CHEERS to Bill and Michael in PWM, our Laramie, Wyoming-based friend Irish Patti and ...... well, each of you at Cheers and Jeers. Have a fabulous weekend .... and week ahead.
ART NOTES — an exhibition entitled Capital City Contemporary — focusing on water, which dictates life in Louisiana more than in most states — will be at the Louisiana Art & Science Museum in Baton Rouge to December 13th.
In Baton Rouge to Dec 13th
YOUR WEEKEND READ #1 is this short essay by former Watergate prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks urging us not to forget the indictment of Steve Bannon.
A COMMENTARY by the raunchy Hustler publisher Larry Flynt (didn’t know he was still alive) in the Daily Beast on the downfall of Jerry Falwell Jr. (considered him a mere huckster). He contrasted him with his late father, who was Flynt’s nemesis:
“Ironically, Falwell Sr. and I actually became friends later. We enjoyed many cordial visits, participated in debates across the country, and even exchanged Christmas cards. I have to concede that his friendship with me proves that, for the most part, he was practicing an essential tenet of his faith, forgiveness, and was a sincere Christian.”
THURSDAY's CHILD is named Boba the Cat — who hung around a design office in Shanghai, China (and meowing at all passersby) long enough to be taken in ….. when it was discovered she was pregnant. And soon she will be re-homed (with at least one of her kittens).
Boba the Cat plus kittens
YOUR WEEKEND READ #2 — but only if you have time and are truly an elections wonk — is the 22-page pdf version of election nightmares from the Transition Integrity Project (TIP) with a Executive Summary and its “concern that the Trump Administration may seek to manipulate, ignore, undermine or disrupt the 2020 presidential election and transition process”.
AFTER YEARS OF DEADLOCK the newly elected government of Emmanuel Macron helped break it in 2017, in order to found the University of Paris-Saclay (just south of the capital) — intended to be the “MIT of France”.
THIS WEEKEND marks the 115th anniversary of the peace talks that ended the Russo-Japanese War — which earned President Theodore Roosevelt a Nobel Peace Prize for the armistice that ended the conflict between the Russian and Japanese Empires — held at the Portsmouth, New Hampshire naval shipyard.
FRIDAY's CHILD is one of thirty feral kittehs who took up residence behind Israel’s parliament building — who have now been granted permanent residence, as “an important link in the ecological balance of the facility”.
Knesset backyard kitteh
A NOTE ON TODAY’S POLL — due to a lack of time, a somewhat low number of nominees (possibly due to vacation time) and in response to requests: today will be a Trump-centric poll. I will save the other candidates (whose transgressions need a good deal more editing in order to make them relevant) for next week, as there is no sense in compiling them in a walkaway poll week.
BRAIN TEASER — try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC ...… and the usually easier, less UK-centered New York Times quiz.
SEPARATED at BIRTH — NBA player Kyle Korver and TV/film star Ashton Kutcher.
K. Korver (b. 1981) — A. Kutcher (b. 1978)
...... and finally, for a song of the week ...........................… following his death in late July, I was under the impression that at one time, I had compiled a profile of the guitarist Peter Green, the founder of Fleetwood Mac. A search revealed that I had not: I had profiled the band’s somewhat underrated “Middle Period” (lasting from 1970-1974) after he had left the band (and Christine McVie and Bob Welch joined). The post-1975 period of Buckingham-Nicks … needs no explanation from me.
Yet Peter led the band from its 1967 inception to 1970 in its blues heyday: what many UK fans of a certain age recall. He deserves a nod this side of the Atlantic.
He was born Peter Greenbaum in the east London section of Bethnal Green in 1946 to immigrant parents from Poland and Ukraine. Not long after, his father changed the family name to Green.
In addition to American bluesmen, one of his homegrown guitar heroes was Hank Marvin of The Shadows. At age nineteen, he joined a band led by keyboardist Peter Bardens (who later went on to a noted progressive rock career in the UK) along with a tall drummer named Mick Fleetwood.
Later that year, he was in-the-right-place-at-the-right-time …. going to see John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers in late 1965 when a young Eric Clapton left the band to gig in Greece (and passing an audition to replace him). Yet he only played a few shows before Clapton returned (and had to give way to him). Clapton left for good in July, 1966 to join the newly-formed Cream and Peter Green was once again John Mayall’s guitarist, where he was alongside bassist John McVie.
