All language subtitles for Peter Green- Man of the World [MVGroup]2

I love playing, you know.
Love playing.

But, uh, when I think about playing,
and... Uh...

..what it's all about, it's a big
difference, in a way, isn't it?

# Shall I tell you about my life?

# They say I'm a man of the world

# I've flown across every tide

# And I've seen lots of
pretty girls... #

It was an incredibly short run.
And yet we're still talking about
it, nearly 40 years, or so,later.

That's interesting.

# I guess I've got everything I need

# I wouldn't ask for more

# And there's no-one I'd rather be

# I just wish that I had
never been born... #

You can't ignore the name
Peter Green, you know,
and Peter has not given up.

And Peter has not gone away.
And Peter won't go away.

In San Francisco.

But then, I was the first one to
take it. And then I started
preaching it to the others.

And it was with The Grateful Dead.

Falling. You kind of fall,
like faint. You encounter it.

He was always...sensitive.
To the other side.

# And I need a good woman

# To make me feel like
a good man should... #

I was always told it was six.
It was the sixth one that did it.

This is someone
who's in a lot of trouble.

We all dutifully went the same way,
except he didn't fully recover
from that journey.

# I could tell you about my life...
#

I don't blame what happened to
Peter Green on LSD or anything.

It's all about finding that peace
within yourself.

There's quite a large resentment
about these people
that actually did that to him.

# How I don't want to be sad
any more

# And how I wish I was in love. #

I actually interviewed BB King.

He said that the only guitarist
that sent shivers down his spine
was Peter Green.

I think Peter's voice became almost
more important than his guitar
playing, in many ways.

And it was totally...
There was a realness to it.

I like him more for his song writing
than his guitar playing.

His guitar playing's...
He's without question the best
British blues guitarist, ever.

# Need someone's hand

# To lead me through the night

# I need someone's arms

# To hold and squeeze me tight... #

Peter at his prime in the '60s was
without equal. I mean, he was
a force to be reckoned with!

# I'm at an end

# Because I need

# Your love so bad

# I need some lips

# To feel next to mine... #

Old Bethnal Green Road, E2.

And that's where I used to live.
Number 18, there.

When Peter was ten,
my older brother, Lenny,
was having lessons on the guitar.

And he found out later
he was tone-deaf,

so he decided it wasn't for him.

So, he gave the guitar to Peter,
but showed him three chords.
E, A and B7.

After about, I suppose,
six to eight months,

Peter was doing really well.
And I said to my mum,

"Has that little sod got my
record player on up there?"
I could hear it.

And it was him playing.

Peter honed his guitar skills
listening to the
early skiffle bands.

By the time he was 18, he had
already played stints with Peter B's
Looners and Shotgun Express,

But Peter was increasingly
drawn towards the new
burgeoning blues scene.

John Mayall was one of these bands,
of course,

that played ethnic blues and kinda
stuck with it.

Um, and people came in and out
of his band. He always had an eye
for a really good musician.

And particularly a good guitarist.

And his first one, of course,
that everybody knew about,
was Eric Clapton.

On one occasion,
Eric had left the band.

Gosh, this must've been about '64,
I guess.

And his replacement was Peter Green.

Well, he was one of the
many candidates

who put their names forward for the
job of replacing Eric,

when Eric cleared off to Greece
on that abortive effort of
The Glands, or whatever that was.

But Peter was a lot better than any
of the ones I'd been trying out
already and he was very persistent.

So, ultimately,
I gave him a shot at it.

The lead guitarist spot in
The Bluesbreakers

was the most coveted in Britain,
wasn't it?

You know. Any Tom, Dick or Harry can
be in Oasis, as long as you've got
the right haircut.

When John Mayall went for the first
recording session with Peter,

walked into the studio
and I think Mike Vernon,
who was the producer at the time,

noticed that there was
a different amplifier
amongst the set-up in the studio,

and sort of said,
"Whose is that then?"

And we said, "Oh, we've got a new
guitarist. We got rid of Eric."

He said, "Oh, my God, what you
mean, you've got rid of Eric?"

"This one's much better,"
said John Mayall.

"Much better than Eric Clapton?!"

My God! Who have you found that
could possibly be better than that?

So I didn't know Peter Green.
Very affable guy, very quiet,

And I thought, well, he's gonna
have to be pretty damn good

if he's gonna fill Eric's
footsteps.

Well, from the moment that Peter
plugged in and started playing,

I never had any doubts that he was
going to be as good as Eric,

within the Bluesbreaker framework,
but different.

And I think that was the secret,
that was the secret.
And I think John already knew.

He could play all the licks, do all
the things that Eric could do,

but he wasn't going to do them.
He was going to do them his way.

I think Peter had a hard time
convincing the audience
of his integrity and his power,

because people were all dead set on
hearing Eric with the band,
you know.

Around this time,
Eric had become a god,

along with the graffiti on the
walls, you know, "Eric is God."

"We want God! We want God!"

I seem to recall going up at one
stage and, "Get off, big nose!"
I can even recall!

Poor Peter suffered
a bit of this abuse, but gradually,
I think he won them over.

Because it was pretty obvious
that he was a great guitarist.

People took to Peter,

after a few, "Where's Eric?"
Or whatever.

"Eric's God!" It wasn't too long
after that it was The Green God.

That did lead to doing
the Hard Road album.

By that time Ainsley Dunbar
was the drummer.

And McVie was still the bass player,
so it was a very powerful unit.

The very first time I ever met Peter
was in the studio when we did
the Hard Road album.

I certainly don't remember ever
having met him prior to that.

My memories are
he had a little joke here and there,
you could see he had a character.

But the thing that mattered the most
was the way he played.

The Supernatural was something Peter
got together on his own.

And we just stood by and just
accompanied him on that one.

But the way of recording back then
was only on four tracks.

So there was a lot of layers
that he put on it, you know,

where he'd over-dubbed different
octaves of the same tune
and built up a very haunting piece.

Not only did he make the very best
of it as a guitar player,

but he also showed, unlike Eric,
who was very quiet and very subdued
about his ability as a singer.

Peter had no doubt whatsoever.

# You don't love me, baby

# And you don't love me
Yes, I know... #

Peter enjoyed playing with
John McVie,

but John Mayall thought drummer,
Ainsley Dunbar, was getting
far too technical.

Peter seemed to have a hand
in recruiting Mick Fleetwood,
his old drummer from the Looners.

I joined John Mayall
only for a very short time.

John McVie, Mick Fleetwood and the
bottle was not a good combination.

Well, Ainsley said to John Mayall,
on the last day
he was working with us,

he came up and said,
"Any money about, John?"

And John said, "I've got some bad
news for you actually, Ainsley."

And Mick Fleetwood's standing there,
and I thought, "I bet he thinks that
I got him to..."

But I didn't, I was leaving.

I knew that, you know, my tenure
was going to be fairly short-lived.

So I had this gig manifold thing,

I'm in the back there, I said,
"John," it was Leicester or wherever
it was, Nottingham Boat Club.

I said, "Probably by then I'll
probably be fired, right?"

And it wasn't too
far from the truth.

With the new Bluesbreakers line-up
of Green, Fleetwood and McVie,

John Mayall gave
Peter an unusual birthday present.

For Peter's birthday I bought them
some studio time, so they could have
a go at making a single,

with Mike Vernon's blessing.

And they did go into the studio
without me and they put together a
few songs.

