PETER GREEN RECORDING SECRETS

[yngwie308]

Here is a copy of my Plexi Palace post,on a Bluesbreaker/Peter Green thread,I found my missplaced The Guitar Magazine from England,in the late nineties,I read everything I can about the early Peter Green and Fleetwood Mac,so here goes:




Thanks LHakim,I have found the magazine I was searching for,The Guitar Magazine from England ,a special Fleetwood Mac,Peter Green issue Volume 7 number 3 January 1997.
Here are some excerpts to illustrate what I was saying:
THE SUPERNATURAL
recorded Decca Studios,London,Oct 1966
Equipment:Green used a 50-watt Marshall head through one of Marshall's very first 4X12"cabs.The amp section of this combination formed the basis of what would later become the Bluesbreaker 2X12" combo.Green played his legendary '59 Les Paul.
Peter admitted that the credit for this tune really should go to session producer Mike Vernon(of the famous Blue Horizon label).
"That was his idea.We were in the studio and I was playing this chord sequence on the organ which was really good.I did some guitar and the piece just developed from there.It should have been Mike's really,but he said;"Have it.It's yours."
With Fleetwood Mac:
ALBATROSS
Recorded:October 1968,8 track,CBS Studios,New Bond St.,London.
Personnel:Peter Green(rhythm,lead and slide guitar);Danny Kirwan(slide guitar);John McVie(double- tracked bass);Mick Fleetwood(mallet drums)
Equipment:Peter Green played the rhythm parts on his '59 Les Paul as well as the solo and slide 'seagull'effects.Kirwan used his Telecaster for the second slide part and refrains
Late 1968 and into 1969 proved to be Peter Green's great creative window.He would never be as happy or as prolific again.Listened to in isolation,Albatross -a product of that optimism-sounds more like an ambient record or a sub-orchestral easy listening experiment than a conventional pop track.Then again,Fleetwood Mac were never exactly a conventional band...
By immersing himself in classical music,African music and jazz,Green was deliberately attempting to distance himself from the blues.Once slide exponent Danny Kirwan entered the Mac picture,Green had all the encouragement he needed.Though familiar now,Albatross (or 'Albert Ross' as Green would introduce it on stage) was then a daring experiment.Green wanted to explore the use of reverb,intending the track to mirror the gentle pillow of winds upon which the bird rises and falls through the air currents.
OH WELL (Parts 1 and 2)
Equipment:Green plays a Michigan dobro-style resonator for the intro to Part 1 and his Ramirez flamenco nylon string for Part 2.The electric guitar parts are on his '59 Les Paul through an Orange GT120.
ECHO BEACH-The Fleetwood Mac Sound
Green and fellow guitarists Danny Kirwan and Jeremy Spencer were reverb freaks;indeed.If Fleetwood Mac had any trademark sound it was the heavy reverb and Green's choice of amplifiers was dictated not so much by the actual sound of the amps as much as the quality,richness and depth of the reverb.
As the Fleetwood Mac sound grew in complexity from the straight blues to mini-epics like Albatross and Oh Well,so the need to add more reverb grew.Green went from using the Marshall 50-watt head through the 4X12" cab(one of the first 4X12"s in Britain)to using Orange amps,then the latest stack on the market.The distinctive amps-now favoured by Noel Gallagher,amongst others-did not come with spring reverb systems included.Green's GT120 120-watt Orange head was put through two Orange 4X12"s while the reverb was taken care of by a seperate valve powered preamp and reverb spring system.The band got the amps as part of an endorsement deal after Dinkie,their road manager saw them demoed at a London music store.
"Dinkie loved volume,"recalls Dennis Keen.He loved thousands of watts of power,like The Who,and when he heard the clean power of the Orange's he went crazy and bought a whole load.
Peter was never convinced they were any good,but we used 'em for a year or so and they were certainly good live.When we toured with BB King we played the Albert Hall and BB actually asked if he could use the Orange stacks,cause he rated them really highly.'
Green now maintains that he was always unsure about using Orange amps because they didn't have the right depth of reverb and were often too trebly for his smooth glissandi guitar breaks.Eventually Green would move over to tried-and-tested Fenders which,even today,feature some of the best dynamic spring reverbs around.
The Green Manalishi (With The Two Prong Crown)
Recorded:Warner Brothers Studios,Hollywood;mixed and overdubbed at De Lane Lea,Holbern,London,London,April 1970
Personnel:Peter Green(vocals,guitars);Danny Kirwan(vocals,guitar);John Mc Vie(bass);Mick Fleetwood(drums).
Equipment:'59 Les Paul and Fender Bass VI through an Orange GT120 with several 4X12" cabs.
Recording Green Manalishi
The power chords that provide the track with so much of its menace were the result of late night experiment at DE Lane Lea Studios.Using the underground car park beneath the studio,the engineers set out three 4X12" speaker cabs.They close- miked one,then distance- miked the other two to catch the cavernous reverb generated when Green played the pwer chords on his Fender Bass VI-the blended guitar sound is one of the most startling ever captured on tape.'It sounds like there must be loads of compression and fuzz and overdrive on the guitars to get that sound,but there isn't,' reveals Keen.'Peter had things like Cry Babys and Coloursound distortion pedals but he didn't use 'em that often.He was mainly into reverb-that was his big thing.'
