Fleetwood Mac Attack

Fleetwood Mac - "Greatest Hits" (1971) - CBS

Hello Friends,

Are you ready to hear some "Landslide"?  What about "Go Your Own Way", "The Chain", or "Rhiannon"?  How about some (gulp) "Little Lies"?

Well, if so, you've come to the wrong place!  On tonight's "Vinyl in the Valley" we're listening to Fleetwood Mac's Greatest Hits-- greatest "hits" before they became super successful megastars of the late 70's.   And this stuff rocks!

Fleetwood Mac started out as a British blues band in the late 1960's and this compilation LP captures some of their best bluesy & psychedelic tunes from 1968 to 1971.  Fronted by guitarist, songwriter & vocalist, Peter Green, the early Fleetwood Mac was in the same league as late-period Yardbirds or bands like Ten Years After.  Just listen to the opener, "The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown)" and you'll see that this band couldn't be more different that the Lindsey Buckingham-Stevie Nicks version of the band!



Founding & perennial members, drummer Mick Fleetwood & bassist John McVie are present here; as is a piano-playing Christine McVie on a song or two.  But by 1970-- due in part to the large amounts of LSD he was taking--  Peter Green would leave the band, find religion and basically drop out of the rock'n'roll life for a while.  He would later be diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, undergo multiple ESTs and spend much of the decade in and out of psychiatric hospitals!  Sounds like a party!!     

Also included on this LP are great forgotten classics like the incomparable "Oh Well", "Shake Your Moneymaker" (by Elmore James), "Need Your Love So Bad" (by Little Willie John), "Rattlesnake Shake", the heartbreaking "Man of the World" and the original version of "Black Magic Woman", which was covered by Santana in 1970.  (The Santana version is a bit "smoother" sounding, but we definitely prefer The Mac's original!)

Here's a clip of the band performing their instrumental, "Albatross", in 1970.  Supposedly, John Lennon has said this song influenced his song "Sun King" from Abbey Road...

RATING: 4.5 Green Manalishis with the Two Prong Crowns out of 5