We actually recorded
the Bluesbreakers as a trio,
at the Decca Studios,

which gave Peter the opportunity
to really, kinda, do things
that he wasn't able to do

within the Bluesbreakers format with
John actually playing and singing.

Off we went and Peter recorded a
song, an instrumental.

And Gus, or whoever else was in
there said,

"What do you want to call this?
Just while we're doing it?"

He said, "Well, let's call this
Fleetwood Mac.

"Cos Mick and John are here."

Peter did say to me at one point,
"I'm thinking seriously about
leaving The Bluesbreakers.

"Cos I really wanna
form my own band."

That whole vibe of Fleetwood Mac,

it came out of those sessions.

But Peter was very, very generous,
and absolutely did not want to be
the main dude.

Peter said to me,
"Look. If I form this band,

"I would like you to produce the
records, but I'm a bit worried about
signing a deal withDecca

"because they have
Mayall's Bluesbreakers.

"It would be very unkind of me to do
that, especially if our band became
very, very successful."

So, I took it to CBS.
They just flipped. They flipped.

And said, "We'll sign the band."
There was no discussion,
"We'll sign the band."

So we actually went back into the
studio and recorded other material,

which John McVie was not
involved in, Bob Brunning became
the bass player,

and Jeremy Spencer was added,
somebody that
I had demoed for Decca,

when he was part of,
I believe the band was called
the Levi Set Blues Group.

There had been an ad in
The Melody Maker,

written by Mike Vernon.

If anybody knows of local talent,
blues players.

Cos he will arrange a meeting,
audition, come and hear you.

And he's just like,
"Yeah, we should do something. I'm
gonna tell Peter Green about you."

Mike Vernon got
Jeremy Spencer from...

I went to see him in
Litchfield, North of England.

Well, actually, when I first met
him, you know, he's sitting there
with people around him.

He goes, "Jeremy Spencer?" "Yeah.
Peter Green?" He goes, "Yeah.

"What's up, man?"
And we shake hands.

I said, "Hi. Do you ever listen
to Elmore James?"

"Oh, all the time. Do you ever
listen to BB King?" And I said,
"Oh, yeah." "OK, all right."

That was our only exchange,
you know.

I said, "You wanna give it a go,
let's give it a go." Two lead
guitarists, you know. Two vocalists.

I said, "Well, you're asking me...
You want me to join the band?"

He said, "Look. You're the first
guitarist that's made me smile
since Jimi Hendrix."

He said, "When you start playing,
I got a smile."

And then it was like,
OK, let's do this.

And we wanted John to join the band,

John wouldn't, because
he wasn't sure whether the money
was gonna be there.

But Peter called it Fleetwood Mac,
because he knew damn well
that John would come.

So when I met Pete later,
I said, "Why you wanna call it
Fleetwood Mac?"

He said, "Look, we'll have a band,

"but I'll leave the band,

"you'll leave the band."

We hadn't even started yet
and he's talking about leaving.

He said, "You're gonna form another
band, your own band. I'm gonna form
another band.

"They're my friends,
what are they gonna have? I'm gonna
leave 'em with a name."

I didn't really
take much notice of it.

But in retrospect, it's like, boy.

He knew even then, you know.

Maybe he did, you know.

I just thought he did it cos we just
happened to be sitting there.
He couldn't think of anything else.

That's a perfect example of his lack
of self,

when we actually formed
Fleetwood Mac, he chose that name.

And, believe me, anyone and everyone
around us said, "It's gotta be
Peter Green, cos you're the dude."

And he said,
"No. I wanna be in a band."

Fleetwood Mac's just a good name.

It's strange how those
things happen, isn't it?

When you've got a band called
Fleetwood Mac

and you haven't got anyone called
Mac in it to start with.

And Peter was furious,
cos the first album actually was
called Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac.

And that was all completely done
against his will.

And I understand why they did it,
cos it's like, "Hey, we wanna get
as much traction as we can."

But Peter never really wanted that
at all. And, of course, that was it.

After that it was just
Fleetwood Mac.

# Shake your money maker
Shake your money maker

# You gotta shake your money maker
Shake your money maker

# You gotta shake your money maker
And then... #

Well, none of us knew
anything at all, really.

To any great extent, what we had
on tape, captured exactly,

where we were at that
particular point, at the beginning.

It was really plug in and play.

That was the band
that was to walk on stage.

There was an awful lot
of pressure on everybody
to get a record out fast,

because the buzz around
Fleetwood Mac in those early days
was quite phenomenal.

Everybody wanted to go and see them.
Everybody wanted to interview Peter.

Everybody said,
"When's the record coming out?
Come on, get on with it!"

One of the tracks from the album

was in fact the first single
Fleetwood Mac ever had.

And it was Jeremy's
My Heart Beat Like A Hammer.

# I woke up one morning

# Waking with the rising sun

# I woke up one morning

# Waking with the rising sun

# Thought about my baby

# That I would do
what she'd done... #

I kind of had my idea
of how it would sound,

and when I went into the studio
to listen to the playback,

the first time I'd
really heard myself back...
"Doesn't sound like Elmore enough!"

I said, "Can't we put
some reverb on the voice?"

Pete said, "No, no, no. Voice dry,
coming through like that, flat.

"That's how it's supposed to sound."

It was in the Top 20,
or maybe more, for a year.

I knew. I knew they were gonna be
a huge band. I can't explain it,
it's just something you know.

Fleetwood Mac was really
straight into the deep end.

And then it expanded out of that.
And proportionally went
into an area that...

We had no idea.

And no doubt having a front man such
as Peter was a major part of that.

Gradually,
we did begin to see changes.

Obviously, the most immediate change
was with Black Magic Woman,

which had an interesting theme
and had a really nice feel to it.

A nice rhythmical feel to it.
And a pretty catchy little melody.

# I've got a black magic woman

# Yes I've got a black magic woman

# Got me so blind I can't see... #

When I was a kid,
things I was afraid of,
I used to try to overcome...

I remember once, they showed
a play on television.

With the title, Black Magic,
whatever it was,

there was a whole group of, like,
skulls and things you would have.

It was so frightening.

I forget now about it,
because I kind of dispelled it with
the Black Magic Woman.

I kind of dispelled my fear of it.

There's no doubt that
some of the famous songs,
such as Black Magic Woman,

I'm sure had some direct influences

from things that were
attached to Peter, musically.

My girlfriend who stayed with me
when I lived in a flat

in the same block as
John Mayall had a flat in,

she was the black magic woman,
I guess. I had to call her
something.

She could've been magic something,
I had to call her...

I was sitting on my own one day,
and I thought maybe I should
call her something.

The words don't really mean
all that much at all.

Only, sort of, things that were to
do with the girl, dedicated to the
girl. Things she used to say.

"Don't turn your back on me."
Sometimes we used to climb in bed at
night, I would...

If I faced the other way she would,
sort of, pretend she didn't want me
to do that, you know.

She would say it in a, sort of,
sobby sort of way. Soft sort of way.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic,

a young Carlos Santana
would pick up on Black Magic Woman,

adding his own unique spin,

and turning it into
a multi-million selling classic.

He started hearing about our band.

And especially when we covered
Black Magic Woman.

And we took it to another level

that, to this day, people still
feel that it's our song.

With all respect to him.

But then, he understood that he
also needed to expand Fleetwood Mac.

He had this picture on himself,
I think it was me,
he called it Mr Wonderful.

When we did the second album,
Mr Wonderful,

much more time was spent.

Although it still probably only
actually works out to be about five
working days in the studio.

I was a bit more Freddie King in
this one. Trying to play like that.

