Track Listing

1. Albatross
2. Black Magic Woman
3. Need Your Love So Bad [USA Version]
4. My Heart Beat Like a Hammer
5. Rollin' Man
6. Green Manalishi (With the Two Pronged Crown)
7. Man of the World
8. Something Inside of Me
9. Looking for Somebody
10. Oh Well
11. Rattlesnake Shake
12. Merry-Go-Round
13. I Loved Another Woman
14. Need Your Love Tonight
15. Worried Dream
16. Dragonfly
17. Stop Messin' Round
18. Shake Your Moneymaker
19. I'd Rather Go Blind - Chicken Shack, Fleetwood Mac
20. Albatross - Chris Coco, Fleetwood Mac, Peter Green

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3495 in Music
• Released on: 2002-11-14
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

Album Description
Full title - Very Best Of Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac. 20 tracks assembled here on this excellent retrospective which also adds 'I'd Rather Go Blind' by future Mac member Christine McVie's band, Chicken Shack, and Chris Coco's 2002 remake of 'Albatross' featuring Peter Green. Slipcase. Columbia. 2002.

Customer Reviews

The definitive compilation of Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac: gets everything right
Pretty much the only unfortunate side-effect of the massive artistic and commercial success the Lindsey Buckingham/Stevie Nicks era of Fleetwood Mac was the obscuring shadow it cast upon the earlier eras of the band. No one has even attempted to compile the greatest moments from the early Seventies version of the band, and while blues lovers have revived interest in the original Peter Green-led Fleetwood Mac, it has still been impossible for the non-obsessive completist to find a convenient single-disc introduction into this wonderful, formative era of the band. A large part of that was due to label-hopping and rights issues: the Peter Green era spreads over three different record labels, and while the "strictly blues ma'am" Blue Horizon material was the often tossed onto cheapie compilations, the more pivotal Immediate and Reprise cuts remained out in the cold.

Finally - FINALLY - this set rights all those wrongs, and presents the novice with an almost flawless, complete view of Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac. EVERY important recording, every important aspect, of the early Fleetwood Mac is included here.

What does that actually mean? Well, this set includes the best cuts from their first self-titled album (giving equal time to both Green and the Elmore James-obsessed Jeremy Spencer with "My Heart Beat Like A Hammer," "Shake Your Moneymaker," and "Looking For Somebody"), as well as highlights from the disappointing follow-up Mr. Wonderful ("Stop Messin' Round," "Rollin' Man"). Almost all of the band's Blue Horizon singles are here: "I Believe My Time Ain't Long" is missing, but "Need Your Love So Bad," "Black Magic Woman," and the #1 UK instrumental hit "Albatross" are all present and accounted for.

However, what makes this collection unique is that finally we have a CD that goes on from that point and collects the groundbreaking post-Blue Horizon work: "Man Of The World," "Oh Well" (both parts), and "The Green Manalishi" are finally put together with the early Green-era blues stuff to give you complete view of what this band was doing in 1969. Even better, the compilers of this album decided to bite the bullet and pay Reprise records for the rights to use "Rattlesnake Shake," the key track off the band's one obligatory Green-era album Then Play On. (My only criticism is that I would have preferred more from Then Play On, e.g. "Show-Biz Blues," "Before The Beginning," or "Underway," but I'm in a forgiving mood.)

Finally, a huge bonus that hardcore fans will appreciate is the inclusion of the obscure 1971 single "Dragonfly." Technically it postdates Green's departure from the band, but he's always had high praise for it and it has heretofore been utterly unavailable on CD. All praise to the compilers for hunting it down and including it.

Anyway, for all the reasons mentioned above, THIS is where you start to learn about early Fleetwood Mac. Some Green-era fans may quibble about the absence of a particular favorite - "Love That Burns" is one that many devotees will miss, and as I said above I would have liked "Show-Biz Blues" to be included - but the all the critical high points are here. After years of frustratingly incomplete "greatest hits," somebody took the time to get it right.

Wrongs righted
There have been compilations before of Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac, the band he formed after leaving John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, but this latest one puts right most of the wrongs and omissions of those.
Everything you expect is here including Oh Well Parts 1 & 2 in its full 9 minute glory and without fading out in the middle, where you had to turn over the single, as previous collected versions had; and the previously unreleased US Version of Need Your Love So Bad, which is a superb extended six minute piece, with strings arranged by Mickey Baker (who played guitar on Little Willie John's original). Stop Messin' Round was on the flipside of Need Your Love So Bad, but it is here in the slighter shorter version used on the album Mr. Wonderful.
The towering magnificence of The Green Manalishi is also re-established by its inclusion. The compilation ends with a token track by Chicken Shack, because of Christine McVie's involvement with the band, and the then-recent hit remix of Albatross by Chris Coco, both of which I could have done without in this particular context, perhaps replaced by their first single, Rambling Pony/I Believe My Time Ain't Long.

Excellent but not without a few flaws
I'm with David W. Darby (see his "Nice compilation, but not complete or flawless" review) on this one. While this set is easily the best single disc compilation of Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac released to date, hitting nearly all of the highlights with inclusions from several different record labels, it nevertheless still falls ever-so-short of being the perfect set that it could have been. For starters, I would gladly dump the Chicken Shack tune and the re-make of "Albatross" in exchange for "Long Grey Mare," "Show-Biz Blues," and "Love That Burns," which, in my estimation, was the best track on the second album. And "Homework," it could be argued, was the highpoint of the double Blues Jam in Chicago LP, with absolutely smokin' lead guitar from Greeny, yet unfortunately was not included. And how about "Jumping At Shadows," one of my very favourite slow blues tunes with more exquisite guitar from Mr. Green? I realize that one can't have everything, but I'm guessing most long-time fans of the band would make the same trade and ditch those fairly meaningless tunes stuck at the end of this disc.