Just picked up an interesting collection on early fleetwood mac.
It's called " the pious bird of good omen." Oddly, the track listing on the back is wrong, and the album includes a few of their best tracks, padded out with a bunch of outtakes, false start takes, etc. many of which have killer Peter Green playing. It's also a fascinating window into their recording process, communication, etc.
I bought this against my better judgment, as the online review was lukewarm at best, and it turned out to be an amazing find. It's a mixed bag, but it's really got some great stuff on there. After listening to this a few times, here's my new, polished take on the clapton vs. peter green debate--
1. Clapton has two or three albums worth of really top level playing, with a boatload of great phrasing and melodic ideas, plus some of the best guitar sounds in rock history. Essential listening.
2. Peter Green has as much technique as Clapton (if that matters), also with great sounds, and is arguably more emotionally intense and soulful than Clapton. His best work is also essential listening. I wouldn't call him "better" than Clapton, but Clapton partisans need to take Green into account-- He definitely makes it impossible to rate Clapton as the runaway best white British blues guitarist.
So, for what it's worth, here's my boiled-down take. I listen to Peter Green for the emotional intensity, and Clapton for phrasing and note choice.
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Largely due to the influence of your previous Green/Kirwan blog post, I ended up picking up a double CD with a bunch of recordings of Green w/ John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. Listening to it over the last couple days one of the things that strikes me is the similarity of guitar tone between Clapton and Green on a lot of this stuff. I guess a lot of that is the LP.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of Mayall (not that anyone cares but), when I first got interested in the blues as a teenager, one of my main sources of music was my first girlfriend's mother's record collection, which included a lot of Mayall - Bluesbreakers and later stuff. My first attempts at improvisation were playing trombone along with those Mayall "Jazz/Blues Fusion" records (which I still own). For a relatively unknown musician (these days) Mayall sure had a lot of influence.
I'm curious which two or three Clapton albums you'd recommend most highly
ReplyDeletei think it's fair to say that without mayall, things might have been a little different. i had a bunch of mayall records when i was a teen--
ReplyDeleteas far as similarity of tone between clapton and green, i think there's less similarity with the fleetwood mac stuff-- i haven't heard the mayall/green stuff for a long time, so i'm not sure but maybe at that time he and clapton sounded more alike. the fact that they were both playing gibsons through loud amps cranked up probably allows for the tone connection. if you listen to a lot of the fleetwood mac green stuff, you'll hear him playing with more variety of tones/dynamics than clapton, who at the time tended to be upfront and in your face, getting one sound and sticking with it. green could do that too, of course, but he sounded different at different times. (ultimately, the point is, they're both great, at least when they're at their best, and both brought fresh ideas to blues without trashing it. of course, many purists will disagree, but i think they both brought something to the blues. they are the dividing line for me, though-- after cream hit, the next wave of players started losing the direct connection to the blues that clapton and green both had.)
celtobilly, i like the mayall bluesbreakers album with clapton, and some tracks with cream-- cream is problematic for me, for many reasons which i won't get into now because it will take forever. i'll just say this-- the cream bbc album, while it has some lame stuff, has a lot of good clapton, different from the studio recordings. it shows that clapton was really improvising, although he obviously had a stockpile of licks and moves that he used again and again. so, while i don't unreservedly like or recommend any one cream album, disraeli gears and wheels of fire both have some great playing, the last cream album, although a hodgepodge, also has some good playing and the bbc album may be the best all around disc to get, outside of a collection. i also think the playing on the derek and the dominos album is great. last thing i'll say is this-- at the very least, i've gotten a lot from clapton's playing as far as learning about position playing, using musical ideas to shift positions, using position shifts to increase drama, etc. so while i'm always happy to trot out endless hipper references (freddy king comes to mind) i've learned and continue to learn from early clapton recordings. as a listener, i can point to many examples of excess in the music, esp. cream, but from a technical standpoint there's a lot to learn from.
ReplyDeleteNot sure whether I'm supposed to throw my opinion in here but, in addition to Karl's picks I'll throw out one more. It's not a "classic" and might be considered less-than-cool by some folks because it's *relatively* recent. "From The Cradle" from '94 is an all-blues record, recorded live with a fine band that has Clapton playing and singing well. It has a nice range of approaches to guitar sounds/styles.
ReplyDeleteIMO.
i've heard that one is good-- which is nice to hear, after years of unlistenably lame records.
ReplyDeletehere's more palaver, from an email exchange with scott mcknight.
ReplyDelete(scott)
Somewhere I have a (double?) CD anthology of a bunch of Green/Spencer/Kirwan-era FM. I haven't listened to it in a couple years. Now would be a good time to dig it out.
>>>( Karl Straub)
there's a definite similarity. prob at least in part due to the fact that green was playing a lot of the same repertoire and with the same leader. i'm sure there was some pressure for green to play in a similar vein. i'll also say, though, that based on the limited evidence i've heard, green was improving in this time, and the peter green you hear with fleetwood mac is better, arguably more his own man at that point. the mayall clips here are excellent, but a bit raw compared to what he was doing later. i've got some recordings of green even just a year or two later that are just shatteringly powerful-- as opposed to the merely excellent green of these mayall tracks. i think clapton was a hotter player for a little while there, but green quickly upped the ante.
beyond that, it's basically true that they were both trying to do more or less the same thing at the same time-- rip off albert king, freddy king, etc. but while playing through cranked-up marshalls.
Clapton is overrated
ReplyDeleteI agree with the basic statement that Clapton is overrated, but only with the following qualifiers.
ReplyDelete1. He's only overrated in the sense that, like many guitarists in the rock canon, he's reached a point where some fans can't accept any criticism of him.
2. There are other players who came up during Clapton's early period, like Green, Mike Bloomfield, etc. whom most people haven't even heard of these days. Guitarists like these played in very similar idioms to Clapton, with similar quality when they were at their best. It's tiresome hearing people drone about Clapton as if his many excellent contemporaries had never existed.
3. I love Clapton's best work, but even in my most feverishly Clapton-friendly moods, I don't think he's "better" than Freddy King, Albert King, or many other blues players that most rock fans are clueless about.
4. Overrated or not, nothing can take away from Clapton's achievement, whether you prefer his Cream days, the Layla album, etc. Even for those who don't like those records, I submit that the Bluesbreakers album remains essential, as listening, as an historic addition to blues guitar language, or as a lesson in how to play a Les Paul through a Marshall without leaving classic blues language behind. That album will always be the transitional step between "pure" Chicago blues and hard rock.