But I listen to what I did on this,
my stuff,

and once again I can't...

..say that I'm doing anything which
is like what I'm trying to cover.

It's OK,
if you don't care about that.

Yeah, there were times in the studio
where Peter seemed to go into
a reflective state.

You know, where he would drift.
He'd look slightly at the ceiling,
or he'd look at somethingelse,

and you could see he was thinking
and the cogs were turning.

And you'd wonder, was he thinking,
"Should I do it again?

"Should I listen
to what Mike's telling me,

"or should I just ignore him
and do what I should need to do?"
Or...you know.

And then suddenly he'd snap out of
it. And he'd make some off-the-cuff,
comical remark,

and it was Peter again.

And, of course, Christine was
playing piano on this stuff.

She couldn't see anybody,
nobody could see her,

it was a nightmare, you know.

Peter knew how he wanted it to be,
and quite often would stop if he
didn't think it was right.

I drew a picture of me in here.
I don't know how I got
that good-looking.

I'm not as good-looking as that.

But it's a terrific picture of me
with a terrific smile.

The band's fame began to grow
as their first album
made the UK Top Ten.

But their notoriety was growing
for a completely different reason.

All of us, including Jeremy,

who was probably our prime
cheerleader, were incredibly rude.

And there were those moments
when I'd be filling up condoms
on the end of Jeremy's guitar.

And, yes, we had a condom
filled with milk, and it was tied
on the end of my guitar.

Hanging like that.

And, you know, as I'm playing...

Walked out with it on there.
Course it brings the house down.

Probably in Germany or Holland,
in the red light district
of some such place,

we found this huge dildo
which we called Harold.

Harold was... He appeared quite
regularly. He was a stand-up guy.

And Harold was brought on the middle
of a tray, usually, by Hugh Price,
our road manager,

with beer and a few drinks
around Harold.

And Harold would come off the tray,

and it would reside where he would
undulate on my bass drum for the
rest of the show.

Harold, we used to call it.

I think we got banned
from the Marquee for that.

One night I went into the toilet,
and found two lavatory chains
with balls on them,

wrapped them round my lower section,

and that was it.

And those balls, sadly - although
they lasted a long, long time -

the original originals went
by the wayside at some point.

But I have a set of balls
that are right... No, uh...

I will never play a Fleetwood Mac
gig without wearing them.

The band was just doing, basically,
anything it wanted to do.

And getting away with it.

It got pretty raunchy there for
quite a while. Especially at the
Marquee.

But it was a bit early days,
I think, for that kind of
exhibitionism.

And certainly in the blues world.
I mean, God, if someone
like BB King had witnessed it,

heaven knows what
he would've thought!

It was like an antidote
to getting just too damn serious.

If you had ever been at
any of those early gigs,

and witnessed, you know, 600 plus
people, you know, "Oh!"

Like this, it was the most
phenomenal thing to see.

Then you realised that to be selling
as many records as they were they
had to appeal to a wideaudience,

who didn't know who the hell Elmore
James was, who Hound Dog Taylor was,
or BB King. And didn't care.

They just knew
who Fleetwood Mac was.

# Well now look for me, baby

# Cos you know I'm coming home

# Well now look for me, baby

# Cos you know I'm coming home

# Well, I may not love you, darling

# But you know you done
me wrong... #

Our first tour in
America was all about,

"Oh, my God, we're going to
where "it" all came from," you know.

And, we were very excited, sort of,
literally quite frightened,

I remember we wouldn't dare go out
on the street in New York,
and stuff like that.

We thought we were all gonna
get stabbed and mugged,
which was maybe half true.

And I say San Francisco,
more than anywhere else,
because it was in The Day.

You know, it was just after the wane
of Haight-Ashbury.

The first tour, we did some dates at
The Shrine. We did some dates
in New York and San Francisco.

And there weren't
many dates on the tour.

It was just a, sort of,
put-your-toe-in-the-water-type tour,
was the truth.

At that time, Blue Horizon in the
States was run by a chap called
Seymour Stein,

and I'd been to see
Seymour in New York...

And he just wouldn't
give us any money.

We sat around several times
for three weeks, living on
Dunkin' Donuts and stuff,

and realising that, uh...you know...

..we had to cut the expenses down,
so all the road crew would
be all in one room.

We weren't famous.
We weren't anywhere near famous.

We were just struggling again
to be noticed.

Promoters couldn't believe it,
that you'd go on and play
a two and a half hour set,

and then say, "We'll play the next
one for you, too, if you want.

"And for no money, or whatever.
Seriously!"

We would be in
hotel rooms afterwards,
playing in every major city,

and of course you get the...young
kids coming back there,

and the smoke would be filling the
room, and towels on the door...

And...you'd hear all the stories.

And the whole
political atmosphere...

The Nixon...stuff, and all that.

So it was a bit of an eye-opener.

Especially coming from England which
none of that...

The hippy thing for England was
Carnaby Street and Chelsea,
and, you know...

How you layered your hair.

The Real Deal was there, I think.

Bill Graham was starting
to do his magic,

and you'd have these incredible
line-ups where you'd get, like,

Buddy Guy, Country Joe And The Fish,

Tina Turner, Ike and Tina Turner
and Fleetwood Mac.

I have a memory of Grateful Dead,

with, uh, Jerry Garcia,

had heard about Peter.

People had heard about Fleetwood
Mac, but they'd heard about this
guy - Peter.

Especially players.

And they met us at the airport.
And we didn't have a clue
who they were, you know.

Of course, in San Francisco
they're like God.

From the Grateful Dead
we got complete freedom.

They were lovers
of complete freedom.

And I used to just play freely
on stage with them,

with the boys sometimes.

We just used to do that.
Play anything you wanna do.

Grateful Dead's soundman became
very famous, his name was Owsley,

known to many as The Bear.

And, it was in the day when him and
his wife were trained...

Or, his wife was a trained chemist.

And it was not illegal.

And they made their
fame and fortune,

and the fortune was making
lysergic acid - LSD.

And he was just sat there

in the back of the dressing room
of the Shrine,

uh, preaching acid.

And he said, "Look, Peter Fonda,

"look at the Beatles,
I got the Beatles turned on,

"I got Jimi turned on.

"I got all these guys, and look what
happened to their music.

"If you guys want to develop..."

Cos we were just doing blues,
the four of us.

It was just straight blues.
No experimental thing at all.

"You gotta do it."

They all said, "Well, you gotta
take some acid," you know.

And of course, "Oh, we're not taking
that stuff, give us a pint of beer."

I was dead set against it.

I said, "I don't think this is
right," you know.

I was a real straight, in some ways.

But then I was the first one to take
it.

And then I started preaching it
to the others.

The Beatles, they...did, uh,
Sergeant Pepper,

a fairly big advertisement for it,
wasn't it?

And, um... Jerry Garcia,
well, the Grateful Dead,

they used to give their audience
along the front LSD.

And eventually, of course,
we succumbed,

and that was the beginning of a
whole other, sort of, drug chapter
that, uh...

That affected us.

Stanley, yeah...

Yeah, he gave me a little sip
of a drink and I took that.
I guess it was laced.

I kinda knew it was.

So, I did take it, but, um...

And he said I had
a little smile on my face,

but...
I went with this girl...

We went back to her house,
I stayed with her.

It wasn't like it would usually be,
with a girl.

If I hadn't taken the LSD.
Well, it was like, sort of, church.

A church incident.

But it was good. Yeah, I guess.

