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Fri 24 October 2025 21:45, UK
While Fleetwood Mac ultimately made the right choice when it came to the sliding doors moment of their career, there was a very different, and perhaps equally exciting pathway another door could have provided.
Yes, the one they opened provided them with a seat at the table of rock royalty. Once they finally landed on their premier line-up in 1975, a world of dream-rock immortality awaited, largely at the hands of their new songwriters, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. Suddenly, they were tapping into something the rest of the dense 1970s scene hadn’t yet figured out and so became pioneers of this new pop straddling rock sound.
It came with a big sigh of relief for the band’s leaders, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, who, ever since the mid-1960s, had been scratching around for greatness. But those years were just as competitive as the mid-1970s, particularly in the city in which Fleetwood Mac were trying to make it, London.
Amidst this lively blues scene that the capital’s dingy bars were hiding, were some of the following decade’s greatest musicians, cutting their teeth. Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, and Jeff Beck are the most notable of all. But lurking in the shadows were Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, soaking up the mentorship of John Mayall and trying to figure out who amongst this community could act as their charismatic and world-conquering frontman.
In Peter Green, they found him. He was not only a charismatic figure whose voice could tell lyrical stories with nuance and character, but he was a master guitarist too. The way he played was the envy of some of the scene’s biggest hitters, and with all of his attributes combined, he highlighted a bright new future for this band.
So he quickly gained admirers in the heady London scene in which the band populated, with Jimmy Page calling him the “complete package” and admitting that his iconic Fleetwood Mac song ‘Oh Well’ was actually a source of inspiration for a later Led Zeppelin track. But it was the premier band of the decade that also sat up and took note of Green and Fleetwood Mac.
In Peter Jackson’s intensely revealing 2021 documentary, The Beatles: Get Back, John Lennon can be seen gushing over the band and, in particular, their frontman, as the band noodle about in the studio. In between songs and fleeting ideas, Lennon proclaims his love for their performance on Late Night Live, sparking intrigue among his fellow bandmates.
“They’re so sweet, man,” he said. “And their lead singer’s [Peter Green] great. You know, looks great, and he sort of sings quiet as well. He’s not a shouter.” Paul McCartney agreed, saying they sounded like Canned Heat. “Yeah, but better than Canned Heat,” Lennon defiantly claims.
Sadly, the conversation is followed by an impromptu jam of Canned Heat’s ‘Going Up The Country’ when really it should have been Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Oh Well’. I guess, like the future of Fleetwood Mac led by Green, we’ll just have to imagine what that was like.
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