The Blues Years

In these days when every '60s act this side of Pinkerton's Assorted Colours is getting themselves anthologised in a chocolate box of CDs it would be naive to expect that the original Fleetwood Mac could escape without yet another tribute to their rugby shirt years. This 50-track, three-CD collection brings together anything of any consequence that Peter Green's group did in the way of a 12-bar. It includes the whole of their first two albums, the hit singles Albatross and Man Of The World, the comparative flops Black Magic Woman and Need Your Love So Bad, a few nuggets from Blues Jam At Chess wherein they skirmished with the likes of Willie Dixon and Otis Span; it even has the nerve to appropriate one Chicken Shack track in the shape of Christine McVie's terrific I'd Rather Go Blind from 1969.

It's interesting to reflect just how many blues records the extended Mac family were responsible for putting in the charts in the late '60s and heartening to report how little here has dated. Peter Green's ability to submerge his ego and reluctance to go in for grandstanding when the instrumental break came around is wholly vindicated by material as brooding and adult as Love That Burns (in which he seems to play without touching the strings) and soulful as Need Your Love So Bad, wherein he's the equal of Little Willie John. McVie and Fleetwood's no-nonsense approach to rhythm, learned in ministering to the boozier patrons of the college circuit, is admirably suited to lifting Jeremy Spencer's repertoire of Elmore James impressions above the run-of-the-mill. There are more spectacular relics of the Home Counties' affair with sweet home Chicago but for blues with a feeling this takes some beating. 4 out of 5 stars. (David Hepworth, Q Album Reviews)