Man Of The World
“Every guitar player I talk to adores him”
CHRISTINE McVIE
EVERY three months or so, Bernie Marsden makes a two-hour drive from his home near Oxford, heading south-west. He’ll arrive at his destination – an unremarkable house in a quiet residential street – feeling a little nervous. A short while after he rings the bell, the front door opens. “I go, ‘Hello Pete’,” says Marsden. “Or sometimes I’ll call him Pedro. Then he invites me in and makes me a cup of tea. Mentally, I still pinch myself as I walk through the door.”
As former songwriter and guitarist with UFO, Paice Ashton Lord and Whitesnake, Marsden isn’t normally given to starry-eyedness. But these visits are different. The person he comes to see is Peter Green, his idol as a young guitarist growing up in the late ’60s. The fanboy, it transpires, has never quite left him.
Before too long, Marsden and Green move to the front room with their guitars, where they are joined by Green’s neighbour, Paul. “He makes sure Peter plays every other day,” says Marsden. “I think they go fishing together, too.”
The three of them begin playing – a loose jam between friends, with no agenda. Marsden sets a tape running to record what they do: “Last time around we did ‘Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On’, Little Richard’s ‘Lucille’, ‘The Young Ones’ by The Shadows and The Beatles’ ‘Help!’ Then we’ll start rolling into ‘Oh Well’.”
“Oh Well” is the only concession made to Green’s own legacy. Originally released in 1969, it arrived at the commercial peak of early Fleetwood Mac, the band that Green founded during the British blues boom. As singer and lead guitarist, Green was a formidable figure back then – blessed with a preternatural talent that enabled him to assimilate American blues into his own distinct vision.
“All of us in the band realised that Peter was very gifted,” says Jeremy Spencer, fellow guitarist in the original Fleetwood Mac. “I learned so much from him, especially when it came to less is more.” For Christine McVie, who joined the group just as Green was departing, “Fleetwood Mac were like a bluesy Beatles. Each of them carried an amazing charisma, yet Peter stood out. You could tell that Peter had a talent way beyond most other people. He was the one who created the
