peter-green-era

Fleetwood Mac – The Pious Bird Of Good Omen

More of the Music of Fleetwood Mac

More of the Early Fleetwood Mac with Peter Green

  • An original UK Blue Horizon pressing that is doing practically everything right, with killer Nearly Triple Plus (A++ to A+++) sound from first note to last – just shy of our Shootout Winner
  • The early pressings take the cake on this one, but try to find one in audiophile playing condition – it takes us many years to get one of these shootouts going
  • Both of these sides are amazingly big and rich, with correct tonality, punchy energy and exceptionally breathy vocals – this is the way early Fleetwood Mac is supposed to sound
  • One of the top Fleetwood Mac compilations – I have it on CD and have never tired of the music
  • 4 1/2 stars: “…makes for a terrific laid-back stroll through some of the best British blues music ever made.”

If you’re a fan of Peter Green era Fleetwood Mac — and who in his right mind wouldn’t be? — then you can’t go wrong with this record. “Need Your Love So Bad,” “Albratross” and “Black Magic Woman” are all featured here.

Speaking of “Black Magic Woman,” the better copies of Pious Bird reproduce the bass-heavy drumming on that track much better than the Greatest Hits album we also recommend. It’s very unlikely that you can find better sound for that classic than right here on this very copy.

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Beware The Green Manalishi with the Two Prong Crown

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Reviews and Commentaries for Fleetwood Mac

Many years ago, more than 20 in fact!, a copy of this record was returned by one of my customers for poor sound quality, so I threw it back on the turntable to see if I had been mistaken in my judgement of its sound.

I confess that hearing the first track again, The Green Manalishi, was painful — it’s the worst sounding song on the album.

But then Oh Well starts up, and it’s full of midrange magic, ambience and is exceptionally transparent.

The sound varies from track to track after that, but if your stereo can’t find the magic on records like this, you seriously need to look into some better equipment.

This record sounds amazing on our system and it ought to at your house too.

The real test for a stereo is to get difficult to reproduce recordings to sound good, not easy to reproduce recordings.

If you want to test your system after doing some tweaking and tuning, these are the kinds of difficult to reproduce records that will allow you to do it.

When these records start sounding better, there’s a good chance that whatever you did to your system to improve it actually worked.

And if you’re up for a challenge and want to buy some records that can sound great but are difficult to reproduce, these Hot Stamper pressings should do the trick.

We Love the Early Fleetwood Mac

This is the first iteration of the band from way back in the day, back when they were playing their unique brand of Blues Rock with Peter Green leading the band — about as far from Rumours as you can get. If you like British Blues Rock I don’t think any other band can hold a candle to the Mac from this period. Clapton may have been considered a god but Green is the better guitar player; this album is proof of that.

The best track that the early F Mac ever did? Oh, it’s here all right: “Need Your Love So Bad.” If that one doesn’t get to you deep in your soul, check your pulse. You may be dead.

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Fleetwood Mac – The Original Fleetwood Mac

More Fleetwood Mac

More British Blues Rock

  • This incredible UK import pressing boasts a Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) side two mated to a seriously good Double Plus (A++) side one
  • Most of the time this album sounds like Fleetwood Mac is playing live in the studio, which they probably were, and on big speakers at loud volumes that is a glorious sound
  • 4 stars: “An undeniably strong collection culled primarily from the band’s first incarnation, featuring John McVie, Mick Fleetwood, Peter Green, and Jeremy Spencer.”
  • If you’re a Fleetwood Mac fan, and what audiophile wouldn’t be?, this Peter Green era title from 1971 is one of their best sounding

The music on this album was recorded when they were still a blues band — tracks left off their early albums for one reason or another.

As is so often the case with unreleased material, these songs do not have that overproduced, too-many-generations-of-tape sound. This sounds like Fleetwood Mac live in the studio most of the time. In other words, awesome.

If the drum sound on the first track isn’t enough to convince you this is an amazing sounding record, I don’t know what would.

