Fleetwood Mac
Blues With A Feeling
1967-68

If you're a fan of early Fleetwood Mac, you'll want this compilation. All of the tracks were cut live in the BBC studios - so there's a raw energy that was often missing from their more polished commercial releases at that time.  In fact, these recordings are so good that if you listen closely, you'll hear the unpredictable interplay of a live recording -  Peter' guitar talks to Jeremey's; Jeremey answers but calls for a vocal response, vocals call for Danny's guitar; Danny's guitar is answered by Peter's, and so on-- it's quite good and you'll wonder who will be answering the call to fill the space. But you'll hear something that you don't hear - each player knew how to build off of each other but they also knew when not to play - let silence fill the space between some notes, lingering silence in a song can be just as effective as a melody line. A fact underappreciated by today's jam bands.


  1. Albatross
  2. Preachin' The Blues
  3. Blues With A Feeling
  4. Tallahassee Lassie
  5. Man Of The World
  6. Jumping At Shadows
  7. Linda
  8. Oh Well
  9. The Sun Is Shining
10. Only You
11. I Need Your Love
12. Mean Mistreating Mama
13. You Need Love
14. Talk With You
15. Mean Old World

Mick Fleetwood
Peter Green
Danny Kirwan
John McVie
Jeremy Spencer

return

The disc begins with a previously unreleased version of Peter Green's sublime "Albatross". While it doesn't surpasses the studio original, here, Danny sneaks in a note or two and Peter throws in a fill near the end and instead of letting the number reverberate to silence on Mick's cymbal roll, he tags on a little coda.

From this, we go to "Preachin' Blues", with Green slashing away Delta style at a National Steel Guitar - it would be a full year before he used that instrument again on record: for "Show-Biz Blues" from Then Play On".

Then it's Danny Kirwan's turn with his excellent take on Little Walter's "Blues With A Feeling". From that same session comes "Tallahassee Lassie". Here is an excellent example of the aural differences. These tapes were not "mixed", beyond the balancing done for broadcast. There is an ambience on these tracks missing from the "official" versions. Mick Fleetwood's drums pound at your speakers and challenge the others to make themselves heard over him - a challenge they gladly accept! "Man of the World" and "Jumping At Shadows" follow - a very effective combination, and coming after "Tallahassee Lassie" only highlight more strongly the battle between light and dark raging within the singer.Jeremy Spencer's acoustic homage to Buddy Holly, "Linda" is up next followed by "Oh Well (Part One)" and two more from Danny Kirwan, "Although the Sun Is Shining" and "Only You".

Next comes Jimmy Rogers' "That Ain't It" which kicks off with Peter Green's vocals before the band even starts to play. They recorded this song under the title "I Need Your Love" with Big Walter Horton on vocals at the Blues Jam in Chicago sessions and it's most likely Horton's original recording that they based this take on. With Jeremy (no pianist is credited, in any of the sessionographies I've come across, so I'm guessing here) banging at the keyboard like he's Otis Spann, Peter plays a fierce harmonica, it's shrill blasts punctuating the verses and powering the song, perfectly mixing the unschooled country sound with big city amplification like a Chicago master. More Chicago style blues and another surprise comes with Jeremy doing Elmore James' "Mean Mistreatin' Mama". The surprise is the heavy piano that was mixed down so low on the Live at the BBC as to be inaudible. Live At the BBC is a double disc from Castle Communications that contains 10 of the 15 songs that appear on Blues With A Feeling.  Again, no pianist is credited - but this time there's no mistaking Jeremy on slide - so who's playing piano? Christine Perfect had yet to do her first recordings with the band and the style is all wrong. A mystery.

Recorded in the summer of '68, a full year before Led Zeppelin's over the top, retitled version, the band locks into a deep groove with Muddy Water's "You Need Love". Zeppelin changed the title to "Whole Lotta Love" and took the song writing credit. They were sued and lost. Danny matches John McVie's bass notes for a rock solid foundation and Green plays what must rank as one of his nastiest solos, utilizing the thin Stratocaster sound he used to similar effect on "Lazy Poker Blues". The only real down side is that Green oversells the vocals, deepening his voice as he intones "you need love, you got to have love". It's almost as if he were imitating Waters the way Jeremy did Elmore James.

The playing here also uncovers the seeds to Danny's "Loving Kind". This is most easily appreciated in the Boston Tea Party version of that song. Danny turns in another heavy blues workout with an hard take on his "A Talk With You". This was from his first radio session with the band, before they'd gone into the studio and he obviously wanted to make an impression. And he does, the "push me - pull you" interplay with Green already in evidence.

The disc wraps up with a jaunty run through T-Bone Walker's "Mean Old World" - using the version he cut for Atlantic Records in the 50's as their template. I believe this is from the same session as the previous two numbers and they take it at a swinging pace that belies the downbeat lyrics. Here again, the natural ambience of the studio adds to the feel as McVie sounds as if he was playing a stand-up, rather than electric bass.