Oh, we had some. Me and Mick.
And Jeremy, actually.

And our mate, Owsley, gave us some,
and we went out to, uh...

Muir Beach.

But I didn't talk to God.

I just felt a bit strange.

And we were playing at
the Warehouse, in New Orleans,

and Owsley had spiked
the public cooler.

I remember standing
in the audience going,
"Oh, wow, this is...something."

And Owsley recorded everything.
Had some of those recordings...

Pretty interesting.
Some of it's pretty cool.

Sometimes the vibes were
just...too much! In the music.

And what was coming off, when you're
under that influence and you see
that stuff coming at you,

I thought, "What am I gonna do?
Dive in there with it? Or leave?
Or..."

So I decided, oftentimes, to just
pull out. And go sit somewhere else.

We played at the Fillmore,
with the Grateful Dead,

jammed with them, for sure,
all on acid, as probably
half the audience was.

We went back to the Gorham Hotel,

my recollection is,

and we were really,
"Ddjjjooo, haaaaaa!"

They were so freaked out by it,

they were supposed to go back to the
Grateful Dead's place,

to their hotel, for a party,
and they didn't go.

Because they felt really nervous,
and went back to their own hotel to
hold hands, or whatever.

And, we were all getting frightened,

we phoned Owsley, and said,
"You gotta come to the hotel,
and you gotta talk each of us down,

"on the phone and tell us that
everything is OK."

And we sat round on the floor,

and, John may have departed to his
room, but I can tell you,

we sat round and I, personally,
saw every band member as a skeleton.

And I was absolutely petrified.

By the time they did become
successful in America,

not only had they changed their
musical format, to a degree,

but of course, had also changed
personnel as well.

In as much as they'd added
Danny Kirwan, which was at the
end of the Blue Horizon period.

# She's got so much blues

# Her best friend can't help her

# Her best friend's a woman

# How can a woman help her?

# Woman's got the blues... #

Prior to doing the second album,

I was managing a little guy
from Brixton,

called Danny Kirwan, and he had a
little band called Boilerhouse.

And Peter and him
were quite friendly,

one day he came in and said to me,
"I'd like Danny to join the band."

And Peter said, "I'd like you
to be in Fleetwood Mac."

I think at that point,
Peter was starting to think

that Jeremy almost had
no intention of doing anything else
other than Elmore James,

you know, and doing his thing.

And so Danny Kirwan was
brought in as another injection
of new material.

He was the second harmony guitar.
It was a harmony guitar thing.

Sleepwalk Santo And Johnny is the
nearest you can pin it down to.

Apparently they'd,
sort of, jammed together,
and it gave Pete more freedom.

And I know that Pete wanted that
backing like Hubert Sumlin,

so I would shy away from playing any
riff behind him, and he needed that,
so he could take off a bit more.

So, El couldn't fill the shoes.

I think that Peter wanted the
support of Danny's intuitive style,

his creativity
of playing rhythm parts,

they were able to interchange.

And, it's the only time,
in my memory, anyway,

that I've seen a band with three
guitar players where it worked.

And they would say, "Jeremy's acting
like he don't give a shit."

And it's true.

And there was no doubt they were
getting this inspiration together,
him and Danny, working on new stuff.

And Danny was a bull in a china
shop.

He was going for it, like this.

Peter began to look outside
the blues

for more diverse musical influences
that produced a completely
unexpected hit.

Once the blues boom started
to just fade,

was around about the same time
that Peter's level of creativity
moved into another gear.

He started thinking and moving to
make more out of the blues feeling.

And I use that purposefully -
the blues feeling.

Without it necessarily having to be
a 12 bar format, or it had to have

the same standard changes
acceptable within a blues format.

I think he felt slightly
chained by that.

There were things he felt,
"I can do, I can create something
new, that's not been done yet."

And I suppose, really, the first
evidence of that was in Albatross.

How did I come to write it?

Copying Eric Clapton.

I would've been watching
Eric Clapton.

He might've wrote it, I don't
know! He might tell me one day.

"Stop saying you wrote my song."

My biggest concern, over all the
concerns I may have had,

was is this record
going to be a single?

Can this actually be a single? Will
anybody be able to get it played?

Because it was so different from
anything that had gone before it.

CBS were very
reluctant to release it.

And I got a little note
from my secretary to say,

I don't know if Mike knows this,
but I got a note from CBS to say

that unless we could
come up with major television,
they were gonna pull the single.

They'd put two singles out and
nothing had happened.

One of the producers of a
national Saturday night programme

had loved Need Your Love So Bad,

and I remembered this, so I sent him
over a copy of Albatross,

and I said, "Look, you're gonna
love this. Believe me, you'll love
it."

And he did love it.
And he rung me up and he said,

"Clifford, are the band free
on Saturday?"

I said, "The band are free on
Saturday. I'll make them free."

So they went over and
they did The Simon Dee Show,
which was primetime at that time.

I rang CBS, and the rest's history.

The show went out
and the record just went wild.

And the following day, CBS had
orders for 60,000 copies of it.

And nobody could believe it. I said,
"It's gotta be a joke. It's 600,
surely?" "No, it's 60,000.

"We'd better press a few more."

And from then onwards the sales
were, like, 60, 80, 90,000,
in no time at all it sold a million.

It was quite extraordinary.

We arrived back from the United
States, I believe on our first tour,

I think,

to a number one record, met at the
airport by a bunch of photographers,

and we were number one.

Everything changed.

"Number one, lads,
can't wait to see my brother."

It was always about the charts,
you would never get to number one,

every time I wrote a song,
someone steals it, you know.

And I listened to Albatross,
and I'm being honest with you here,

and I thought to myself,
"What on earth is that?"

It just sounded like a lot of,
you know, jumble.

And I thought,
"Well, that's nothing.

"That'll be the last I hear
of that."

The next week, following week,
it was top of the Hit Parade.

I'm playing bass on this,
there's two basses on this.

One John and one me.
I checked one of them.

I'm going like that -

And is it a slide guitar
you're playing here?

No. That is. Me playing the
Stratocaster, flat on my lap.

Are you doing it lap-style? Yeah.

All the double tracking and all
those, sort of, over-dubbed ideas
pretty much were Peter's ideas.

I don't remember putting
that much into how it was spaced
and where it was positioned

within the actual frame
of the picture, sonically.

Yes, I would have had,
of course, a major input on that,

but the actual idea of doing it
was very much Peter's.

It wasn't really called Albatross,
it wasn't really called anything.

But you gotta call it something, so
it ended up being called Albatross

which is part from Blind Faith.

A little girl says, "I ride
on the back of a giant albatross."

And the other part of it was
The Ancient Mariner, the poem.

One, at the time he was reading
The Ancient Mariner.

And secondly, he was a great fan

of the classical composer
Vaughan Williams.

And he put those two together,
and Albatross emerged.

It was obviously Peter's tribute
to Santo And Johnny,

which is strangely ironic
that we're sitting in Hawaii.

But right here.
That's where that came from.

And of course, that whole thing of
slide playing and that beautiful...

The albatross,
it's Santo and Johnny, it's this.

And you can't get
away from the fact that it's got
echoes of the blues in it.

It's quite painful.

It's quite,
I mean, beautifully painful.

It was a conversation. It was, like,
here, and this ghost...

Question, answers, and so simple.

You know, it was about as simple as
it can get.

Dum-de-dum, like that.
But beautiful.

It must be very weird
for people who didn't know the band
before Albatross,

to buy Albatross and then
go and see this bunch...

