Original subtitles

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... #