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Fleetwood Mac
Then Play On



Down at the crossroads of a band in mental crisis.

Fleetwood Mac

Six months later, amidst the sessions for The Green Manalishi single Peter Green asked if he could stop being “a guitar star”, and go home. Jeremy Spencer and Danny Kirwan went AWOL within the year. The clues are here. Kirwan’s baroque blues suggest mid-’70s soft-rock Mac but scorched by the rays of Owsley sunshine. Green, however, is in trouble. After disassembling Albatross on heartbreakingly hesitant instrumental Underway, Rattlesnake Shake finds him in onanistic isolation (“Now jerk it!”) and haunted by an early incarnation of the Manalishi in Showbiz Blues. Then there’s Oh Well. As Green saw it, the guitar heaviosity of Pt. 1 was only there to lead us rock drones into the Rodrigo-meets-Morricone profundity of Pt 2: an artist lighting out for new territory, hoping we’d follow. Mick Fleetwood and John McVie meanwhile, lost themselves in a ten minute goof-groove called Searching For Madge. For at least two members of Fleetwood Mac it was all still a laugh.

Andrew Male

Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:17 AM GMT 24/11/2007

Further Listening

Derek And The DominosLayla And Other Assorted Love Songs (Polydor, 1970)

Syd BarrettThe Madcap Laughs (Harvest, 1970)

Papa MLive From A Shark’s Cage (Drag City, 1999)


Related MOJO content:

Fleetwood Mac , Peter Green

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