from "Record Mart & Buyer" November 1998 issue
The massive stadium filling band that Fleetwood Mac are, to this day, 31 years after their formation in London's Blues clubs, has constantly evolved and made innovative music in each of the four decades that their carreer has spanned. For many, however, the finest line-up was that fronted by legendary blues gitarist Peter Green, along with current band members Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, plus second guitarist Jeremy Spencer and later (1968) third guitarist Danny Kirwan."The Vaudeville Years of Fleetwood Mac 1968 to 1970" contains over two and a half hours of previously unreleased studio jams and previously unheard of alternative versions of not only big hits such as "Man Of The World", "Oh Well" and "Green Manalishi", but also brilliant some will say better, alternative takes of stand out album cuts. 15 of these tracks have never before seen the light of day.
Released almost 30 years on it is compulsive listening; 31 tarcks in total, all previously unreleased and unique to this collection, wich is now available as a 2CD Digipack with a 56 page illustrated booklet on Receiver Records via RMG.
For Fleetwood Mac followers 'The Vaudeville Years' will be as important and unique a release, in its own way, as the haunting single 'Free As A Bird' was for millions of Beatles fans a couple of years ago. It's time machine music - cobwebs wiped off tape boxes from the vaults - wich contain unissued recordings still perfectly intact and packed with clues about where the line-up was heading musically after their last release 'Then Play On' and before Peter Green left the group in 197O.
Born Peter Greenbaum, a Jewish Cockney in the East End of London, in 1946, Green was a sensitive child who would burst into tears when he heard the theme frome Disney's Bambi, because he couldn't bear to recall the suffering of the baby deer after it lost its mother to the huntsmen. Music summoned up powerful emotions and the most emotional music of all, he found, was the blues. His teenage years were spent playing guitar along to the music of black American artists like Sonny Boy Williamson, Elmore James and Freddie King.
Now reckoned by Mojo to be amongst the Top Three guitarists of all time (along with Jimi Hendrix and Steve Cropper), Peter got his break as a professional musician in 1965 when he replaced Eric Clapton in John Mayall's Bluesbreakers.
He was 21 when he first met drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie and had already started writing his own songs. London was alive then with the sound of the blues as evinced by dandified young English aficionados like Jeff Beck, The Yardbirds and the Rolling Stones. It was only a matter of days before Green decided to leave the Bluesbrakers behind and join up with the newly formed Fleetwood Mac.
The years from 1968-1970 established Fleetwood Mac as not only one of the most innovative blues-rock bands of the period but one of its most succesful, notching up a string Green penned hits along the way. By 1970, in the wake of diamond-studded albums like Mr.Wonderful (1968) and Then Play On (1969), Fleetwood Mac were outselling both the Beatles and the Stones in Europe and were voted Best Band in the NME Readers' Poll.
Fleetwood Mac were unique among British bands in that they were regarded as both inspired and authentic by US players such as BB King and Carlos Santana, whose bands covered the Fleetwood Mac hit "Black Magic Woman".
Peter Green's departure in 1970, his immersion in drugs and descent into mental illness have been well documented. His exit was soon followed by Danny Kirwan (who refused to appear on stage) and then Jeremy Spencer, who left the band in unusual circumstances and is still believed to be with the Children of God sect he joined while on an early 1971 US tour.
A band whose past is so bizarre it beggars belief and whose subsequent career without Peter Green has been so characterised by their multi-platinum lifestyle and ever evolving relationships and ranks, has to have been an incredible creative unit in its first fiery formation.
Never is this more evident than on "The Vaudeville Years of Fleetwood Mac 1968 to 1970".