Podcast Instant Vinyle: Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac

In this new episode, L’Instant Vinyle offers a double discovery: the first album by Fleetwood Mac, released in 1968, and Olivier Païssé, a major figure in the history of Lyon’s rock scene.

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PETER GREEN'S FLEETWOOD MAC avec OLIVIER PAÏSSÉ – L'INSTANT VINYLE DE BLUES ACTU RADIO – L'INSTANT VINYLE

An essential figure of Lyon’s rock scene

For more than 50 years, Olivier Païssé has been recording concerts, assisted by Vartan Ohanian and Christophe Markarian, a team of videographers. These recordings can be found on his YouTube channel Lolive69, which has now reached 1,300,000 views.

Olivier is obsessed with live music. His approach was initially “pirate,” but it quickly gained recognition. As early as 1989, one of his live recordings was selected for the various editions of Reste Encore by Kent, a major artist on the French music scene.

While Olivier Païssé first started recording during the cassette era, his work gradually evolved toward professional-quality productions, with the support of on-site sound engineers and, of course, the artists’ approval. The recordings he later mixed notably helped several official live albums come to life. Thanks to him, an extraordinary audio and video archive is now available online.

Choosing to present the first Fleetwood Mac album on L’Instant Vinyle came naturally to him.

Fleetwood Mac: a band with very distinct eras

Everyone knows Fleetwood Mac, the globally successful band based in the United States. But originally, in the late 1960s, the group was British and made up of three former members of John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers: John McVie, Mick Fleetwood and Peter Green. They recruited Jeremy Spencer, a slide guitar specialist, and formed Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac, the band that recorded the album we are focusing on today in 1968. A third guitarist, Danny Kirwan, joined the adventure in 1969. The group then recorded several legendary British Blues Boom albums until 1970, when Peter Green left due to severe psychiatric problems. Jeremy Spencer joined a religious cult the following year, while Danny Kirwan also departed shortly after because of alcohol-related issues.

Nevertheless, the band survived through numerous line-up changes, notably with the arrival of Christine McVie, wife of bassist John McVie, until the formation of the “American” Fleetwood Mac: Californians Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham joined Christine McVie alongside founders Mick Fleetwood and John McVie starting in 1975.

Peter Green remains a true blues legend. With the exception of the remarkable album In The Skies, released in 1979, he unfortunately recorded very little of significance after the 1960s. What remains are immortal songs such as Supernatural, The Stumble and Black Magic Woman, later popularized by Santana. These tracks can be found on historic albums where his extraordinary talents as both musician and songwriter reached their peak: A Hard Road, the album on which he replaced Eric Clapton in John Mayall’s band, and of course the albums recorded with Fleetwood Mac.