Fleetwood Mac – Black Magic Woman

Guest post by Lucy Donnelly

In the beginning there was nothing. And then the God of Rock said ‘let there be BLUES!’ and so created Peter Green who in turn started Fleetwood Mac. Peter who? Who is he? Fleetwood Mac? Blues? Doesn’t she mean pop? No, this writer is obviously confused. She means to say ‘Stevie Nicks’… right? Wrong! At the risk of beginning to sound like the voiceover from a bad late-night shopping commercial, let us whisk back through the gluggy yolk of Fleetwood Mac’s history until we eventually reach the chicken that began it all.

Yes, the chicken came first (alert the evolutionary scientists!) Although in this case the chicken is in fact more cock-like, once having the balls to tell John-Mayall (who at the time fronted highly regarded British blues band John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers) that he was “London’s greatest blues guitarist, even better than Clapton” until he eventually ended up replacing Eric Clapton in the band. So we have a chicken/rooster with some very puffed up feathers – and talent to support it, luckily. Abandoning that admittedly-overly-drawn-out egg metaphor, Peter Allen Greenbaum aka. ‘The Green God’ as he became known basically took band members John McVie and Mick Fleetwood added in guitarist Jeremy Spencer and bassist Bob Burning and started the band/legend now known as Fleetwood Mac – and do you know any other band named after the rhythm section? I don’t.

Yet the much-lauded founder was only with the band for 2 years and 8 months. Following some Grateful Dead LSD-related drama and heavy bouts of depression, Green kind of… greened out. Classic tale of your standard musical genius, really. LSD, depression, stint as religious extremist/peace warrior who ends up leaving the band after the other members refused to give away their monetary gains to charity. That old chestnut(ter).

But before he went his own way (I apologise for that) and handed over the reigns to Stevie Nicks there were four albums (outselling both The Rolling Stones and The Beatles, mind you) and six singles – one of those being 1968 hit ‘Black Magic Woman’. I don’t care what anybody says. This version is the original and also the best – though commercially Santana’s later cover had it beat. Dark, moody, laid-back, driven by an intense drum beat and some crazy guitar solos which really exemplify Green’s prowess over his Gibson Les Paul… the song is impossibly cool.

B.B. King famously said in reference to Peter Green that, “He has the sweetest tone I ever heard; he was the only one who gave me the cold sweats.” And seriously, this is shiver-down-your-spine blues to be taken generously with a dose of red wine and dim lighting. Lingering on the ends of phrases with that signature vibrato, his timing is both perfect and effortless. Pared-back yet tone-rich, it is one of those numbers that lead me to retrospectively regrettable air guitar solos and hip swaying (thus this writer advises private listening experiences only).

The end of the Peter Green story is brighter. Overcoming schizophrenia, threatening to kill his accountant with a shotgun and hermit-like behaviour (let’s not get into his reported three inch fingernails) Green managed to make a very successful solo career for himself. Did we lose his best years to drugs and mental turbulence? Who bloody knows. But it is evident from this song alone that Green certainly did have The Blues. Mastered.

Fleetwood Mac – Black Magic Woman