Peter Green - The Anthology (2008) {4 CD}
Release Date: Oct 6, 2008
Label: Salvo Catalog: #404
Type: Compilation, Box Set
Genre: Blues, Pop/Rock
Type: Blues, Adult Pop/Rock
Compiled and produced with the assistance of Peter himself, this special four disc set features the very best of Peter Green’s music, drawn from all stages of his career. From his first tentative recordings with the likes of Peter Bardens and John Mayall, it moves through the genesis of Fleetwood Mac and the band’s many blues sides and hit singles, plus the best of his later solo work and Splinter Group recordings. It’s the ultimate Peter Green collection, the essential retrospective of a British guitar legend.
Track List
CD1
1. Evil Woman Blues - With John Mayall
2. The Stumble - With John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers
3. Sitting In The Rain - With John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers
4. The World Keep On Turning - With Fleetwood Mac
5. The Supernatural - With John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers
6. Looking For Somebody - With Fleetwood Mac
7. Long Grey Mare (feat. Bob Brunning) - With Fleetwood Mac
8. Stop Messin’ Around - With Fleetwood Mac
9. Train Is Coming - With Eddie Boyd & His Blues Band
10. Greeny - With John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers
11. Soul Dressing - With Peter B’s Looners
12. I Loved Another Woman - With Fleetwood Mac
13. No Place To Go - With Fleetwood Mac
14. You Don’t Love Me - With John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers
15. Lazy Poker Blues - With Fleetwood Mac
16. Merry Go Round - With Fleetwood Mac
17. Trying So Hard To Forget - With Duster Bennett
18. Ramblin’ Pony - With Fleetwood Mac
19. Drifting - With Fleetwood Mac
CD2
1. Black Magic Woman - With Fleetwood Mac
2. Albatross - With Fleetwood Mac
3. Ain’t Nobody’s Business - With Otis Spann
4. Someday Baby - With Otis Spann
5. Watch Out - With Fleetwood Mac (Blues Jam At Chess)
6. Ooh Baby - With Fleetwood Mac (Blues Jam At Chess)
7. Horton’s Boogie Woogie - Take One With Walter Horton, Otis Spann & S.P. Leary (Blues Jam At Chess)
8. Love That Burns - With Fleetwood Mac
9. First Train Home - With Fleetwood Mac
10. Need Your Love So Bad - With Fleetwood Mac
11. Don’t Goof With The Spook - With Peter Bardens
12. The Answer - With Peter Bardens
13. Homage To The God Of Light - With Peter Bardens
14. Oh Well Part 1 and Part 2 - With Fleetwood Mac
CD3
1. Man Of The World - With Fleetwood Mac
2. Before The Beginning - With Fleetwood Mac
3. Momma Don’tcha Cry - Peter Green, solo
4. Underway - With Fleetwood Mac
5. Rattlesnake Shake - With Fleetwood Mac
6. It’s Gonna Be Me - Peter Green, solo
7. White Sky (love that evil woman) - Peter Green, solo
8. The Green Manalishi (with The Two Prong Crown) - With Fleetwood Mac
9. Show-biz Blues - With Fleetwood Mac
10. In The Skies - Peter Green, solo
11. Like A Hot Tomato - Peter Green, solo
12. Whatcha Gonna Do? - Peter Green, solo
13. Carry My Love - Peter Green, solo
14. Corners Of My Mind - Peter Green, solo
15. Hidden Depth (feat. Zoot Money) - Peter Green, solo
CD4
1. Big Change Is Gonna Come - With Splinter Group
2. I’m A Steady Rollin’ Man (feat. Otis Rush) - With Nigel Watson & Splinter Group
3. It Takes Time - With Splinter Group
4. Don’t Walk Away - With Splinter Group
5. Heart Of Stone - With Splinter Group
6. Love In Vain Blues - With Nigel Watson & Splinter Group
7. From Four Until Late (feat. Dr John) - With Nigel Watson & Splinter Group
8. I’m Ready For You - With Splinter Group
9. Cruel Contradictions - With Dick Heckstall-Smith
10. Me And The Devil Blues - With Nigel Watson & Splinter Group
11. Cross Road Blues (feat. Buddy Guy) - With Nigel Watson & Splinter Group
12. Dead Shrimp Blues (feat. Hubert Sumlin) - With Nigel Watson & Splinter Group
13. Travelling Riverside Blues (feat. Joe Louis Walker & Honey Boy Edwards) - With Nigel Watson & Splinter Group
14. Time Keeps Slipping Away - With Splinter Group
15. Look Out For Yourself - With Splinter Group
16. Albatross - With Chris Coco
For many, Peter Green is the finest blues guitarist this country ever produced. True, Clapton had the more dazzling technique, and there were several who could probably leave him standing in terms of mere notes-per-second; but such pissing contests completely miss the point, which is that the blues is a matter of feeling. And either none felt quite as deeply as Greeny, or none could express their feelings with quite his subtlety. His graceful passion is in plentiful supply on this four-disc career retrospective, which tracks Green's progress from sideman in future Camel leader Peter Bardens' Looners, through the brief stint with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers that first established his reputation, to his apotheosis with Fleetwood Mac and the comeback with his own Splinter Group that followed his lengthy period in reclusion. Punctuated by collaborations with notables such as Buddy Guy, Hubert Sumlin, Otis Rush and Dr John, it's an object lesson in how to simultaneously expand a roots form, both creatively and commercially, without sacrificing the authentic emotional power at its heart.
