Song of the Day 7/26: Fleetwood Mac feat. Peter Green, “Black Magic Woman”

To most Americans, Fleetwood Mac is a Los Angeles-based pop-rock group. To most Brits, it was among the best bands of the late-’60s electric blues explosion behind its singer and guitarist, Peter Green. That version of the band didn’t sell many records in the U.S., where Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page satisfied the heavy-blues market, but in Britain Green ranks right up there with them.

After replacing Clapton in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, Green, who died last week at age 73, founded Fleetwood Mac with drummer Mick Fleetwood and fronted the band from 1967 until 1970, when his drug use caused a mental breakdown. The band’s manager at the time, Clifford Davis, said,

“The truth about Peter Green and how he ended up how he did is very simple. We were touring Europe in late 1969. When we were in Germany, Peter told me he had been invited to a party. I knew there were going to be a lot of drugs around and I suggested that he didn’t go. But he went anyway and I understand from him that he took what turned out to be very bad, impure LSD. He was never the same again.”

Green spent most of the 1970s being treated for what was eventually termed schizophrenia, and while he contributed to various projects over the years, he never found — or even sought — commercial success again.

The Green-led Fleetwood Mac had several chart hits in the UK, but his best-known composition in America is “Black Magic Woman” — not his own version but Carlos Santana’s.

“Oh Well” was a highlight of the band’s blues repertoire, and it stayed in concert set lists until the 1990s.

The band’s last Green-penned chart hit in the UK was 1970’s “The Green Manalishi (With the Two-Prong Crown),” written after his mental problems had begun.