THE FLEETWOOD MAC GUITARS

In 1966 Peter Green(baum) joined that breeding place for surrogate blues guitarists, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, as the replacement for a certain Mr. Clapton. Green spent a year there and garnered a monster reputation (give a spin to “A Hard Road,” if you wanna find out why). But like so many Bluesbreakers before and after him, Green left to form his own band, with just a short stop to steal bassist John McVie and drummer Mick Fleetwood, then rounding things out with second guitarist Jeremy Spencer.

Billed as Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac, they made their debut performance in the summer of '67 and were an instant smash. The music was purist white blues, inspired by Elmore James with lots of covers. Their first album went straight into the Brit charts and remained there for over a year. In mid-’68, Green added a third guitarist to the line-up, Danny Kirwan, which made the Mac the only band with three who all also sang and composed. Though there can be little doubt that Green was the star, Spencer remains a personal favorite of mine. He was a wizard with a slide guitar, and a splendid satirist who added tonguein-cheek country rock take-offs. Still, Green was the better composer, and at the end of ’68, the Mac’s first hit single— “Albatross”—showed just how far Green had moved away from his original twelvebar affectation. The song was an innovative instrumental and experimental masterpiece, and the end of the band as pure blues aficionados. In ’69 the Macs had hit after hit, two well worth mentioning here, their all time signature tune, “Black Magic Woman,” and the paranoid Green meister-work that (with the aid of hindsight) led the way to his leaving the group: “Man Of The World.” A haunting, blues-derived melody, it utilized minor chord changes against Green’s sob-story vocals and terribly disillusioned lyrics (“Shall I tell you about my life/and keep you amused for awhile”). The same year saw the release of Then Play On, but trouble was brewing in the ranks of England’s hottest band, and in May 1970, Green quit.

He got religion, it seems, but hardly in the mean-spirited manner of today’s pop stars (where it’s somewhat akin to taking est training). Green went all the way, giving his money to charity and disappearing from the music scene. In 1977, Green was put in a lunatic asylum after receiving a royalty check in the mail and threatening the accountant who sent it with a rifle. In ’79 he was brought out of obscurity by the hugely successful Mick Fleetwood, released a solo album, and even spoke to the press. The resulting publicity portrayed him as an old, tired and unhappy man.

The loss of Green sent Fleetwood Mac reeling. They hid out for half a year and returned to the public arena at the end of ’70, with Kiln House. Under the (nominal) leadership of Kirwan and Spencer (who wrote all the tracks), it had the splendid Christine McVie (nee Perfect) on “Wishing Well” and Spencer’s charming Buddy Holly song. Still on the recovery table, Fleetwood Mac left for a tour of the States only to have it happen again: the story has it that Jeremy Spencer was walking down a street in L.A. when approached by two members of the Children of God (something akin to the Moonies), and decided on the spot to join them. It left the Macs hanging, but that was it. Later that year Spencer had an already-recorded (and very good) solo album released. In ’74, he had another released as Jeremy Spencer And The Children Of God, and did a tour of the States. And in ’79, after a long silence, came a discoish effort for Atlantic Records. That’s all I know of him to date.

What followed for Fleetwood Mac was the worst four years in their existence: Danny Kirwan left in ’72, but one year earlier they’d been joined by Californian twerp Bob “What’s a brain cell?” Welch. With a new headquarters in L.A., their next few albums were uniformly awful. Many people (myself included) lost all interest. In ’75, the sun shone again when Welch left to form Paris, who have since disbanded (a footnote to history: Welch would later do several solo albums, signed with RCA Records, and was last seen MC-ing a not all bad TV rock program, Hollywood Heartbeat.). Replacing Welch was another Californian guitarist, Lindsey Buckingham, and girlfriend Stevie Nicks.

They recorded a self-named album, did a mammoth tour and the rest (as they say) is history.