..playing anything BUT Albatross.

And in the middle of all this blues,
rock 'n' roll, there's Albatross.

Which, of course, all of his fans,
the die-hard blues fans,

they said,
"Well, it's not a blues record!"

Well, so what? The blues feeling
within the record is undeniable.

It sold over a million records.
How wrong can you be?

It came out again a second time,
I think three years later,

and went to number two, and only
sold 940,000, the second time.

I mean, come on, you know.

So, he really shut everybody up.
And from that moment onwards,
nobody really questioned it.

We had no idea it was
gonna be a number one single.

And it was also our journey into
having to handle being pop stars.

You know, with happily something
that was totally unique.

It was an instrumental,
for Christ's sake!

Yeah, once you've got a number one
hit, especially if you're a writer.

I was the main writer of Albatross,
if not the only writer, arranger.

So, I felt quite an achievement,
you know.

Quite an achievement.

With the unexpected success
of Albatross,

the band reached new levels
of stardom.

But Peter was clearly uncomfortable
with the fame and fortune
it brought.

He expressed his growing
feeling of discontent

in the lyric of his next single.

Man Of The World
was the first cry for help
that we heard from Peter Green.

You listen to that lyric,
you can hear that the pressure
is beginning to get to him.

That the, um...

The intensity of the music business
circus is beginning to hit him.

I read somewhere that to play the
blues, you have to have the blues.

Right?

Not that I'm an expert on that,
in any way.

But that really stuck with me.

You never think of
Jimmy Page having the blues,
or Eric Clapton having the blues,

but Peter Green did, you know what I
mean? He was a troubled soul.

"There's no-one I'd rather be,

"than myself,
but I wish I'd never been born."

That's... That's a pretty...

That's almost like a suicide note.

And...

Unless you're, you know,
"It's just a song."

But he really was...plagued.

# I guess I've got everything I need

# I wouldn't ask for more

# And there's no-one I'd rather be

# But I just wish
that I had never been born... #

In terms of noticing anything with
Peter's emotional or mental health,

absolutely not, my God.
I mean, if we had...

I wished that I'd had the chops to
recognise something like that.

And if you listened to
Man Of The World,

you may very well have said this is
someone who's in a lot of trouble.

You know, and
is incredibly sad, and...

Uh... No, we did not.

And I have some
personal regrets that,

although we were
all in the same boat,
and he was our big white leader,

we all dutifully went the same way,
except he didn't fully recover
from that journey.

You have this romantic notion of
him, that he always wanted to be
somewhere else, you know.

I think the lyrics to Man Of The
World probably say it all about him.

# And I need a good woman

# To make me feel like
a good man should

# I don't say I'm a good man

# Oh, but I would be if I could... #

That was the last time
I actually worked with the band,
with Man Of The World.

The departure of Fleetwood Mac
and the way in which they moved
from Blue Horizon elsewhere

was something that neither my
brother or I could see coming.

The pie was Warner.

Reprise. Who had...billions
to throw around. You know.

And that was basically what it was.
Which, I guess,
Mike Vernon didn't have.

I think we were staring as a band
to feel the potential,

certainly in the writing circles,
and majorly with Peter,
at that point,

that something was going to be afoot

and we need to not just be
banging out 12 bars
for the rest of our days.

# Better love me, baby

# Love me all the time

# Better love me, baby

# Let me know you're mine

# Don't care what you say

# You're going to like it this way

# Give me all your love

# Because I know you need

# Give me all your love

# Because I know you need

# A little bit of that holdin'

# A little bit of that squeeze... #

That audience that we'd had set up,
ended up coming, thankfully,
coming with us.

Now, with the financial backing
of their label, Reprise,

and the writing input
of Danny Kirwan,

Peter felt free to be
more experimental.

The band were moving
in a new direction.

They entered into the studio
to record their third album -
Then Play On.

Well, I think when Peter...

Strictly speaking, his last
calling-card

was Then Play On,
and it's very clear where he was
going, he was experimenting.

Peter basically handed that whole
first album, in many ways,
to Jeremy Spencer.

I mean, think about it.

You know, here's the Green God
and he was to do that later

with Danny Kirwan with Then Play On.

He said, "Look, we're gonna do an
album," Then Play On, "Do you have
anything, you know, new?

"And not more Elmore."

And I said, "If it is anything it'll
be old rock 'n' roll, or...

"I don't have any new...thing."
I just wasn't...

And it's not something
you strain at,

trying to - oh, I'm gonna get
inspired, I'm gonna come up with an
artistically progressivething.

I didn't have anything. And if you
don't have it, you don't have it.

I think it was an incredibly
important album for Fleetwood Mac

in terms of at least...showing what
the potential...could have been.

At one point I think he wanted
the band to do a bit more jamming -

and be a bit more adventurous.

I think he felt that at one point.

It was a great band, you know,
and it was powerful and...

..believable and all of those
ingredients were there.

# Baby, if you've got to rock

# I've got to be your rocking horse

# Ever think you'd like to roll?

# So maybe you'd dig it more. #

Oh, I loved it.

It was all just getting better and
better.

# Oh-oh-oh

# When it's time to crash

# When I get home at night

# I guess I've got
to shake myself. #

He was taking his journey

and...Then Play On really speaks
to some of the experiments.

It was about as far as he could go -
he was starting to play parts,

and say, "John, give me the bass,
I'll do it."

Er...and doing some drum parts, and
stuff like that.

And then, "You try this, Mick."

That was his first thing of his
version of sort of

the Brian Wilson side of
Peter Green, coming out

with this musical conductor of
seeing and hearing parts,

not just playing...with a guitar
and delivering a song.

With the band's fame
and fortune growing, Peter began
to explore his spirituality.

During a drug-fuelled experience,
he came up with alternative ideas
to share their new-found wealth.

He had a conscience, I think,
quite early on -

social or otherwise -
about the huge amounts of money

that appeared to be able to be
earned by someone like himself

in comparison to what he felt
it was actually worth.

I was on a bit of mescaline at
the time, I was taking the tablets.
A piece of mescaline.

I was doing great -
I was feeling wonderful.

Very pure thoughts were coming
which I used to think I used
to think as a younger person.

So it was in line with my...

my sort of love of thinking.

He was supposed to have had some
kind of vision

about a starving child in his arms.

At the time I was watching Biafra
on the television

and er...a famine in Biafra.

There were people starving to death
there and um...

I was thinking, "Why does it
always seem to be white powder?

"You see the women doing this
and all they have is white powder.

"So what is that supposed to be?

"Why can't we give them sandwiches?

"Something simple like
cheese and tomato sandwiches?

"Why can't we give them cold...?
Surely it would be nourishment."

And in my vision -
I had taken this stuff -

I was listening to Santana's first
album and it's got a very heavy bass
on there.

A very heavy African-style bass.

In this dream I asked a boy,
one of the boys,

if he wanted a sandwich,
if he would take it.

And he did but I didn't think
he was going to.

And, um, he did take it and I seemed

to cross...a colour, a sort
of barrier, cross a barrier,

and it was...
it was well worth doing.

So I got in touch with War On Want
and they sent me all this stuff.

And Pete and I watched it and
he said, "This is all very good.

"But it's not what I want.
I want to be able

"to actually give the food to these
people.

"I don't want it to go through
chains of other people."

And I said, "OK, that's fine."
That was how it was left.

It was just Peter Green and of
course the next I hear,

he's trying to persuade - remember,
I told you he's a great salesman -

he is then trying to sort of coerce
the rest of the band into it.