The chilling solo guitar,was counterpointed by Green's demonic howling vocal,was achieved in the same way as the chord bombast-though this time by having one microphone pick up the reflection off the far wall of the car park,effectively giving the sound a complex reverb delay.
For live performances,Green almost exclusively used his '59 Les Paul occasionaly switching to his Strat 'when the mood took him.' On two occasions he used the Fender VI live.'The thing about Pete was that he had all the effects but he never used 'em adds Keen.'He could make a note distort just by overplucking it;that's how good he was.Total control.'
Green's increasing turmoil was never more fearfully expressed than on a live version of Manalishi recorded at The Boston Tea Party club on the Mac's final US tour in 1971.Black,frenzied and clocking in at around 16 minutes,it is a must for all Green-o-philes.Though barely audible over the the ferocious backing,Green's screams verge on the ungodly.Bootlegs of The Boston Tea Party are especially worth hunting out(have had a copy for many years-yngwie308)as it features an otherwise unreleased jam with Clapton and Green.
By this point,Fleetwood Mac had dispensed with the Orange backline for their live shows and opted for a selection of Fenders that included Peter's Dual Showman head and several 2X12" cabs.At some smaller gigs Green took to using a Tremolux through a 2X10" simply because he felt the reverb system was unsurpassed."We were in New York and we had nothing to do,'recalls Dennis Keen.'It was either stay in the hotel room,get bored and get out of it-which wasn't ideal-or go wandering .So we went down to Manny's music store off Times Square and just bought a load of new Fender amps.I don't think Pete was fed up with the Orange stuff,he just fancied a change.'
Peter Green Solo
End of the Game
Recorded: May-June 1970 London
Personnel:Peter Green(lead,rhythm guitar);Nick Buck(Hammond organ);Alex Dmochowski(bass);Godfrey Maclean(drums)
Equipment:'59 Les Paul,sunburst '67 Stratocaster through a Marshall 50-watt combo,and Marshall 100-watt head through a Fender 2X12" cab.
Zoot Money played piano on the album and remembers a highly motivated yet verbally uncommunicative Green.'The thing about Peter is that he didn't really feel he'd met someone or really become a friend unless he'd jammed with them because that was how he spoke to the world.He was a bit of a savant really.Music was his language-notes,scales,joyous harmony...that was how he spoke.'
Recording End Of The Game
'I think Peter deliberately choose people for that session who were ready for a change,'says Zoot Money.'We all arrived around 10 at night,had a quick chat,then we were into it.We jammed for 20 minutes,tapes rolling,then we stopped...quick chat and off we went again.Six hours later the whole thing was over.No drugs(contrary to much public opinion-yngwie308),no talking,just playing...and I remember it being very exciting,in places.We didn't go back over anything and Peter only overdubbed one guitar part.I actually recall him being very happy-he was free to jam.For years he'd been caught up in the need to stick to the recipe.Here he was,making music that grew organically,evolved and couldn't be repeated or replicated.'
At Green's insistance the band were recorded without baffles or seperation.The room was ambient- miked and the results sent straight to tape.Green then listened back and edited sections together until he had six tracks of varied length.'If you want to know how he worked,it was as if he'd get you to climb up a ladder to one level,then kick the ladder away,then lead you up another and so on,'Zoot ponders.'Peter was obviously influenced by the psychedelic bands but his freeforming was much more about finding the psychic level,the interconnection and the unspoken language between musicians.'
Others recall an altogether darker atmosphere.Bassist Alex Dmochowski believes Green was attempting to 'find out what was making him scream,musically.'It's interesting to note that for The End Of The Game sessions Green was persuaded to stop taking his lithium and explore his own rapidly fragmenting psyche.
Whatever the circumstances of it's recording,End Of The Game is flawed,scary,beautiful and unjustly overlooked.Part ambient,part driving frenetic fractured techno jamming,it was as deep an expression of Peter Green's inner mind as anything he had ever recorded and was,in many ways,years ahead of it's time.
'End Of The Game helped a little,'says Green,laughing as he recalls the unbridled freeform extremism of it's birth.'It taught me what was and what wasn't possible.I made it as an expeiment because I felt restricted.I'm still restricted and I can't learn fast enough to say what I have inside...but I'm learning again.That was the problem in the beginning.I couldn't play the things I heard in my head.It makes you want to give up sometimes.I thought maybe I could get closer to it by doing it that way.I don't think it worked too well.But now I'm learning beter to do all the things I should have learned in the first place.'
I have many more details of Peter Green and early Fleetwood Mac,Gary Moore,early British music scence as I lived in London from 1966 until 1972 and then back in the mid seventies until 1982 and then back to the States.Thanks to Cliff Jones for quoting his article and interview with Peter and colleagues.
Great guitar music is just that,from Malmsteen to Green,it is all effective because it touches our souls and it is such a pity that a talent like Peter Green,burn out so soon in his career,yet I always totally respected his decision to give up on this music business,and he was totally in his right mind when he rennounced his fame and fortune...thanks Peter,you made a difference in our lives.
yngwie308

