Review: Authorised Biography: Peter Green

Subject: Peter Green, Founder of Fleetwood Mac
From: keberoxu
Date: 15 Mar 16 - 06:47 PM

Martin Celmins' book was published, first edition, in 1995. There followed two more editions, one in 1998 and one in 2003, all with a publisher named Sanctuary.

The book got attention in some of the music periodicals. I don't recall which magazine, but one of the reviewers remarked, regarding the subject of the biography: "This man is still alive. We know next to nothing about him."

I recall that I had just discovered Peter Green's very existence, thanks to Mojo Magazine and a feature article. So I was eager to read the book. I have read two editions, I think, and can't recall if I have laid eyes on the revisions in all three editions. This was a time of some significant changes in Green's circumstances. When the book was begun, it had not been all that long since the death of Green's father (an age difference, between father and son, of fifty years!), and Green was still living with relatives. This gave the term "authorised biography" some weight in the first edition, anyhow, for that version paid its respects not only to Green himself, but to the blood relatives who also were interviewed and quoted.

Mich Reynolds and Nigel Watson -- if I read this right, they are brother and sister -- had much to do with getting Green detached, somewhat, from his family of origin. These are individuals whose connections with Green go back to the days, not simply of Fleetwood Mac, but of ex-manager Clifford Adams who is also interviewed. The impression is given that Martin Celmins was at least in a position to witness what happened, although he is extremely cautious about disclosing anything.

By the time of the most recent of the editions of this biography, performances of Peter Green and the Splinter Group were underway. And one of the final revisions is a chapter which makes me cringe to recall it. It is of course a kind of epilogue. It documents Peter Green and the Splinter Group appearing in the London area, where people from Green's youthful career could approach and witness for themselves the occasion. Celmins by this time already has a highly emotionally charged expectation of a revised ending for the biography, one that will be optimistic if not downright triumphant. Therefore Celmins' frustration is evident when Mike Vernon, the producer who goes back to the days of John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, gives Celmins his unvarnished opinion of how the older Peter Green compares to the one from back in the day. A fair amount of ink and paper is wasted on Celmins' protests against Vernon's opinion. This is downright sad. What is more, it conflicts with the point of view of Green himself, who at the time of his "comeback" remained capable of lucid coherent statements, which when quoted demonstrate equal parts self-deprecation and blunt forthrightness.

Of the subsequent years, in which Green, after a serious of compact disc recordings with the Splinter Group, managed to disengage from Nigel Watson, there is no trace here, which of coursePOST http://mudcat.org/NewMess-Sub.cfm HTTP/1.1 Host: mudcat.org User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/38.0 Accept: text/html,application/xhtml xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8 Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0

Subject: RE: Review: Authorised Biography: Peter Green
From: Will Fly
Date: 16 Mar 16 - 06:51 AM

I saw him with the Splinter Group live at some pub in Kent about 9 years ago (I think - could have been a bit later or earlier). I went with some friends from work. We left halfway through, feeling very saddened at the frankly, poor performance from a once great player.

I have the complete early, original Fleetwood Mac recordings - including all out-takes and versions of everything they did prior to the break-up - on a CD box set. Wonderful stuff.

Subject: RE: Review: Authorised Biography: Peter Green
From: keberoxu
Date: 16 Mar 16 - 02:01 PM

Apologies to thread readers about the end of the original post. Don't know what went wrong there, that computerese at the end is NOT what I data-entried in the first place.