"The End Of The Game" by PETER GREEN [of Fleetwood Mac] – December 1970 UK and USA Debut Solo LP on Reprise Records featuring Zoot Money and Nick Buck on Keyboards, Alex Dmochowski on Bass and Godfrey MacLean on Drums (February 2020 UK Esoteric Recordings 50th Anniversary Expanded Edition CD Reissue with Four Bonus Tracks – Paschal Byrne Remasters) - A Review by Mark Barry...

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"The End Of The Game" - February 1971 US LP (December 1970 UK)

"...Descending Scale..."

 

Fans are a funny bunch (me included). I've tried in vain for over 50 years to actually like the whole of this record - but in truth I can stand only two tracks. Its always felt like a contract-outer Green slapped together (he owed them a solo LP, so let Reprise have whatever emerged from a five-hour studio session one night in a central London studio) and to say that most of it is underwhelming is an understatement. I've returned to it across the decades because I worship at the feet of all things Mac (and in all their many band line-up incarnations), but other than two out of six, naught doing...

 

Yet there are others who proclaim "The End Of The Game" a masterpiece – a joy incarnate and an unfairly forgotten gem from the beginning of the Seventies. Well at least this new and very prettily put together February 2020 CD reissue and remaster from those terribly decent chaps over at Cherry Red's Esoteric Recordings gives me another chance to reassess Greeny's first solo effort from 1970 (bolstered up into a 50th Anniversary Extended Edition by four fan-pleasing extras of rare stand-alone single-sides). But again, on re-hearing it, alas, this is no "In The Skies" from 1979 (and that was only partially good as well). To the bared teeth and the net-trouncing repercussions of such dissent...

 

UK released Friday, 21 February 2020 - "The End Of The Game" by PETER GREEN on Esoteric Recordings QECLEC2710 (Barcode 5013929481084) is a '50th Anniversary Expanded Edition CD Reissue and Remaster with Four Bonus Tracks' in a Card Digipak that plays out as follows (48:47 minutes):

 

1. Bottoms Up [Side 1]

2. Timeless Time

3. Descending Scales

4. Burnt Foot [Side 2]

5. Hidden Depth

6. The End Of The Game

Tracks 1 to 6 are his first solo album after Fleetwood Mac "The End Of The Game" - released December 1970 in the UK on Reprise RSLP 9006 (reissued November 1971 on Reprise K 44106) and February 1971 in the USA on Reprise RS 6436. Produced by PETER GREEN - it didn't chart in either country.

 

BONUS TRACKS:

7. Heavy Heart

8. No Way Out

Tracks 7 and 8 are the non-album A&B-sides of a June 1971 UK 7" single on Reprise RS 27012

It was reissued in November 1971 in the UK on Reprise K 14092

Credited to PETER GREEN - Side 1 by Peter Green, Nigel Watson, Chris Kelly and Mataya Clifford Cheweluza – Side 2 by PG and Nigel Watson

9. Beasts Of Burden

10. Uganda Woman

Tracks 9 and 10 are the non-album A&B-sides of a January 1972 UK 7" single on Reprise K 14141

Credited to NIGEL WATSON and PETER GREEN - Side A by both, Side B by Nigel Watson

 

The card digipak is pretty to look at with a tiger pictured CD label and a 12-paged booklet featuring new MALCOLM DOME liner notes that at last illuminate this strange LP. There are two classy black and whites photos of Green with his trademark Gibson in hand. Zoot Money also gives poignant recollections of the marathon five-hour sessions (written obviously before PG passed) – talking on fans still wanting copies signed by him fifty years after the event – fondly remembering 10-minute breaks with biscuits and other substances that weren't perhaps digestives. It's a nicely presented card digipak and does his legacy proud given his horrible passing in July of 2020. The Audio is a new PACHAL BYRNE 24-bit Digital Remaster from original tapes and is a vast improvement on the crappy 90s edition CD I've had for decades with a gatefold information-less inlay and dullard sound. To the music...

 

The ambling nine-minutes of "Bottoms Up" opens Side 1 and just sort of instrumental noodles its way to a nowhere finish. At least the pretty 2:38 minutes of "Timeless Time" features some lovely touches on the fretboard and the Remaster has given this majestic little ditty beautiful clarity. We end the side with 8:18 minutes of free-flowing Jazz-Rock where Zoot Money's keyboards make their presence known big time. It's all bass plucking, high-hat snaking and feels like an impromptu jam – which is exactly what it is. Greeny turns up about 1:38 minutes in and they go into whig-out mode – his guitar playing probably the most Jazz and experimental its ever been.

 

"Burnt Foot" opens Side 2 with 5:16 minutes of an instrumental jam – the remaster making the Alex Dmochowski Bass notes so clear. "Burnt Fool" feels a little Miles Davis in its reaching for something that remains ever out of reach. Green roles those notes on his guitar while Godfrey Maclean gets to flourish and solo on his Drums. My other big like on the album is "Hidden Depth", 4:54 minutes of piano and guitar that deceptively begins in Funky-Rock mode – Zoot jabbing away on the Grand Piano as Green solos. But then it quietens down about a minute in and suddenly "Hidden Depth" feels etherial – like an "Albatross" or "Dragonfly" moment – the instrumental toing-and-froing between Green and Money being gorgeous all the way to its fade-out end. The album's title track "The End Of The Game" finishes proceedings but although his playing is firey, it all feels like fun for them but not much else for us. The singles are terrible – both of them – regularly received 2, 3 and 4 out of ten ratings on Net sites – the magic quite clearly gone ("Heavy Heart" was actually given a 'Top Of The Pops' outing). Still fans will love the fact that their rare four sides are on CD at last and in cracking audio too.

 

In November 1971, Reprise Records UK reissued the January 1970 solo LP "Jeremy Spencer" by Jeremy Spencer of Fleetwood Mac on Reprise K 44105 – one catalogue number below the reissue of Peter Green's "The End Of The Game" on Reprise K 44106. Spencer's wildly confusing effort featured cod Rock and Roll and parodies of retro material threw most people and appalled many into the bargain – never even receiving a US release. In fact it wasn't until January 2015 that Real Gone Music of the USA gave it a proper CD remaster on RGM-0409 (Barcode 6546987290040) – its first official outing on CD with a 45 B-side rarity tagged on as a Bonus Track. I mention ace axeman Jeremy Spencer and his first solo platter because both his album and Greeny's "The End Of The Game" elicit something of the same response – reverence and revulsion in equal measure. One man's poison is another man's nectar...

 

Fans will absolutely have to own this 2020 Expanded Edition CD variant of "The End Of The Game" by Peter Green because of the great new audio, the classy presentation and those four rare bonus cuts. But others might want to nab a listen first before being swayed by nostalgia. I'm off now to play "Then Play On" and restore my faith in him and them...