WHAT IF…

 

Peter Green Had Never Taken Acid

It’s easy to underestimate how good -and how big - Fleetwood Mac was at the end of the Sixties. They never really made it huge over in America until the Rumours era, when they sold a copy of that great smooth, LA soft rock masterpiece to every man, woman and child in the Western world. 

But the Mac of Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham was a very different creature to the one born out of John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers in 1967. Peter Green had replaced Eric Clapton in that band. Some thought that the man his fans called ‘God’ would be a tough act to follow. Mayall just said: “Don’t worry, we got someone better.”

Green and Mick Fleetwood broke away from Mayall and John McVie joined them shortly afterwards, the new Fleetwood Mac were soon began producing superb British blues with a psychedelic tinge. Black Magic Woman didn’t do too well (although it didn’t fare too badly in Santana's hands later) but Albatross, that beautiful and timeless instrumental (a kinda update of Santo & Johnny’s 50s hit Sleepwalk), was a number one. Green showed his song-writing brilliance, and a hint of the dark to come, on Man Of The World.

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'd never been born

As lyrics go that is pretty heavy. Hook it up to a portentous riff and you had not only a big hit single but also a hugely influential sound. You can hear echoes of Man Of The World years later in Zeppelin’s Ten Years Gone and even in the early 90s quiet-then-loud-then-quiet grunge movement. The following year he wrote The Green Manalishi which was a mini horror movie complete with doomy riff and banshee wailing that, in hindsight, confirmed Greeny was mining a dark if rich seam in his soul. This was radical, thrilling rock music.

He took (was given?) LSD in Munich and disappeared for three days, it was probably the major tipping point; his descent into madness was quick and terrible. Green became utterly disillusioned with the band, with the lifestyle. He was obsessed by money and felt he did not deserve it, could not handle it and did not need it. He had a vision of an angel holding a starving Biafran child aloft and became convinced the band should and must give all their money away. The others? Not so much. Greeny left the Mac not long after and sold his gorgeous Gibby Gold Top to Gary Moore.

Fleetwood Mac, of course, went on to bazillionaire success with the wonderful coked-up, laid-back LA rock of Fleetwood Mac, Rumours, Tusk and Tango In The Night.

Greeny’s output was less prolific. 1970’s End Of The Game is a jam album, 1979’s In The Skies is a lovely piece of gentle blues music clearly made by a man who was still in a fragile state. For years he was a recluse with, in classic style, long finger nails and massive beard. Then with the aid of better medication, he re-emerged in the late 90s with The Splinter Group to make decent blues again. 

If Greeny hadn’t been damaged by acid, there’s little doubt that The Mac would have gone on to make a lot more music in the 70s, probably following the British post blues boom fashion for being heavier and louder. They had already produced some classic singles and were more popular than the Beatles and Zeppelin in 1969. As rock n roll really got into its groove, they were ahead of the pack and it’s impossible to imagine them not being one of the biggest bands of rock's classic era – which of course they were – if in an entirely different mode.

Without the acid Peter would be talked of in the same breath as Clapton and Jimmy Page as one of rock’s greatest architects of the riff instead of being the under-stated guitarist’s guitarist that he is today. He probably wouldn’t have put up with all that, breathy, Stevie Nicks business on Tango In The Night either, as nice as it must be to have Stevie panting in your ear.

Acid changed both Greeny and the future of rock in the 70s utterly. It robbed us of one of the Les Paul’s greatest exponents and it robbed Greeny of his sanity. A long strange trip indeed.

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What If… The Beatles Had Stayed Together Through The 1970s?

The reasons for the break-up are well known: simmering tensions between John and Paul over musical direction, George’s resentment that his growth as a songwriter wasn’t being harnessed, Yoko, the failure to replace Brian Epstein, the influence of the slippery Alan Klein and general business-side headaches.

But maybe the band broke down simply because, like any relationship, The Beatles had been too close for too long and they couldn’t take any more. The extraordinary decade they had enjoyed made them tight-knit – who, even other rock superstars, could really appreciate the sheer depth and breadth of their success and fame? – but had allowed them little time to grow as individuals.

When John told Paul he was leaving in September 1969, he was not yet 30, Paul was 27, George only 26. Their entire adult lives had been spent living cheek by jowl together in an incredible burst of creativity, glory and sheer bloody hard work. The relationship needn’t have broken down: they just needed a break.

If they had taken some time off and carried on, what would have been the results? 

We reckon that they could have carried on throughout the Seventies and made some great records because if ever a band were more than the sum of its parts, it was The Beatles. Post-Beatles, both George and Paul veered pretty much towards the middle of the road, although that’s not to say that All Things Must Pass and Band On The Run weren’t fine work in their own right. John, of course, produced some genuine classics but it was all a bit hit and miss. Ringo surprised everyone by being the first to have hit singles before hitting the bottle big time. 

Had they stayed together, they could have shaped and dominated the heavy movement as they had shaped pop: the playing on ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’ and ‘Why Don’t We Do It The Road’ revealed a band that could have effortlessly held their own with any of the hard blues groups of the Led Zep stripe. Many have said Helter Skelter all but invented heavy metal with its powerful cascading riff-a-rama.

Tracks such as Tomorrow Never Knows and the second side of Abbey Road, not to say the whole concept of Sgt  Pepper was proof that had they wanted to go down the progressive rock long and winding triple album concept road, they were more than capable. Certainly, George’s Indian music could have been accommodated in that prog context as could Paul’s penchant for orchestral arrangements and sweeping melodies. Mix it in with John’s acerbic politics and it could have been magnificent. 

But as the decade progressed and punk became the new revolution, could they have adapted to that challenge? They’d have been in their 30s and together for over sixteen years. It seems likely that, as with many bands, that punk saw as the enemy,  they would have totally understood the back-to-basic energy and DIY spirit of ’76 because it was their own roots back in the clubs of Hamburg in the early 60s.  But its hard to see them toe-to-toe with the Pistols at the 100 club. The scorched earth policy of punk would have been too narrow for them as musicians.

It's more easy to imagine them branching out into the electronic experimentation of what was affectionately known as ‘Krautrock.’ On Magical Mystery Tour, with songs like Flying, they had demonstrated a virtuosity with looping and sequencing that hinted at a sort of pre-electro flair. With John’s relentless invention and pursuit of the avant-garde mixed, not with the batty, folie à deux indulgence of his collaborations with Yoko but with Paul’s structural genius and sense of order, they could have been making records of the Kraftwerk or Tangerine Dream type by the middle of the decade.  

While their solo records hint at little of this, The Beatles' individual brilliance blended all their myriad interests and inspirations into a uniquely creative stew. Add into the mix George Martin’s studio expertise and its not much of a stretch to see them making some radical and fascinating music in the 70s. After all, they had ushered in the acoustic singer-songwriter style so popular in the early 70s as far back as 1964 with songs such as Yesterday. 

So, those Beatles, eh? What did they ever do for us? Other than pioneering the use of distortion, filters, backwards tapes, four-track recording, overlaying tracks, having a seven-minute number one hit, a dozen studio albums of which – what ? – ten are works of genius,  music videos, being the first British band to crack the US, the first stadium gig, the first concept album (arguably)… still, we’re greedy, and we reckon they could have carried on being the pre-eminent force in any genre they chose.