Mick Fleetwood: He went immediately for the human touch. July 24, 1966: John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers play their first proper gig with Peter Green in the band, at the Britannia Rowing Club, Nottingham. There were guitar style wars going on between them all that stuff about ‘Clapton is God’ being sprayed on the walls was real! And as soon as the session was finished, we’d be out to gig.Īfter the album came out, a strange situation developed, because this upstart guy named Peter Green started playing with Mayall. We played together a lot as a band, so we’d just go in and do takes live, with no overdubs. John McVie (bass): It was done at Decca studios in West Hampstead in less than a month. July 22, 1966: John Mayall’s new album, Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton – recorded before Green replaced Clapton – is released. John Mayall: He was a little hesitant at first because he’d been offered a job with Eric Burdon which entailed going to America, which Peter had always wanted to do, but the music Burdon was playing wasn’t as attractive to Peter as playing blues, so he opted to come back with me. Do you want to come with me and get some experience? And be a blues band again instead of trying to be Booker T & the M.G.’s?” Peter Green: I bumped into John Mayall on the road and he said: “Eric Clapton’s going to form Cream, with Ginger and Jack. It’s when you lose a bass player that you’re in trouble. As long as you have the same rhythm section, then things don’t change that much. John Mayall: With Peter back in the band, the way we played stayed pretty much the same.
June 17, 1966: With Eric Clapton having abandoned Mayall’s Bluesbreakers again, Peter Green is brought in to replace him once more. But shortly after a lot of soul searching on his part, Peter left. There was a lot of money out there to be earned in the clubs we played, like the Flamingo in Soho, and the Ram Jam Club in Brixton, but we didn’t see big wage packets at the end of the hard week’s work, and that led to discontent, too.ĭave Ambrose: We did a single on Columbia which was a minor hit. May 6, 1966: Shotgun Express play at the Beachcomber club in Nottingham.īeryl Marsden: The music hadn’t happened organically. They have been brought in at the behest of Flamingo owners Rik and John Gunnell, hoping not just to expand the band’s musical range but also to create a white soul ‘supergroup’.ĭave Ambrose (bass): When Rod Stewart and Beryl Marsden came in as singers, the band changed to Shotgun Express, doing mainly soul and Tamla Motown songs. This guy’s special.”Īpril 29, 1966: Peter B’s Looners play at the Carousel Club, Farnborough, with an augmented line-up including vocalists Rod Stewart and Beryl Marsden. To Peter Bardens’s credit, he pulled me aside and said: “You’re wrong. He only played a couple of licks, variations on a theme, Freddie King. He had a great sound, as they say, but me and the bassist, Dave Ambrose, didn’t think he knew enough about the guitar. Mick Fleetwood: Peter came to audition… We were a very simple instrumental band, a lot of Booker T, Mose Allison. As well as Peter Green, the group also includes drummer Mick Fleetwood, both of whom will become founder members of Fleetwood Mac. Peter Green: I was only there for a week, and then I went with Peter B’s Looners.ĭecember 24, 1965: Georgie Fame And The Blue Flames, supported by instrumental band Peter B’s Looners, led by organist Peter Bardens, play at the Flamingo. Peter wasn’t very pleased about that, but that was the way it was.
Eric returned with a tan, and Peter was out again. John Mayall: Unfortunately it was only a couple of weeks before Eric came back from Greece. Anyway, he let me on the train.Īugust 25, 1965: John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, featuring Eric Clapton, the guitarist newly returned from Greece, play at Putney Pontiac Club. Peter Green: John said I could play a little bit, and he said: "You’ve got the feeling", or something similar. He had played in several local bands, the best known of which was perhaps The Muskrats, but he was not a big name. Mike Vernon (Blue Horizon label founder and producer): Peter was an unknown quantity at this time. Then Peter came up to me during a gig at the Flamingo in Wardour Street and was fairly forceful, very insistent that he was better than the guy I had on stage that night, so I gave him a shot. I got a lot of replies to an ad I put in the Melody Maker, so I was auditioning different players every night, letting them sit in to see how they worked out. For me it was panic stations, because we’d come to rely on him so much and there were so few people to choose from as a replacement. So he decided to get some friends together and go off to Greece. John Mayall: I guess Eric just became bored with it.
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