Customer Reviews

Fleetwood Mac

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If I had to choose between 5 TOP British Blues albums, this will be one of the 3 firsts. This album is A MUST in every blues collection, an it helps us to understand how the British blues was born. It is also a MUST for any guitar player, not only blues guitar players, 'cause PETER GREEN here shows how a white man can make a guitar cry.
This is also the album that Gary Moore was trying to imitate in his great album Blues for Greeny.
Don't think twice and buy it RIGHT NOW !

This album is a pleasant surprise. I don't usually take readily to British bands from the 60s blues boom. Most of them were effete imitators of the real thing and since the real thing was still available on long playing records, it is a wonder why they bothered. However, occasionally, a band would come along that would buck the trend. Fleetwood Mac is a case in point. What lifted them above the average was the quality of their playing. Muddy Waters once said that white boys could play the blues but they couldn't sing it. This album lends support to that observation, although the singing is adequate - and certainly better than John Mayall's. It is the musicianship that stands out. It is pure joy to hear the twin guitars of Peter Green and Julian Spencer, who play off one another in very much the same manner as Eric Clapton and Duane Allman when they were in Derek and the Dominoes. It doesn't reach the same heights as Derek and the Dominoes, but that would be asking too much. Their playing is still inspired. Mick Fleetwood's drumming also deserves special mention.

Apart from two of the songs, most are originals and Peter Green wrote the majority of them. Even though they don't escape the 12 bar blues format, they are still fine songs and stand comparison to much of what came out of 50s Chicago. My favourite is "I loved another woman." Green's guitar shimmer's beautifully throughout and would soon metamorphose into "Black Magic Woman." Worth buying it just for that.