He dropped it on us when we were
smoking dope in the hotel room.

I'd seem to remember it coming
in Munich.

No, it was before that.
It was in the States.

Yes, it was. Jeremy's right,
it was in the States. In a hotel.

It absolutely was!
And you talked me out of it. I did.

You were really into it.
He was going. I was going to do it.

You might have... You just kept
coming down and down...

At one point you said, "Wow,
the idea makes me feel quite free."

Which is actually... You said that.

I sort of got swept along
with Peter's...

..strength, if you like,
of that belief.

He'd been reading
this book, Candy's Truth.

So it all kind of meshed together,

and yeah, we were making big money.

He wanted us to just throw it all
and just buy a house together

and just play and...

And I said, "OK, I'm willing to try
it."

He said, "Oh, good."

Any money we've got from this month,
for instance,

we could give to charity,
to starvation.

But we really... It weren't serious
to the rest of us.

The reality of it - we were talking
about it actually stoned.

Then really,
how are we going to go about this?

KEITH ALTHAM:
Most young people are idealistic
and want to change the status quo.

Then of course, when they become
hugely rich and successful,

they become the very people that
they were warning against

and don't want to give anything up.

Well, Peter didn't want to be a part
of that, I don't think.

He wanted to get out from under it
before he became a part

of the same kind of material
orthodoxy

that he was rebelling against.

# I can't help
about the shape I'm in

# I can't sing, I ain't pretty
and my legs are thin

# But don't ask me
what I think of you

# I might not give the answer
that you want me to

# Oh, well. #

On Granada TV in Manchester,
they had these things on at 2am -

Five Minute Profile - of artists
like Bowie and T-Rex and all that.

We used to stay up
and I'd get stoned.

I remember there was one on
Fleetwood Mac but right at the
beginning of the five minutes -

this may be a 30 second thing -

that Fleetwood Mac was born out of
the ashes

of Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac.

And they showed some footage of them
playing Oh Well.

And I remember the guitar and just
thinking,

"Fucking hell, that's amazing!"

Cos the first one is not necessary.
It did almost get to number one.

But the first one, part one...

Part two is the only real offering.

On compilation records,
I wouldn't put part one on.

I call it packing to get to...

To know how to present that
second one, to start it off maybe.

# He said, stick by my side
and I'll be your guiding hand... #

This is the Jesus thing.

# But don't ask me
what I think of you... #

Cos he says we all fall short
of the glory of God.

That's on the pamphlets
they hand out.

We all sin and we all fall short
of the glory of God.

That's what that bit means.
That's quite good, quite clever.

It's nice to revisit yourself.

To promote their third album, they
embarked on a major European tour.

When they reached Munich, Peter
was greeted by some unexpected fans.

Certainly,
John McVie would fully blame...

..an event in Germany
where Peter took some more drugs

and for sure never really came back
from that, to our recollection.

And John is, to this day, absolutely
furious with these people.

We call them the German jet set.

And they captured Peter completely
and pulled him away.

We got up to Munich airport and all
of a sudden, these people showed up.
I don't know if it was two or three.

But I remember the two of them -
specifically a very beautiful girl -

I mean like model, actress-looking,
dressed in this black velvet.

Whoa! And this guy next to her...
and he looked like John Lennon.

He had these wire-rimmed glasses
and a cape.

And they met Pete right there.

It looked like it had been arranged
somehow.

And it was kind of unspoken -
I thought,

"Maybe Mick and them know something
about these people."

They didn't acknowledge any of
the rest of us.

They were very rude.

The reality was that Peter was
already set to leave Fleetwood Mac.

Pretty much...

But my God, this was like the final
nail in the coffin,

which of course,
we related to...as a band.

So, they came to the gig.

It was like they looked
at the rest of the band in disdain.

I don't know if it was musically -
they didn't think we were quite
in the zone enough or whatever.

They were very intellectual types.

There was a party we were
invited to.

This big, HUGE mansion place
in the forest.

We went out to this mansion...

..pseudo, you know,
big old weird house.

So we're driving into there
and finally we come to this place.

And...it was a hippy commune
sort of thing.

Um, with weird stuff going on
in all the rooms.

That girl was there...

There were psychedelic painted
walls. But a rich, rich place.

There was definitely some money
flying around.

They were like
German aristocracy-ish.

We arrived and I got out of the van.

Dennis Keane comes walking up to me
shaking in his boots.

He was stoned too.

He goes, "It's so weird down there.
Don't go down there, Jeremy.

"Don't go down there.
Pete is weirding out big time.

"The vibes are just horrible."

I didn't realise what was going on

until I talked to someone
and didn't realise they were German.

And I was on this trip and I didn't
understand what was going on.

Then I see Pete in the studio
playing his guitar with all these...

It was like mayhem.

Pete was laughing and
he thought it was great.

And Dennis Keane -

I have some recollection of him
somewhat trying

to be the responsible
road manager guy.

He was like,
"Come on, it's time to go."

But in truth,
it started getting to us as well.

And then as, like anything else,
it wears off

and if you wear off with it,
then you know what's going on -

you're aware of it.
And, immediately, I said,

"Well, we've got to get out
of here."

He was practically in tears.

I tried to, kind of...
you know, reassure him -

"Look, you know...

"God is in control..."
You know.

I did my best, you know,
but it was really weird

and the music coming up from below,
down there was, it was bad news.

I really can't play
with no-one listening.

Or enjoying myself or whatever it
was, I got a curious sound.

They definitely knew
who they wanted to be with,

and nurture and they had
a music thing going on there.

Er...

And...Peter was the man.

I believe they
were some sort of cult.

That is what they do. They get you
in and strip you of your identity,

of your belongings, of your money
and it helps them

to become more powerful.

And I say that because they were
just starting up

and Peter Green was a prime man who
was making millions.

And he did give off this
religious look, Peter.

Peter said, "What do you think
of what I'm playing?" "It was shit!"

It sounded like a pile of tits.

But he said, "That's what you think.
That's the most spiritual music
I've ever played in mylife."

I had a good play there,
I recorded that.

I didn't - someone did
and they gave me a tape.

That one girl was there and she was
taking nude photographs in one room.

The chap who John has a distinct
distain for

had an incredibly
beautiful girlfriend or wife.

Stunning.

And it was all very...

Yeah. Yeah.

There was a few people playing
with us, just fooling around.

And it was, um, it was, er...

Yeah, it was great.

I didn't know where we were.

But when we used to play Europe,
I'd always have a box of matches
or key of the hotel so I knew.

I said, "I'll phone the manager."

I say, "You got to come down and get
us out of here."

A couple of times I'd look and
he was in the back of the car with
Danny

and suddenly he...

..like this and Danny would do it.

And he'd be on the other side
cos he'd be like this together.

And they had this... Like they
were locked in something together.

And it wasn't good.

Peter Green and Danny Kirwan
both went together

to that house in Munich, both of
them took acid as I understand it.

Both of them, as of that day,
became seriously mentally ill.

I think it's too much of a
coincidence for it to be anything

other than taking drugs.

As of that day - and I think if you
speak to Mick and John and Jeremy,

they will tell you exactly the same
story.

For Me? Yeah.

That was...that was
the fork in the road.

Um...buggers.

After the cathartic experience
of Munich,

Peter was growing more disillusioned
with the constraints of the band.

And during the European tour,
he finally decided to leave.

Peter and I were sitting together
at the back

of a bus on the Scandinavian tour.

I think it was in Norway.

