Green's Manalishi...

 

Pictured, some of Jane's charity-shop acquisitions from today: three old singles, and all in pretty decent nick, considering their considerable age. On top is a record that is dear to my heart: it charted in the summer of 1970 and I first heard it on the radio when I was holidaying in Ross-On-Wye with my mate Jeff and his parents: we were fifteen at the time and still forging our identities, both personally and musically. I remember this track coming out of the tiny little transistor radio [Google it if the reference is too obscure for your age group] and thinking 'my God, this is utterly brilliant'; so unlike anything that Fleetwood Mac had released thus far, and I'd been a fan for some time at that point. What I didn't realise in my naivety - and to be fair not many spotted it coming - was that this was probably the final signal of Peter Green's mental deterioration that led soon after to him leaving the band and living for many years as a virtual hermit, well away from music and the instrument that he was once the absolute master of; the electric guitar. His playing from that pre-collapse era is still unparalleled: no-one ever did, or will, hold a candle to the man's artistry, not even the legendary B.B King, whose style was so similar in his later years. The biggest difference between the two? King's career lasted for well over half a century; Green's less than a decade. He did make it back from the abyss for a few years, but he was neither the same man nor musician on his return. Pieces of history such as the above record are a direct slice of my sonic and musical past: memory pressed into vinyl, an analogue record of youth itself, and I'm glad of it for that fact alone...