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Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac - The Vaudeville Years

Track listing:
Volume 1
  1. Intro Lazy Poker Blues 3:48
  2. My Baby's Sweeter 3:53
  3. Love That Burns 4:15
  4. Talk To Me Baby 3:37
  5. Everyday I Have The Blues - 1 4:13
  6. Jeremy's Contribution To Doo Wop 3:34
  7. Everyday I Have The Blues - 2 4:23
  8. Death Bells 5:05
  9. (Watch Out For Yourself) Mr Jones 3:35
  10. Man Of Action 5:21
  11. Do You Give A Damn For Me 3:45
  12. Man Of The World 3:28
  13. Like It This Way 3:17
  14. Blues In B Flat Minor 4:16
  15. Someone's Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In Tonight 2:58
  16. Although The Sun Is Shining 2:24
  17. Showbiz Blues 6:51
Volume 2
  1. Underway 16:15
  2. The Madge Sessions - 1 17:21
  3. The Madge Sessions - 2 2:42
  4. (That's What) I Want To Know 3:54
  5. Oh Well 2:47
  6. Love It Seems 2:39
  7. Mighty Cold 2:28
  8. Fast Talking Woman Blues 4:02
  9. Tell Me From The Start 2:02
  10. October Jam 1 5:01
  11. October Jam 2 1:57
  12. The Green Manalishi (With The Two Prong Crown) 4:43
  13. World In Harmony 3:28
  14. Farewell 2:18

Notes


Two long CDs' worth of outtakes, alternate versions, and full-length versions from the Peter Green era, most in exemplary sound quality. Although much of this is interesting, and it's occasionally very good, it resembles Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac Live at the BBC in its unevenness, both in aesthetic quality and in stylistic tone. One is struck by how much the numbers featuring Green's singing and songwriting surpass those in which the other guitarists come to the fore. When Jeremy Spencer's in charge, it means you get 1950s rock pastiches and blues satires (though he does an okay Elmore James schtick with "Talk to Me Baby" and "My Baby Is Sweeter"). These aren't without their amusing points -- there's the entire session of songs that would have made a bonus EP with Then Play On, on which Spencer does fairly humorous impressions of Alexis Korner and John Mayall -- but deathless art it's not. Green shines on a live version of "Oh Well" (everything else here, incidentally, is from the studio) and alternates of "Showbiz Blues" and "Love that Burns." There are also alternates of "Man of the World" and "The Green Manalishi," though frankly these aren't so different from the familiar renditions that they'll jar you into taking notice. Some of the cuts are nothing more than shapeless jams or instrumental tracks with ideas that sometimes got pumped up into full tunes on official albums. So it's kind of like having a high-quality, easily available bootleg of the Green-era Mac, accent on the Then Play On era. But those who like that period of Fleetwood Mac a lot will want to hear this, its luster enhanced by a 48-page booklet with an essay by Green biographer Martin Celmins.