Difficult as it was to replace Clapton, Peter Green won over the band’s followers, with a style based less on speed (and notes) than on feeling and soul. When Mayall led his band into the recording studio in late 1966 to record A Hard Road, producer Mike Vernon was crushed that Clapton (whom he had recorded on the previous Mayall album) would not be there … yet Peter Green soon won him over.
In 1967, Mick Fleetwood was the Bluesbreakers’ drummer briefly, when he and Green left to form their own band. After some hesitation, bassist McVie joined them — thus, he was the “Mac” and Mick was the “Fleetwood” in the new band.
He was there for their first three studio albums: an eponymous debut, then Mr. Wonderful and Then Play On — along with a recording session at Chess Records in Chicago with some of their blues heroes. Against his wishes, the original first album title was “Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac” — with the label wanting to make him the focal point — before relenting later on. In that original band was guitarist Jeremy Spencer (adept at slide guitar) and for the last two albums: adding third guitarist Danny Kirwan: a band with three able lead guitarists uncommon then. The band also had some US live recordings (some of more recent release dates).
In addition to the band’s covers of blues classics, several of Peter Green’s own songs became fan favorites: the airy Albatross, the melodic Man of the World, two more rocking numbers (Green Manalishi, Oh Well) and also “Black Magic Woman” (later a hit for Santana).
Yet along the way, there were signs of trouble. LSD use led to his wearing a robe with crucifixes and becoming quite anti-materialistic, leaving Mac in May, 1970.
In the early 70’s he had some guest appearances on other recordings (including one for Peter Bardens and for guitarist Nigel Watson) and released a solo album The End of the Game later in 1970, with future Hot Tuna keyboardist Nick Buck.
Yet his drug use masked a different problem of schizophrenia: leading to stays in mental institutions (including electro-shock therapy). When he returned to the UK from a trip to Canada with a gun, there are accounts of him threatening his business manager with it. He was briefly jailed, then again sent to an institution.
At the end of the 1970’s he re-emerged with some more solo work (with Fairport Convention drummer Dave Mattacks) as well as guest appearances on other albums (including an un-credited song on the 1979 Fleetwood Mac album Tusk). and this continued for much of the 1980’s. He then left music for much of the 1990’s, again due to medications and emotional problems.
He re-emerged in 1997 with a new band called the Peter Green Splinter Group — with old friend Nigel Watson on second guitar. I got to see them in NYC in 1998 and while Peter seemed to have a dazed look on his face (and his playing was more subdued, with Nigel Watson playing an important role) it was satisfying. Opening the show was the veteran blues band Savoy Brown, whose bandleader Kim Simmonds looked at us and joked about it as …. “a time warp”. (Indeed).
In 1998, Fleetwood Mac was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame — and Mick Fleetwood brought out Peter Green as “the founder of the group”. Green did not play on-stage with the modern-day line-up, but did with another inductee that night: Carlos Santana. And I recall their playing “Black Magic Woman” with Carlos eagerly gesturing for Peter to take a solo on his own song … yet he would not (possibly Peter was thinking “Hey, this is your night” ?)
The Splinter Band ended in 2004, and after a respite he formed Peter Green & Friends (with guest musicians) that performed sporadically. Earlier this year, Mick Fleetwood organized an all-star Peter Green tribute concert in London that was well-received (though Peter was too ill to attend).
Peter Green died on July 25th, at the age of seventy-three. Just this week, a thirty-four year-old man named Liam Firlej revealed that a DNA test showed he was the secret son of Peter Green, though he always denied it (with Liam attributing his bizarre behavior to the shock therapy).
There is an excellent 1995 authorized biography of Peter Green, and a boxed set career retrospective of his recordings. Rolling Stone ranked him as #58 in its 100 Greatest Guitarists series and no less than B.B. King described this English white blues guitarist as “the only guitarist to give him cold sweats”.
Peter Green in the 60’s …..
… and in more recent times
Two song selections: one is an instrumental that he played on the 1966 John Mayall album A Hard Road — the quite searing The Supernatural, here performed in 1998 with the Splinter Group (if a tad more restrained than the 1966 recording).
And then my favorite song of his with Fleetwood Mac, Rattlesnake Shake — with the theme of …. ummm …. self-pleasure — here performed on the old Playboy After Dark television show (giving it quite an odd twist, all right).
