{"id":23611,"date":"2022-08-28T05:30:13","date_gmt":"2022-08-28T09:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=23611"},"modified":"2026-04-20T16:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T20:54:10","slug":"five-blues-classics-from-fleetwood-mac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2022\/08\/28\/five-blues-classics-from-fleetwood-mac\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Blues Classics from Fleetwood Mac"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Another in my ongoing &#8220;Take Five&#8221; series&#8230;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Drummer Mick Fleetwood turned 75 on June 24. Throughout Fleetwood Mac\u2019s long and varied history, only he and bassist\/co-founder bassist John McVie have played on every one of the band\u2019s 17 studio albums. Fleetwood Mac broke through to superstardom with their 11th album, 1977\u2019s <em>Rumours<\/em>. But long before the band\u2019s soft-rock heyday, they were a powerful blues band. Here are five classics, delivered Fleetwood Mac style.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cHellhound on My Trail\u201d (Robert Johnson)<\/strong> \u2013 A 1937 song written by king of the Delta bluesmen Robert Johnson, \u201cHellhound\u201d would be as highlight of Fleetwood Mac\u2019s 1968 debut album. In contrast to the guitar-based original, Fleetwood Mac\u2019s reading features only Jeremy Spencer on vocal and piano.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FaXezkSQVA4\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cDust My Broom\u201d (Robert Johnson \/ Elmore James)<\/strong> \u2013 Included on Fleetwood Mac\u2019s second album, 1968\u2019s <em>Mr. Wonderful,<\/em> this song is most closely associated with slide guitarist Elmore James. Again, it\u2019s Jeremy Spencer who takes the lead, this time on guitar and vocals. Session pianist Christine Perfect can be heard in the mix as well; a few years later she\u2019d marry bassist John McVie and join the group.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/u76zz4dfcWY\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cOoh Baby\u201d (Howlin\u2019 Wolf)<\/strong> \u2013 In 1969 Fleetwood Mac traveled to Chicago, recording with a number of revered blues musicians including Otis Spann, Willie Dixon and Buddy Guy. Leader Peter Green takes the lead vocal on this spare, lean and mean reading of the Howlin\u2019 Wolf classic.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/EbU0cxN79uw\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cHi Ho Silver\u201d (\u201cHoney Hush\u201d) (Big Joe Turner)<\/strong> \u2013 Featuring lead vocals by Jeremy Spencer (one of three guitarists in the group) this track demonstrates Fleetwood Mac\u2019s appreciation of jump blues, the missing link between blues and rock. The Beatles played the song during the <em>Let it Be<\/em> sessions in January \u201869, with an arrangement closely modeled on this recording.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/SLtFX6v-RXQ\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cJumping at Shadows\u201d (Duster Bennett)<\/strong> \u2013 Peter Green wrings all of the haunted passion and subtlety out of this tune, recorded live in Boston in 1970. Originally planned for release shortly after the performance, the recordings wouldn&#8217;t see official release until 1985.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-j4t3cUmGzc\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Another in my ongoing &#8220;Take Five&#8221; series&#8230; Drummer Mick Fleetwood turned 75 on June 24. Throughout Fleetwood Mac\u2019s long and varied history, only he and bassist\/co-founder bassist John McVie have [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23612,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,27],"tags":[837,4913],"class_list":["post-23611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blues","category-essay","tag-fleetwood-mac","tag-peter-green","cat-9-id","cat-27-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23611"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31382,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23611\/revisions\/31382"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}