Peter Green

Caught up in a spiritual crisis, guitarist Peter Green (born Greenbaum) left Fleetwood Mac in May 1970. He went on to record a solo album (released at the end of the year), but soon after he disappeared from the scene, giving rise to one of the most unique cases in rock music. He donated all of the profits made from his records to charity, spent time wandering between England and Israel, and found work as an undertaker, a bartender and a nurse. Having lost track of the legendary guitarist, the rock world envisaged him as a historical myth of intransigence against the establishment. In reality, he had ended up in a psychiatric hospital, doped up on drugs. After being released, he moved to the USA, got married and started to play again. In 1979 he returned to recording, disappointing the great expectations of those who thought he was a misunderstood genius.

This however does not detract from the fact that The End Of The Game (Reprise, 1970) is a masterpiece. A purely instrumental album which was likely the natural continuation of a record that had remained unfinished after the track Supernatural from Hard Road. Endless echos chasing each other through equatorial forests, hallucinated guitar deliriums, primordial music that exhales from the bowels of the world, a soliloquy that slowly erupts and an expansion of consciousness that passes softly from madness to ecstasy make up this track. The atmosphere, more than in a jazz session, is like a magical propitiatory ritual.
The guitar dominates from one side of the record to the other, sometimes fierce, sometimes sleepy. In Bottom’s Up there is a conceited babble over a very strong, obsessive, almost tribal rhythm, which builds an atmosphere of dread. This then subsides into dissonant phrases, like groans of agony, and slowly begins to rise to a stormy crescendo. The most tribal dance of the record is however Burnt Food. One of the most exhilarating rhythmic progressions in the history of blues, it literally takes your breath away.
In the meditative tracks, Green’s guitar is more measured, but no less suggestive. In Timeless Times you are suspended in a sort of expanded mantra, accompanied only by cymbals. Meanwhile, Green took advantage of the contribution from Zoot Money and came up with one of the most amazing jazz-rock tracks ever, maintaining the “modal” improvisations of acid-rock. In Descending Scale, an exercise in which the piano (Zoot Money) and the guitar have fun pulverising the musical scale, a duet of yells and groans, atrocious spasms of dissonances alternating with flashes of psychedelic ecstasy, and crazy orgasmic runs up and down those (metaphysical) scales. In Hidden Depth, the atmosphere is scattered and expanded like in acid-rock.
The final track is The End Of The Game, which includes the mad, drunk, lustful shrieking of the guitar, the supreme chant of fear, despair and loneliness, and the last breath before nothingness and eternity.
Every track is the evocation of the threatening and oppressive climate of the jungle and the occult rituals of primitive populations. At the same time, it is an oriental prayer, or a lysergic journey. However, at any metaphorical level, his experiments on guitar remain as absolute values: these tracks are also mini concerts of dissonances, atmospheric touches and piercing wah-wahs. Green took the blues concept of the guitar as a “second voice” to the extreme. These tracks are lyrical and hypnotic fragments that trace the course of his existential crisis and his spiritual conversion to an arcane religion of infinity.

After a couple of singles (another two in 1972) and a legendary 90-minute version of Black Magic Woman that was improvised live, we once again lost track of him.

After a long hiatus, Peter Green returned to the scene with In The Skies (PVC, 1979). Although it wasn’t terrible, it also didn’t have any of the genius of End Of The Game. More mediocre albums followed, which for marketing reasons belonged to him, but were actually largely composed by his brother, Michael. In 1985 his mental health once again worsened, and his name disappeared again for years (the three discs of this period are anthologies). In 1995 he formed the Splinter Group and two years later they released their first album which was a sort of return to his blues origins. The fact that the group continued to release at least one album a year proves that Green was finally free of his inner ghosts.

Green died in 2020 at the age of 73.

Cio` non toglie che The End Of The Game (Reprise, 1970), album puramente strumentale, sia un capolavoro, probabilmente la naturale continuazione di un disco che era rimasto interrotto dopo il brano Supernatural su Hard Road: echi d'infinito che si rincorrono per foreste equatoriali e deliri allucinati di chitarra, musica primordiale che esala dalle viscere del mondo, un soliloquio che deflagra lentamente, un'espansione della coscienza che trapassa dolcemente dalla follia all'estasi. L'atmosfera, piu` che da session jazz, e` da rituale magico propiziatorio.
La chitarra domina da un capo all'altro del disco, ora stridula, ora feroce, ora sonnambula. In Bottom's Up blatera petulante su un ritmo fortissimo, ossessivo, quasi tribale, costruendo un clima di terrore che poi si placa in frasi dissonanti, come in un farnetico di agonia, e riprende lentamente a salire in un crescendo tempestoso. La danza piu` tribale del disco e` pero` Burnt Food, forte di una delle progressioni ritmiche piu` trascinanti della storia del blues, da togliere letteralmente il fiato.
Nei brani meditativi la chitarra di Green e` piu` misurata, ma non meno suggestiva. In Timeless Time si sospende in una specie di mantra dilatatissimo, accompagnata soltanto dai piatti. Altrove, avvalendosi del contributo di Money, Green disegna uno dei jazz-rock piu` geniali di sempre, tenendo presente le improvvisazioni "modali" dell' acid-rock. In Descending Scale, un esercizio in cui piano (Zoot Money) e chitarra si divertono a polverizzare la scala musicale, un duetto di urla e gemiti, spasimi atroci di dissonanze che si alternano a sprazzi di estasi psichedelica, e folli corse orgasmiche su e giu' per quelle (metafisiche) scale. In Hidden Depth l'atmosfera e` di nuovo diffratta e dilatata come nell' acid-rock.
Il finale e` The End Of The Game, con la chitarra che strilla impazzita, ubriaca, lasciva, l'inno supremo alla paura, alla disperazione, alla solitudine, l'ultimo respiro prima del nulla e dell'eterno.
Ogni brano e` l'evocazione del clima minaccioso e opprimente della jungla e dei rituali occulti delle popolazioni primitive; e al tempo stesso e` una preghiera orientale, o un viaggio lisergico. Ma, a qualunque livello metaforico, rimangono come valori assoluti i suoi esperimenti alla chitarra: quei brani sono anche dei mini-concerti di dissonanze, di tocchi atmosferici, di wah-wah lancinanti. Green ha portato alle estreme conseguenze il concetto blues della chitarra come "seconda voce". Quei brani sono frammenti lirici e ipnotici che tracciano la rotta della sua crisi esistenziale e della sua mistica conversione a una arcana religione dell'infinito.

Dopo qualche singolo (ancora due nel 1972) e una leggendaria versione di novanta minuti improvvisata dal vivo di Black Magic Woman, di lui si persero le tracce.

Dopo una lunga assenza, Peter Green torno` sulle scene con In The Skies (PVC, 1979), che non era malvagio ma non aveva nulla del genio di End Of The Game. Gli fecero pero` seguito album mediocri che gli appartenevano soltanto per ragioni marketing, ma in realta` erano in gran parte composti da suo fratello Michael. Nel 1985 le sue condizioni mentali peggiorarono di nuovo e per anni il suo nome scomparve di nuovo (i tre dischi di questo periodo sono antologie). Nel 1995 formo` lo Splinter Group, che due anni dopo pubblico` il primo album, una specie di ritorno alle sue origini blues. Il fatto che il gruppo abbia continuato a pubblicare almeno un album all'anno prova che Green si e` finalmente liberato dei suoi fantasmi interiori.

Green e` morto nel 2020.