Andy Gill
The Independent
5 stars
Had Peter Green not succumbed to the devils of his own psyche in the early 70s, who knows how great he could have truly become. As it is, disciples of the blues scholar who out-licked Clapton and gave BB King the cold sweats will fall on this (broken) career overview like a lost parable.
With John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, Green's soulful, clean tone was at odds with the amp-heavy pyrotechnics of his 60s peers, making The Supernatural and You Don't Love Me emotive gusts of controlled noise. CDs two and three cover his time with Fleetwood Mac - the mighty Oh Well still burning particularly fierce - though it's the 13-minute Aquarian blues of Homage To The God Of Light, with Camel's Peter Bardens, that serves as lasting proof of Green's genius.
8/10
Rob Hughes
Classic Rock
Blue-eyed Blues Peter Green may be, but it's the sweetest blue-eyed Blues you'll ever hear. Even B.B. King famously said that the lad from Bethnal Green gave him the cold sweats.
Whether you're new and curious or a Peter Green aficionado, there is much to recommend in this four-disc box set from Salvo, not least the fact that the man himself has had a hand in its compilation. The result is a collection that, while presented in pretty much chronological order, also filters Green's periods into distinct eras that chart his progression and development. The selections on each disc, and the break from one to the next, are well-chosen.
Disc One begins with his early work, mostly as a member of John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers, where he was a (far superior) replacement for Eric Clapton at a time when British Blues was still raw. Despite his trademark long instrumentals, the majority of Disc One covers what is essentially traditional, old-fashioned Blues with Mayall and the first incarnation of the band Green left to form: Fleetwood Mac.
Though Fleetwood Mac was, in its original incarnation, very much Green's band, he prophetically named it after two members who would outlast him - drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie. By the time Disc Two opens with Black Magic Woman and Albatross, perhaps two of his best known compositions, the band is already moving away from its Blues-rock roots to the more mainstream Seventies pop sound for which it became (more) famous.
The contrast between the two discs is marked - the return to basic Blues-rock roots at the tail end of the Sixties after the psychedelic experimentation of that decade's middle years, followed by the mellowing out of a generation of angry young men as they grew their hair longer and the sun set on the hippie ideal.
By Disc Three we're straying into serious Seventies geetar noodle territory and while you can't really hold this against him when he plays so beautifully, you can also see exactly why Green, unlike so many of his contemporaries, realised at precisely the right time that music was in danger of disappearing up its own backside and made a tactical retreat.
This is the most transitional quarter of the anthology, swaying back and forth from garage rawness to dreamy pop, experimenting with soundscapes and electronics as production values made everything more possible. It also, of course, covers the period when Green was officially 'resting', performing only sporadically (and largely unaccredited) with Fleetwood Mac and solo throughout the entire decade, until his re-emergence as a solo artist with the 1979 album In The Skies.
Disc Four moves on to his more recent material with the Splinter Group, with whom he has recorded nine albums and showcases a more mature sound. His voice is rougher, the music sometimes smoother and something more stripped bare than it has ever been as he seems to sink into a persona he has spent his entire life moving towards. The last track, in a particularly nice touch, is the 2002 Chris Coco remix of Albatross, bringing everything neatly (almost) full circle.
Together the four discs show Green at his very best and this is, of course, very good indeed. They do this by setting out his development and progression, from the raw innocence of the Sixties through the confusion of the Seventies to his re-emergence as a force to be reckoned with the turn of the Millennium. Whether this contains the final chapters in his story remains to be seen, but until then it's a worthy package whose appeal should endure long beyond this year's Christmas market alone.
4 1/2 stars
Jenni Cole
www.MusicOMH.com
Amid the morass of the late-'60s British blues boom, Peter Green was always working to a standard few of his peers could match. Without his sweet, fluid guitar and wracked vocals, Fleetwood Mac would have been mere journeymen - the BB King-inspired Need Your Love So Bad remains a match for BB himself. When Green moved beyond blues, he likewise soared into the realms that no one has quite reached since: The Green Manalishi (With The Two-Prong Crown) and Albatross remain curiously timeless. Green's outings elsewhere prove chequered - brilliantly understated alongside John Mayall, he was then tempted into pyrotechnic excess by keyboardist Peter Bardens. His return from ill health with Splinter Group proves surprisingly fruitful; the voice may sound wearier than ever, but Green's guitar remains deft and inventive, and his instinct for the emotional core of the blues is intact. After all, he's lived them.
4 stars
Neil Spencer
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