These British imports are the only way to go. The domestic copies are definitely made from dub tapes. They can sound good, but they sure never sound this good! (more…)

Fleetwood Mac / Greatest Hits

More Fleetwood Mac

More British Blues Rock

  • An excellent vintage British pressing on the original CBS Solid Orange label with Double Plus (A++) sound from first note to last
  • Big, rich, energetic, with tons of Analog Tubey Magic, this original Orange Label UK pressing has exactly the right sound for this music
  • “Oh Well, Parts One and Two,” “Black Magic Woman,” “Man of the World,” and the surprise Number One single “Albatross” are all here and guaranteed to blow your mind
  • Peter Green is hands down our favorite British Blues Guitarist of All Time – play this record and you will surely see why we feel that way
  • We’ve recently compiled a list of records we think every audiophile should get to know, along the lines of “the 1001 records you need to hear before you die,” but with less of an accent on morbidity and more on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life.

If you’re a fan of Fleetwood Mac, this copy is guaranteed to blow your mind. Like all the best vintage British pressings, the sound is smooth, rich and full. This is Old School ANALOG, baby. They don’t make ’em like this anymore because they don’t know how to.

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Fleetwood Mac – Find a Copy with Drums that Punch Through the Mix

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Reviews and Commentaries for Fleetwood Mac

Many pressings are compressed, murky, veiled and recessed. To find one that is transparent, clear, present and punchy is no mean feat.

Proper cleaning is essential. The early Orange label CBS pressings (the only ones that have the potential to win shootouts) too often just sound like old records until they have been properly cleaned.

There are two tracks to play to hear how well the drums punch through the mix.

Mick Fleetwood is banging the hell out of his toms on Black Magic Woman. If it doesn’t sound like he’s really pounding away, you need a better copy.

Or a better stereo; one must always be open to the possibility that the system may not be up to reproducing the punchiness of the drums.

Oh Well Part 1 has some big drums too, which means you can check both sides of your copy for how punchy the drums are.

Fleetwood Mac’s Greatest Hits is a Big Speaker record. It requires speakers that can move air with authority below 250 cycles and play at fairly loud levels. If you don’t own speakers that can do that, this record will never really sound the way it should.

Most of the music is not in the deeper bass anyway. It’s the whack of instruments whose energy is in the lower midrange and mid-bass that screens and smallish box speakers will struggle with.

A good large-driver dynamic speaker fed by fast electronics can usually handle the energy in that range with ease.

Take this album with you next time you head to your local stereo store to audition speakers.

It will help clarify the issues. Screens and small boxes do many things well, but drums are not one of them, at least not in my experience.

This and hundreds of other albums like it are precisely the kinds of recording that drove me to pursue big stereo systems driving big dynamic speakers. You need a lot of piston area to bring this recording to life, and to get the size of all the instruments to match their real life counterparts.

For that you need big speakers in big cabinets, the kind I’ve been listening to for more than forty years. My last small speaker was given the boot around 1974 or so and I have never looked back.

To tell you the truth, the Big Sound is the only sound that I can enjoy. Anything less just doesn’t do it for me. It doesn’t sound like live music.

If you are looking for the Big Sound sound, we have a list of Demo Discs that can deliver it like nothing you’ve ever heard.

For more What to Listen For advice on other titles we have auditioned, please click here.

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The Fleetwood Mac You Don’t Know – The Self-Titled First Album & English Rose

More of the Music of Fleetwood Mac 

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Fleetwood Mac

You just can’t write better songs than Love That Burns or Black Magic Woman, both of which can be found here. And Albatross, the mellow instrumental that closes out side four, was a Number One hit in the UK in 1969, can you believe it? It was backed on some releases by Need Your Love So Bad, another one of our all time favorite Fleetwood Mac covers. The band was on fire back when Peter Green was at the helm. These two LPs are proof enough.

The material found on this American-only compilation is tough to come by on vinyl; their early albums barely charted in the states and are anything but plentiful. The Peter-Green-led blues band that performed this music was huge in England however, and for me, personally, I would take Fleetwood Mac as a blues band over any other blues band from the period.

