Peter Green

A substantial (and official) supplement to the band's recorded legacy with Peter Green, this double CD features 36 songs broadcast between 1967 and 1971, in mostly superlative sound. The title, though, isn't 100 percent accurate; half a dozen tracks were recorded shortly after Green left the band, and since Green is still listed as part of the lineup for all but one of these in the liner notes, Castle Communications either has the dates or personnel wrong…

This is a reasonably comprehensive collection of Peter Green's catalog, with 78 minutes of music at mid-price, drawn from In the Skies, Little Dreamer, Blue Guitar, White Sky and Legend, the first two albums contributing the majority of the best material here. Green's guitar playing is as impressive as ever, and his singing is nothing to ignore, a sweet, gently soulful rasp that recalls his one-time rival Eric Clapton at his best behind the microphone. There's just a bit of fall-off in quality between tracks like "Apostle" and "Little Dreamer," and later stuff like "Last Train From San Antone" when they're heard side by side. And a lot of this doesn't seem as strong today as it did in the late '70s, when Green was one of the last exponents of British blues still working in that genre and getting heard. But the sound is good, and the price is right.

Peter Green tentatively returned to performing and recording in 1996, and The Peter Green Splinter Group is the first fruits of that comeback. The very fact that Green is performing again is encouraging, but the album sadly falls short of high expectations. A collection of blues covers, the record is filled with standards like "Going Down" and "Dark End of the Street," delivered professionally and without much flair. Green himself plays competently, but there are only a handful of times where his playing is unexpected and inspired. That might seem like a disappointment, but it's reassuring to have any flashes of brilliance, and they suggest that he could record a full-fledged return to form if given some time.

Peter Green was discovered by John Mayall and was lead guitarist in the late 60 s Bluesbreakers before leaving to form Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac with Mick Fleetwood and John McVie. After well documented health problems, Green reappeared in the mid 90's, much changed but with his talent and love of the blues still intact, as an integral part of Peter Green Splinter Group.
Originally released in 2001 and only available at concerts or via the band's official website, this was their seventh album. The opening track, "I Believe My Time Ain't Long", is a variation on the Robert Johnson song "Dust My Broom". Green had first recorded the track with Fleetwood Mac in 1967 (variously credited to Elmore James or Jeremy Spencer), and it had been released as the band's first single.

Here is yet another Peter Green collection comprised mainly of material from 1979 through 1983, with the thoroughly enjoyable Fleetwood Mac A-side "Man of the World," from 1969, included for some inexplicable reason. The material here is culled from Green's first return to recording after a six-year hiatus for personal and mental health reasons. The Peter Green who returned to the scene on In the Skies was a leaner and meaner player. His concern was more with the atmospherics of playing blues-inflected material than with the attack of the blues themselves. The opening track from that album, "Slabo Day," with its four-chord repetitive minor-key figure and organic hand percussion, is an anomaly in the Green discography, with the possible exception of "Albatross." Like that track, "Slabo Day" is a showcase for Green's deeply lyrical and mysterious phrasing: taut, open-ended, and razor-sharp…