He said, "I've been meaning
to have a chat with you." "Why?"

He said,
"Um, I want to leave the band."

"Have you told the band yet?" "No."

I said,
"Well, I suggest that you do."

And he went up the front and
just told the band.

That's what he wanted to do.

I don't remember trying to talk him
out of it. I just remember going...

"Oh, shit!"

Clifford took me and we were walking
along the corridor to the room

and he said, "Pete's..."

And he said, "I think if anybody
could persuade him, it could be you.

"Would you at least give it a try?"

Cos everyone was just devastated and
I was thinking...

"Maybe it's supposed to be."

I didn't feel like persuading him.

I just didn't...

And we just kept talking.
"I just want to leave" - that was
about all he said.

"What do you think?"

I said, "If you really feel
you should, you should."

We stopped rehearsing at one point.

We'd rehearse but never
get anywhere.

At one point we stopped
all together.

I felt like leaving the
group because it didn't feel right,
or sort of...

Whatever it was, I felt like leaving
would be some kind of something.

Even if you're an orchestra musician
playing and reading from the thing,

you should get a kick out of it of
some kind.

And he played out the gigs that he
said he would play out,

and then that was it.

# Now when the day goes to sleep

# And when the full moon looks

# And the night is so black
that the darkness cooks

# Then you come creeping around

# Making me do things
I don't want to do. #

You knew things were wrong with
Peter just from the music.

You knew The Green Manalishi
was a very strange song -

the product of a mind
that was slightly unsettled.

Everybody thinks seems to think
that's about LSD - it's not.

It's about money -
a wad of money, greenbacks.

"The Green Manalishi."

And he did have an obsession
about money.

You listen to the guitars on The
Green Manalishi and it's dark, man.

Within the space of maybe two years
he went from Albatross which,

they should play it to you when
you're in the fucking dentist chair,
know what I mean?

But The Green Manalishi -
that's quite difficult to listen to.

But I guess it's the measure of
the man.

I think he starting getting broody
and brooding and...

..and a little on the negative side

with his thoughts and...

And I think he had a hard time
handling it.

And that Munich thing just kind of
clinched it

so he started singing about those
feelings,

putting it into words and songs.

The last thing he recorded was
Green Manalishi which for sure is...

And he seemed fine.

And yet, you know,
he was probably maybe even...

..hearing voices then - I don't
know.

I'm going to do a thing I
haven't done for a long, long time -
a solo number.

# I don't look for no worries

# But worries and troubles
come around

# I don't look for no worries

# Worries and troubles
come around. #

I asked him once, I said to him,
"Pete, why did you leave
Fleetwood Mac?

"Going great guns, nice life,
nice...productions."

He said, "Well, I said all I had to
say. I had nothing more to say."

And that was it. For me, it was...
a great loss.

Cos I...you know...

it was the band, the band, the band
and all that stuff,

but I felt very close and...I had an
ultimate respect for Peter.

And we had so much fun, and then all
of that just sort of went.

And...it was tough.

I-I felt...cheated.

If the front man and the writer
leaves, you know...

..oh, goodness me,
what are we going to do?

And that's when I did my level best
to...and did...keep the band going.

My mum and dad were devastated.

I don't think that my dad was
ever right again after that.

He took it very hard.

At the time I was living in this
house with my brother and his wife,

I moved in. But I guess they sort of
suspected from talking to me

I was...I had a different pleasure
in my mind.

Maybe the way I played the guitar,
the way I did music.

I did some great stuff on LSD in
Munich - some fabulous stuff,

which I liked.

I think Peter was just ahead of the
game and just felt that we couldn't
make that journey.

He went his merry way. Sadly,
and I think it was in retrospect,

uh...I believe that it would have
been a better choice for Peter

had he...

..taken us with him somehow,

but it wasn't to be,
and we were all lost.

APPLAUSE

Peter approached Clifford Adams with
a view to recording a new album

that would surprise even the most
ardent of his fans.

He would have good days
and bad days,

and he came in to see me one day and
he said, "I've been jamming with
some friends of mine,"

and I said, "Oh, yeah?" And he said,
"I'd like you to and organise
if it's possible

"to make an album of what I'm
doing."

And in we went and he just played
and played

and played and played.

For me, it was Peter exorcising
the demons within him.

That to me was what that album was
all about. He loved percussion,
he loved rhythm,

and the guys that he made the
End Of The Game with was a drummer

in a band called The Gas.

Great player, funky player -
stuff that I couldn't do.

The link between music and drugs was
still playing an occasional part in
Peter's life.

And LSD influenced
some of the recording sessions.

We did take...there was LSD going
round at that session.

There was a bottle of champagne that
was laced with the thing

I had a couple of...
little drops of it,

and I did feel a bit effervescent.

It sounds like it's in a sort of
liquid echo

and the echo that you put on
in the sound control room.

He did a lot of long,
sustained note stuff,

and his tone was just to die for.

And he did so much with really, not
a lot of technique in those days.

Not really.

To me...ridiculous,
but I was going, like...

he feels guilty about being
so wonderfully talented.

He's trying to sort of run back to
being in the butcher's shop or
something,

and I don't want all this pressure,
which translates into

not only what became that special
thing about Peter's playing,

but it also was his monkey
on his back,

that nigh on destroyed him,
you know.

For the next decade,
Peter would be nearly silent,

and during those wilderness years,
his notoriety was reduced

to occasional press stories of
Peter giving away his guitars,

refusing his royalties,
becoming a dishevelled tramp,

and taking a series of
bizarre day jobs.

But Peter was still occasionally
experimenting with LSD,

and one particular trip
sparked a psychotic episode.

I...met this chap,

who had this apartment in Surbiton,
and there he offered me

the famous San Francisco "Sunshine",

a tablet of Sunshine,

so it was...I must admit,
it was great,

it was very, very heavy.

But after that, I guess I was
out of reach to my folks,

and I went to my brother and his
wife who had a place in Epsom,

and...my mother and father had
moved in with them, and I said...

I was with them and they said,
"There's a little room
you can live in if you want to."

And from there,
I started acting strange -

strange things started happening
and I smashed a lot
of crockery one time.

I just picked up a whole tray.

That's what I thought I ended up
in a psychiatric hospital for.

He was getting voices...

that would tell him
to do nasty things.

We was trying to rally round him
so that he...

..he wouldn't DO the nasty things.

He didn't do 'em, but I mean,
he used to think 'em.

We saw a Chinese doctor.

He said, "Do you hear voices?"

I said, "Yeah, I do hear
something strange...

"I am having a lot of strange
experiences inside my head."

The doctor came along and said,
"Look...your son is a schizophrenic.

"The best thing you can do
is send him to the hospital

"and get some treatment."

Well, obviously, my mum and dad just
didn't have the courage to do that.

And I had to do it.

I didn't think I was schizophrenic -
anything, far from THAT.

To THEM it's schizophrenia,

but to YOU,
it's hellishly single-minded.

You know, you can't...

..you can't escape from
the single-minded...

But it is entirely going through
your mind and things, it's...

So, he might think he knows
what my particular case was.

It might not have been
anything like that.

Apparently, it's for violence
they usually take you in.

A GP was likening ECT to...

in those days, valve televisions.
"It's a bit like when the television

"goes on the blink -
if you bang it, sometimes it works,
sometimes it doesn't."

That was a GP talking.

It's called
Electric Convulsive Treatment,

so maybe some people do convulse
and some don't, or something.

I don't know...

You don't know what happens,
cos you're...

