing, and the sheer originality of his songs.
Cheers Mousey
Last time I looked the FM Blue Horizon Box was available in JB Hi Fi for around A$60, not bad for 6 CDs with so much unreleased material.
If, like me, you've always lamented the fact that Need Your Love So Bad fades out just as that achingly beautiful guitar solo is getting under way, lament no longer. The full 7 min version can be found here, along with around 30 mins of earlier takes of the same song.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Complete_Blue_Horizon_Sessions_1967%E2%...
Oh, cheers, mojo.
There goes another day's wages. Bastard.
Always a pleasure
You'd only waste it on something else, anyway ;-)
Only one prob
It's a lovely set, with the mini sleeves, booklet etc. but there's one thing about it that bugs me. You can't just listen to the original albums in their entirety. The alt versions and studio chat and fluffed starts are woven into the flow of the CDs. So if you decide to play Mr Wonderful or whatever you either have to keep skipping 23 second false starts, or do some iTunes playlists which is not the point really. I'd rather they'd put the alt versions at the end of each CD so you get the correct running order, then the alt stuff. Thinking about it, I might make myself a new set just like that.
Spot on!
Why did they do that? I want the hear the albums I remember and it drives me mad every time I play them. Prompts questions from the GLW like 'what the hell are we listening to?'....!!
A valid point Twang
I got around it by keeping the original CDs, so if I feel like hearing the albums as they appeared on vinyl, I can. Mind you, I also have the original vinyl as well.
You must have a more recent version of the Blue Horizon box set. Mine are in standard jewel cases (not card sleeves) and annoyingly the back cover of each album lists the original track listing, without the bonus material. If you want to see the full track listing with the bonus tracks, the only way to do is to read the disc itself or look at the booklet.
great stuff
saw him at byron blues festival -it was lumpen , ponderous blues rock > I left early it was too depressing.
Despite what those with a vested interest
in Peter Green's career may tell us, the magic disappeared in 1970 and what you get from him today (in concert and on record) is light years removed from his pre-breakdown work.
Yes
Ive blogged before that I saw him at The Venue in the early 80s and it was a profoundly depressing experience. A totally unsympathetic band, too loud, a big numpty who kept calling him "Pete", and bellowing "the master" if PG managed to connect plectrum and string, where clearly he could barely master standing up, never mind Black Magic Woman. I did like "In the skies" though I suspect Snowy White played most of the lead guitar.
Snowy White
He played so much lead guitar on the In The Skies album, some of the tracks even appeared on a CD collection of his session work.
This "big numpty" of which you speak, would it be Nigel Watson, by any chance? He's played back-up guitar for Green for years and their connection dates back to 1970.
I think it was Watson's sister who took Green in at his lowest ebb and she relates the story in the BBC documentary.
Not Watson
This was pre Watson/Splinter group. I think the band was Kolors, all black players, good band actually but totally unsuited to Peter in the state he was in. It was after this tour, in 83 I think, that he disappeared again for years before Watson revived him for the third time.
I've got a great Peter Bardons album featuring Peter called "Vintage 69" which is a series of trippy jams which is rather good. Never seen it on CD though.
Sad
I'm really not sure how I feel about the poor chap. In one way I'm glad he seems to have recovered somewhat from the terrible state he was in, but he clearly isn't the same person he was. I've avoided going to see him because I can't face the disappointment I will probably feel, but I'm pleased he is, presumably, making a living from playing.
I went to see Davy Graham a few years ago, and he was clearly struggling to achieve anything like his best playing - it was, frustratingly, there in flashes when you were willing him to carry it off, but the abiding memory was of a fading light.
I'm probably being very selfish, but I don't want that experience again....
I certainly couldn't face going to see him
in the Nigel Watson years. I instinctively knew it would be a disappointment. Didn't he go on the road with Cozy Powell for a while?
Cozy Powell
and Neil Murray.
This was covered at length in the BBC documentary. Cozy is not convinced Green is ready to go out on the road and a replacement band is put together by Nigel Watson in case Cozy and Neil Murray bail out.
As I mentioned on another thread, there's a really sad scene where Green is recording the instrumental Midnight for a Hank Marvin/Shadows tribute. Cozy is producing and he gives Green a telling-off for changing the settings on his guitar between takes.
I remember seeing a TV documentary
on The Splinter Group. Cozy's contempt for Nigel Watson was obvious.
I interviewed PG circa 1998...
...for a piece in The Scotsman (annoyingly, I can't find the transcript though I do have the cutting somewhere). Nigel and his sister sat in on the interview and the phrase 'What Peter's trying to say...' (followed by some banality) kept coming from Nigel, any time Peter said something intersting or controversial. Not an experience I'd care to repeat. Needless to say, none of Nigel's 'translations' ended up in print.
Saw Splinter Group
at Camden Jongleurs and at Fleadh (?) in Finsbury Park. Green showed a few, all too brief, moments of brilliance, but it was really the Nigel Watson show. Any futile hopes of enjoying the show were dashed by Cozy's contemptuous attitude which manifested itself in his playing his kit way too loudly (on purpose).
Met Green afterwards with his German wife, who appeared to be the driving force behind his comeback.
Passed a few words with him at Fleadh also, but to no great avail.
I can well understand the rage that McVie still feels about Green's 'dosing' by the German Eurotrash who destroyed the career of a '60s giant.
Thanks for your postings, moje.
Speaking of Peter Green...
...this is a bit of a rarity (Ian Anderson's version of 'Man Of The World' for an obscure PG tribute album):
Nell
1967. I am 9. My Aunty Penny, aged 16 (my grandfather was a lively old goat) comes to stay at our house in Macclesfield and tells us she now wishes to be known as Nell. She tells me about a local musician called John Mayall who plays something called "blues". That night she takes my Mum to see John Mayall play in Stockport with his new guitarist, Peter Green. My Mum is 29 and quite trendy, and they have a good night in some cellar bar, and the band are great by all accounts.
A year later I go to stay with my Gran in Penarth and Nell plays me her records. I become obsessed with "On the road again" by Canned Heat, and "Fire" by Arthur Brown. She tells me about how Peter Green has left John Mayall and formed a band with the drummer whose name is Fleetwood and the bass player whose name is John McVie, and they are called Fleetwood Mac. I wonder why Peter Green's name isn't in the band name, but what do I know. I'm only 10. I am smitten, both with the records and my super cool aunt with her massive hippy barnet, flares, beads etc, the full works. I get up one morning and there is much excitement because in the early hours she had slipped out, leaving a note, and hitch hiked to the Isle of Wight festival. I don't see the final act because I'd gone home by the time she got back, but by all accounts you could hear the voices a mile away.
I still love those records, the blues and the whole hippy thing even now. And as for Nell, she's in her 60s, mad as a hatter, still gorgeous, still cool.
Peter Green - the Queen connection
Who remembers the frankly bizarre episode in the 80s when Roger Taylor from Queen was duped into handing over a sizable sum money to some bloke calling himself Peter Green?
The money was supposedly for studio costs, but the character calling himself Peter Green turned out to be a fake and Taylor was conned good and proper.
I believe he was an Essex farmer named Patrick Harper - nicknamed The Egg & Potato Man.