Peter Green always seemed like the kind of guy you could meet down the pub -
he just happened to be a genius. I first saw him in the late 60s at the
Guilford Civic Hall where he was playing guitar with John Mayall's
Bluesbreakers. People used to go to see John Mayall
just to see who was playing guitar because all his guitarists would invariably
leave him, form new bands and become a guitar gods: Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor,
and then Peter Green.
Peter Green went off and formed Fleetwood Mac. I'd go and see them in places
like the
Wood Bridge in Guilford and the Gin Mill Club in Godalming. He wore one of
those old 3-button grandad shirts and as he got more famous more and more of
his fans started to wear them too, until you got whole venues full of people
wearing 3 -button grandad shirts,
playing air guitar and moving their heads in an exaggerated side-to-side
motion, the way Peter used to do.
Fleetwood Mac's first album knocked me out - particularly the soul and
expressiveness of Peter Green's guitar. Something else that really struck me
was the brevity of his playing; at the time there was an on-going debate about
fast playing versus slow playing, technique versus emotion. Green went heavy
on the emotional side. A cliche I know, but he could say more in three notes
than most people can in a hundred. A lot of Green's style was copied from BB
King but, like the Stones doing R 'n' B, he infused it with
a unique Englishness. His playing was raw, emotional and always had a dangerous
edge to it.
As far as influencing me, Green took American music as a base and progressed
from that in the same way as I did, showing me that you don't have to be a
slave to a style, you can incorporate it into your own
personality. I'm not the soul revivalist I'm often labeled - I just used that
type of music as a vehicle in the way Peter Green used the blues as a vehicle.
As to the question of whether white men can sing the blues (or 'can blue men
sing the whites?' as the Bonzo
Dog Doo-dah Band put it) I think expressing emotions is universal and it comes
down to ability - you've either got it or you haven't. Green had it.
Peter Green wasn't just a guitar player, he was a singer and an important
songwriter. It
seemed like there was a lot of pain in his song writing which suggested that
one day he wouldn't lead a normal life. And of course this happened when he
went bonkers. He made some solo albums after Fleetwood Mac fell apart but I
didn't really check them out because I
didn't believe that someone with 5-inch nails would be able to play the guitar
very well. He also became a grave digger at some point. What a waste of talent.
Essential Recordings:
Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac (LP) A powerful record for
such a simple lineup. Pure blues. It rocked.
Need Your Love So Bad (single) Open-minded approach
Oh Well (single) Oddball progressive. It came in two parts, part
two being some kind of Spanish Flamenco thing.
The Green Manalishi (single) Claustrophobic lyrics,
like he's singing about some demon that's haunting him
Black Magic Woman (single) Chillingly beautiful guitar - the solo
cracks out of the song like lightning. Santana turned it into a lounge thing.
Graham Parker plays on July 4 at the Borderline, London. His album,
12 Haunted Episodes, has just been released on Grapevine. He was interviewed
by Sam Wollaston.
Reproduced with kind permission from Graham Parker.
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