You go out pretty quick,
as soon as you feel this ice...

ice water in your veins...
everything goes cold.

And you say your goodbyes,
"I'm never gonna live again,"

and...

..then you wake up.

His girlfriend at the time,
the lady,

she remembers him coming back - this
was later on, when he wasn't

in hospital when he was still
undergoing the treatment -

and he'd just be stood there
with his arms about a foot out,

just like a rigid...
a rigid sort of person

just in front of her absolutely
dazed out of his brains.

I can't believe how bad
a memory it is. Terrible memory.

After a series of stays in
various mental institutions

and some time spent out of the UK,

Peter returned and contacted
his manager

to challenge him
on some accounting irregularities.

"I want somebody
to shoot my accountant!"

I don't see that as such
a strange thing to want to do!

One day, he rang me up,
he'd just got back from Canada,

and he said to me that...

He smuggled a shotgun in,
a pumped shotgun...

..and he was gonna go round and
kill his accountant, David Simmons.

I phoned up...the manager...used to
be the manager for Fleetwood Mac,

and asked him if he had any money.

He said, "The accountant's
got your money.

"I haven't got your money..."

So I said - I don't know why,
but I said, "I'll shoot you."

I felt like he...wasn't
speaking straight with me.

And he was speaking straight with
me, and I said, "I'll shoot you."

And he said, "Are you threatening
me?" I said, "Yeah...yeah."

HE LAUGHS

David rang the police,

and Peter was arrested.

"Would you please come out of there?
This is the police.

"You are surrounded."

My mum and dad were probably
watching EastEnders or something...

..obviously, they went out and
explained that Peter wasn't here...

There was a phone call and the
police rang up, someone said,

"Have you got a licence
for the gun?" I said "No..."

They said, "Come with us."

They moved me a couple of times
from the prison to different ones,

and I was quite happy in prison
so I thought I'd be all right,

but they said, "You failed
the psychiatrist's test

"and you go to the psychiatric
hospital for a few months."

I went in, and I was very, very ill
- I mean, very, very ill.

I could hardly move. I was very bad.

I couldn't pick up,
I just couldn't pick up.

Didn't know how to pick myself up.

I find it very difficult
to understand...

what was on his mind.

Obviously, he was on another planet.

That was the condition...
I came out of the ECT room,

and that's what ECT...
that's what it did to me.

It made my head feel like brick
work,

like it was shaped like a head,
but it was sort of...

You couldn't use it, make it...

I couldn't think, you know.

After it was decided Peter was
unable to look after himself,

he ended up spending an increasing
amount of time

in a mental institution
under heavy sedation.

Peter's brother Mike was distressed
by his deteriorating mental health,

and decided Peter would be
better off with his family.

And, finally, he brought him home.

You can live in these places,
you know, nothing to do...

Mickey came along and got me out...

maybe to get me out...

I didn't know if I was
ever gonna come out...

Nothing to...nothing to go IN for,
I don't know what I went in for...

Once you're in there,
you have a drink,
you get used to the regularities...

You sit in the armchairs,
you know...

Don't know what else...
Not much else to do...with yourself.

You know, he was a known face,

and especially by the time of
the mid-80s,

the way that he looked
with the long fingernails.

He came up against a lot of children
calling him various names...

The next thing I heard,
it was in Brazil,

and it was some things
to do with Richmond Common...

and, um...Judy Wong,

where he was scratching her door
and making the sounds of a wolf.

Well, she thought it was an animal
at the door,

and there he was on all fours...

HE WHIMPERS
..making...like a dog.

So, she let him in, you know,
and took care of him and everything.

He was sometimes just
roaming around the streets,
not knowing where he was,

and having lost all sense of time...

It was a very, very sad
and dangerous time for him.

The author, Martin Celmins,
began writing Peter's biography,

and it was during their
early meetings to research the book

that Martin helped Peter
to come off his daily medication.

Martin Celmins, a journalist
who wrote a biography on me...

He noticed I was about to take
another tablet with my breakfast.

We did the interview in this...
just by Leigh-on-Sea,

in this greasy spoon cafe,
and he would drink coffee...

Coffee...lots of...

because, I guess, that made him feel
slightly more alert, you know.

I just took two days of this,
and quite naturally, I just thought,

"Hang on a minute,

"in the evening,
he's talking absolutely normally,

"no weirdness about it,
and then he's taking his medication,

"which means for
the first three hours of his day,

"he is literally a zombie."

He said, "Do you think you
should do that?" Or something...

I don't remember the exact words...

He...got me to think about it,

and I didn't bother with 'em.
Didn't know what
I was taking them for...

I just..."I won't
take 'em anymore, then."

Lo and behold,
two days later, he had stopped
taking the medication.

Over the last decade,
with various solo bands,

Peter has recorded over ten albums,

including the award-winning
Robert Johnson Songbook

and Hot Foot Powder.

And recently, he collected the
BMI award for the four-millionth
radio play of Black Magic Woman.

Peter is pursuing
his love of art and photography.

Peter Green continues to make music.

In the short span that
he was with Fleetwood Mac,

from when Fleetwood Mac started,

to when it finished -
when HE finished, May 1970,

it was two years and eight months.

And in that
two years and eight months,

five hit records,

four hit albums,

big hit for Santana,

outsold the Beatles, outsold
the Rolling Stones - together...

You know, that is one
fantastic...guy.

For my mind, he is the best
British Blues guitarist out of all.

I'm not a wizard on the guitar -
I don't know the technical terms -

but his guitar playing,
it fucking blows me away.

Not in the same way that Hendrix...
You listen to Hendrix, and,
"Wow, that guy's a wizard."

But when Peter plays his guitar,
it weeps, almost.

I still feel that if you surround
Peter Green with the right people,

I mean, the real right people,

his wings will expand again.

He'll come out and play.

Because it's IN him...

Like John Lee Hooker says, "It's in
him, and it's got to come out."

The Peter Green of the late '60s,
early '70s

was a sublime guitarist.

He had a lyrical quality that was
almost like liquid gold coming out.

I'd always emotionally go back to
Peter when I was having problems

with just drinking too much
and partying way too much -

it was actually quite boring
for a lot of people,

but without question,
"Oh, Mick's gonna...
he's on his half a bottle of brandy,

"out will come
the Peter Green tapes...

"And he'll sit everyone down
in his hotel room and say,
'Listen to this dude...'"

You know, and that's what I did,
invariably.

One of the best, if not THE best.

That's why it's such a tragedy
that it all went where it did -

it could have been so much more.

His story and everything
is about the fact that

he was handed something,
did not quite understand
the power of what he was handed -

and this is ME talking, you know,
feel free to knock me on the head -

and having...this bestowed on him,

somehow, felt,
"What can I do with this?"

And in truth, he never quite
found out what that was.

I was ever so...always hopes,
high hopes, but...

..I was very dissatisfied
with what I was doing.

It should be great or
something...

But I was very...

"This is never coming",
sort of thing.

"Never gets here."

With everyone expecting it,
it never arrives.

I could out-play Sooty!

But...that's it! Don't put Sweep
on that xylophone, whatever you do!

# Need someone's hand

# To lead me through the night

# I need someone's arms

# To hold and squeeze me tight

# When the night begins

# I'm at an end

# Because I need

# Your love so bad

# I need some lips

# To feel next to mine

# I need someone to stand up

# And tell me when I'm lyin'

# And when the lights are low

# And it's time to go

# That's when I need

# Your love so bad

# So why don't you give it up... #