PETE; THE GREAT SURVIVOR
03 September 2002
A short history lesson for you.
Peter Green was the founder member of Fleetwood Mac. An unusual name for a band. It made no sense until you realised it involved not just Green but Mick Fleetwood the drummer and ..MacVie the bass player. To cut a long story short. Pete was on the British blues circit along with the like of John Mayall, The Pretty Things. It became huge. Tours to America. Excess. The sixties. Shit loads of acid and other drugs unheard of at the time.
Pete became a rock casualty. Taking shit loads of acid and what ever put him a state of cronick schizophrenia. Pete lost it big time. He dropped out of the band he had created. Refused to play guitar ever again. When a courier came by his house to give him a royalty check for his songs Pete pulled out a shot gun saying that money belongs to the family of the old blues artists that had never seen a penny in their lives. And Pete was so adiment about this that they had to section the guy in a mental institution.
Pete spent many years in and out of mental institutions. In those days they didn't know what to do with you. The answer was electro shock treatmentconstantly. Now its different. They just give you easy to swollow drugs that make you a zombie but they are desighned that no way you can O D on them. User friendly. Friendly for the patients or the Psychiatric Nurses? Who knows.
Anyway Pete disapeard for more than fifteen years. Nobody knew where the fuck he was. Sure we knew where Syd Barret was. Another rock and Roll fuck up. Syd was living with his Mother in Cambridge. But where was Pete?
Some one did track down Pete. A documentry crew who were making a film about the virtues of the seventies, Rumours, Stevie Nicks kind of Fleetwood Mac. As a foot note they thought they should interview Peter Green. They tracked him down. Living in a house of squallor in Richmond. They asked Pete "if Mick Fleetwood asked you to play on their next album. Would you do it?" Pete's answer was, "No. I don't own a guitar and my finger nails are too long."
I thought "Pete your gone man. Like Syd your not coming back are you",
Years went by. God smiled on Pete. Some compassionate person took him and his problems under their wing. They gave him a stable home. Gave him a guitar. Got him on the rifgt medication. Pete started to record again.
On September this year I saw Peter at the Jazz Café in Camden, London. Camden is just up the road from me. The tickets were very expensive but I wanted to go. I wanted to see how the old boy was doing. I wanted to see if Pete was great or crap. Morbid curiosity you could say.
Me and Ella, my wife turned up at the venue. We waited for Pete and the Splinter Group to come on stage what seemed for ages. When Pete came on stage I was thinking "Oh no. This is going to be sad. Pete looked as if he didn't know where he was or what he was doing there." The Roadie literally put his guitar on him. I thought " The band is going to have to carry him all the way through this show. This is sad, man. Do I want to see this?"
But my fears were unfounded. As soon as the first chord was played Pete was there. Tight as ever . Working his guitar like never before. And his vacant exspresion turned to one of complete joy. A kind of halo appeared over his head. Glowing gold with diamonds and emeralds. It was like Pete was thinking "Ok the world has thrown tons of shit at me. But I'm back. I'm playing guitar again. I'm doing what I wanted to do. To play Rock 'n' Roll.
I'll be doing this till I drop down dead.."
And I felt a kind of kindred spirit with Pete. I thought "Your right. That's what its all about. To do what you were born to do no matter the odds. Music is the best."
Long live Peter Green. A great survivor.
Sexton Ming