Keep in mind that some of these recordings are engineered to sound like old blues songs from the thirties and forties. Don’t expect audiophile sound on those tracks because it’s just not on the master tapes that way.

But it’s easy enough to tell when the material sounds right, and that’s all we are after here — the right sound.

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Peter Green – The Last of a Hundred Deaths

The Last of a Hundred Deaths

We Love the Early Fleetwood Mac with Peter Green

This is the first iteration of the band from way back in the day, back when they were playing their unique brand of Blues Rock with Peter Green leading the band — about as far from Rumours as you can get.

If you like British Blues Rock I don’t think any other band can hold a candle to the Mac from this period. Clapton may have been considered a god but Green is the better guitar player; this album is proof of that.

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Fleetwood Mac – The Pious Bird Of Good Omen

More of the Music of Fleetwood Mac

More of the Early Fleetwood Mac with Peter Green

Pious Bird is without a doubt the best introduction to the early iteration of Fleetwood Mac.

It’s an album that belongs in any right thinking audiophile’s collection.

If you’re a fan of Peter Green era Fleetwood Mac — and who in his right mind wouldn’t be — then you can’t go wrong with this record. Need Your Love So Bad, Albratross and Black Magic Woman are all featured here.

Speaking of Black Magic Woman, the best copies of Pious Bird reproduce the bass-heavy drumming on that track much better than the Greatest Hits album we also recommend. It’s very unlikely that you can find better sound for that classic than right here on this very copy.

Repeat

I have the CD of Pious Bird in my car and let me tell you I’m more than happy to let it repeat for days at a time. I love the early BLUESY Mac on this album, a group that’s about as far from the players on Rumours as you can imagine. (Actually that’s not true; two fifths of the Mac, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, anchor both eras of the band, but the music made pre-1969 compared to that from 1975 onwards couldn’t be more different.)

The Players

  • Peter Green – vocals, guitar, harmonica (left in 1970 after Then Play On)
  • Jeremy Spencer – vocals, slide guitar (left in 1971 after Kiln House)
  • Danny Kirwan – vocals, electric guitar (left in 1972 after Bare Trees )
  • John McVie – bass guitar (still rockin’)
  • Mick Fleetwood – drums (still rockin’)

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Fleetwood Mac – Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac

  • Dramatically more impressive than any other copy we played – Triple Plus (A+++) throughout – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • The size, clarity, presence and energy are off the charts – and talk about Tubey Magic, this pressing is overflowing with it
  • The Mac’s debut is an extraordinary collection of Guitar-Based British Blues and an album that’s rarely on the site with sound this good and surfaces this clean
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Fleetwood Mac’s debut LP was a highlight of the late-’60s British blues boom. Green’s always inspired playing, the capable (if erratic) songwriting, and the general panache of the band as a whole placed them leagues above the overcrowded field…”

This is the band back in the day when they were playing their unique brand of Blues Rock, with Peter Green leading the band, about as far from Rumours as you can get. If you like British Blues Rock, I don’t think any other band can hold a candle to the Mac back then. Clapton may have been considered a god but I think Green is the better guitar player. 

The pluck of the guitar transients aren’t smeary and dull for once. There’s real extension up top, a big help to the cymbals, and the vocals sound tonally correct with just the right presence, placing Green front and center but still keeping the band in the mix. Like a good vintage Brit record, the sound is smooth, rich and full.

This is ANALOG, baby. They don’t make ’em like this anymore because they don’t know how. (more…)

Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac – A Simply Vinyl Winner

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Reviews and Commentaries for Fleetwood Mac

Sonic Grade: B

This 160 gram Simply Vinyl pressing has EXCELLENT sound. This is the early, BLUESY Mac, about as far from Rumours as you can get. The sound here dark and smooth like a good British Blues album should be.  Simply Vinyl did a superb job here.

Correction: an unnamed mastering engineer at the label that owns the tape did a superb job. Simply Vinyl isn’t in the business of mastering or remastering ANYTHING. They leave that up to the pros at the record labels.

Sometimes those guys screw it up and sometimes they get it right.