_________________
I was angry, I was sad,
just thinking about the times we had.
I felt so lost and lonely too,
what could I say, what could I do?
And after all, the time goes by.
No one knows the reasons why.
You lived each day like there was no tomorrow.
You spent those years living on time you borrowed.
And in your eyes, all I could see was sorrow.

Some of us will win, some of us will lose,
the strong will survive.
Some of us will fall,
some of us won't get out of here alive.

Blood of emeralds.
[/b]

[Roe]

good info!

the best green sound I've ever gotten was with my tokai LS320 with magnetic out of phase seth lovers and a clark rockford reverb (vibroverb with 12")

[Roe]

what's the EF86 orange/matamp echo unit green used?

[yngwie308]

Peter used the Orange Matamp EF86 circuited reverb unit with FM in their Orange period have photos of it on stage,but I think Peter,as he said,loves the Fender reverb the best,who wouldn't!
yngwie308

[Roe]

yes,

I agree

[Tone Slinger]

I have heard a live version of "The Green Manilishi". Both guitarist's are "Crunching" away on it, and Peter, as usual, just hits a couple licks that are so "There", that it aint funny. Wonder what amps, maybe the Orange. ?

[AbbeSauniere]

so "There", that it aint funny.

This pretty much sums up Peter's playing for me!

[gutpile]

Great post... thanks for sharing...

[Ryan]

Interviews with Eric Clapton and Garry Moore both suggested that Peter Green was fond of and often used "Selmer" (pardon the spelling) amplifiers. They both commented that at the time, no one liked them and they were suprized that he used them.

[yngwie308]

Yeah I had a Selmer Zodiac Twin Thirty combo and it had two El 34's in Class A, with a GZ 34 rectifier and it had the pushbutton tone controls, a wicked pulsing 'magic eye', that was synched to the tremelo, which was the deepest, most hypnotic sounding trem, I have ever played.
I believe the new Goodsell combos have a killer tremelo as well.
Gary said that no one else could make the Selmer sound good, but Peter did...
yngwie308

[TFL]

Very cool! Thanks for posting!