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Fleetwood Mac

Blues / Blues rock & the British blues boom · 1968

Fleetwood Mac

Fleetwood Mac

Why listen

Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer place their own songs beside American blues, giving twelve short tracks several distinct guitar-led directions.

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Tracks · previews

English editorial edition

Album story

Fleetwood Mac’s 1968 debut begins with Jeremy Spencer’s My Heart Beat Like a Hammer, then moves into Peter Green’s Merry Go Round and Long Grey Mare. This sequence immediately offers something other than a continuous showcase for one guitarist. Songs by the two writers alternate with older material, and the band’s playing acquires different shapes at each restart. The boundary between tracks is a useful listening tool.

Released by Mike Vernon’s Blue Horizon label, this is the early blues debut rather than the later self-titled album from 1975. Green and Spencer’s compositions sit alongside material associated with Robert Johnson, Elmore James and Howlin’ Wolf. Writer credits map the relationship between inheritance and new work. Most tracks occupy two or three minutes, giving repeated beginnings and endings more prominence than a single extended improvisation.

Two inherited routes

After Green’s early contributions come Hellhound on My Trail and Shake Your Moneymaker, connecting Robert Johnson and Elmore James within the first half. Compare changes of pace and accent before trying to classify every blues tradition. In Shake Your Moneymaker, follow the sliding line between pitches and its relationship with the shorter vocal phrases. A familiar framework can support quite different kinds of movement.

A curve in the second half

I Loved Another Woman appears ninth. Establish the recurring rhythmic setting, then notice the difference between a brief guitar statement and a note that hangs across it. Repetition supplies a reference against which small changes become significant. Spencer’s Cold Black Night follows, offering another musical address. Hearing the pair together reveals two writers sharing an album, without turning that relationship into a contest.

Two compact endings

Green’s The World Keep on Turning precedes the concluding Got to Move. The sequence closes with another compact song rather than expanding into a monumental finale. Follow how much time the guitar occupies after a sung line and what rests while the rhythm continues. On a second pass, use the track changes as landmarks. The mixture of originals and inherited songs becomes a practical arrangement of contrasts rather than merely a list of influences.

The album through its tracks

Follow the sliding line against the rhythm in Shake Your Moneymaker, then compare short and sustained guitar phrases in I Loved Another Woman.

  1. Shake Your Moneymaker

    Elmore James’s composition occupies the fifth position, running approximately two minutes and fifty-five seconds in this album version. Follow how a slide-guitar note begins and connects one pitch to another. A sustained line and a series of clipped attacks need not occupy the rhythm in the same way. Notice whether the guitar answers a completed vocal phrase or continues the movement beneath it. The compact performance makes recurring material forceful without requiring constant changes of theme. Listen for the persistence of an accent rather than counting spectacular events. Placed between Hellhound on My Trail and Looking for Somebody, it also marks a junction between inherited blues and Green’s own writing.

    Reference · Fleetwood Mac official: original 1968 twelve-track order and writers

  2. I Loved Another Woman

    Green’s ninth-track composition lasts approximately two minutes and fifty-five seconds. Remember the rhythmic setting and compare the lengths of the guitar statements above it. A note that remains suspended can shape expectation as strongly as a rapid sequence of notes. Repetition in the background gives small changes a reference point. Move your attention between the sung passages and the more exposed guitar, asking which part holds the tension at a particular moment. The short duration offers an opportunity to hear small units closely. Continue into Spencer’s Cold Black Night to experience two writers within the same band. This song deserves attention as its own performance, beyond associations with later hits.

    Reference · Fleetwood Mac official: original 1968 twelve-track order and writers

Listen next

Continue to John Mayall’s Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton and compare another distribution of guitar and vocal roles within British blues.

Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton ↗
References & editorial note

Written for English readers. Album facts are referenced below; listening suggestions are editorial interpretations. AI-assisted editorial review; not independently human-reviewed.