Artist: Fleetwood Mac
Label: Columbia Records
Release: 1968
In 1968, the breakup of the giants Cream kicked off the final episode of the so-called explosion of the British blues and R & B movement. The sudden collapse of the legendary trio definitely left a big void, and a band with a fairly alternative vision of how to interpret blues music was quick to jump in. Fleetwood Mac, under the creative leadership of the immortal Peter Green, basically walk a path similar to their famous “creamy” predecessors, no less spectacular or unpredictable, as we can hear on the self-titled debut, but at their core Fleetwood Mac remain as raw and animalistic-ly bold as it gets, something we simply weren’t used to from white blues players to this extent.
Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac (originally just Fleetwood Mac) is the debut of this legendary blues-rock outfit. Famous for its playful nature and boundless devotion to traditional blues, it will surely resonate most with those hardcore blues adventurers who aren’t afraid to peek deep into the cradle of blues music. Motifs soaked in that unmistakable Mississippi aroma are positively swarming here. That sharpness, which strokes your nostrils so hypocritically sweetly, is often really a sly reincarnation of Elmore James’s sonic blueprints, seductively packaged and elegantly served with a healthy dose of the cheeky bite of your typical English lad. A toxic combination that has shown its incredible potential so many times in the past, and with the Fleetwood Mac debut it sets new standards for blues-rock interpretation.
Fleetwood Mac basically splits into two totally contrasting halves: the first dictated by the teasing sounds of Jeremy Spencer’s slide guitar, the second stronger in substance, where Green’s innovative wizardry dominates. Green even had the guts to give Johnson’s Hellhound On My Trail an unexpected new meaning. A seriously bold but risky move, and definitely a step in the right direction. With a piano variation on this famously gloomy theme, Green makes his first splash as one of the leading innovators of traditional blues interpretation of his time, and in a way that, say, only Eric Clapton had managed before him to step in among the immortals! Jeremy Spencer is another story: besides his razor-sharp slide arrangements, what’s fascinating is the quality of his take on the Elmore James legacy. Sure, the young man’s playing draws a bit too obviously from the blues giant’s rich repertoire, but Spencer goes at the job with such fire and energy that you can’t really blame him for so blatantly replicating James’s lines. At least for now! Spencer is red hot. Still, the then thirty-year-old Hartlepool native, a big discovery of producer Mike Vernon, leaves plenty of room for doubt over the lack of his own songwriting contribution, also by deliberately ignoring Peter Green and, with that, of course, the guitarist’s vision for Fleetwood Mac. On the brilliant Merry Go Round, Guy-style Long Grey Mare or the sensational Looking For Somebody, you won’t exactly be gorging on Spencer’s slide parts. Jeremy’s biggest triumph is the immortal Shake Your Money Maker, of course one of countless flirtations with the musical legacy of Elmore James.
Even though, for the average musical taste, Fleetwood Mac might fence itself in a bit too much around the basic blues elements, the quality of the performance, along with the heart and resulting authenticity of its expression, which clearly show a full grasp of the fundamentals of blues playing, manage again and again to pull it out of the shadow of far more commercially successful bands. Of course, mostly thanks to the fantastic Peter Green, who, on the wings of the Fleetwood Mac debut, much like Eric Clapton before him, practically overnight grew into an icon of the British blues scene.
Lineup
Peter Green: vocals, guitar
Jeremy Spencer: vocals, slide guitar
John McVie: bass
Mick Fleetwood: drums
Bob Brunning: bass *
Production
Mike Vernon
Track list
1.My Heart Beat Like A Hammer
2.Merry Go Round
3.Long Grey Mare *
4.Hellhound On MY Trail
5.Shake Your Money Maker
6.Looking For Somebody
7.No Place To Go
8.My Baby’s Good To Me
9.I Loved Another Woman
10.Cold Black Night
11.The World Keep On Turnung
12.Got To Move
Album length:35.38
