what amp do you think Peter Green was using on "The Supernatural"

ourmaninthenorth · Jul 7, 2022

LeonC said:
I'd like to take credit for it...but it was just pure dumb luck that I happened to be born at the right time which enabled me to catch FM with Green, Spencer and Kirwin in a small venue in the Detroit area when I was in high school. I was in the room with them, maybe 25 feet from the stage, when they lit the place on fire with numbers like Black Magic Woman, Oh Well, Fighting for Madge, the Green Manalishi and so on. My recollection was stacks of lots of cabs and largish Fender amps, two Les Pauls and Jeremey with a hollow body with a Florentine cuttaway. But the most important things I remember were that they were absolutely the most dynamic rock/blues band I'd ever seen. And I'd seen Muddy, BB, Albert, Cream, the Stones and Hendrix by then. They totally integrated dynamics into their sound. And they really listened to and played off each other. And unlike just about all other rock/blues acts I'd seen to that point, I remember a lot of smiling on stage, mostly from Peter Green...sometimes Jeremy, Mick or even Danny....but they seemed to play with more joy than anyone else I remember. Man I loved those days when it was all about the music.

What a fantastic post.

Bravo.

JPP-1 · Jul 7, 2022

Great tone. In all honesty, I don’t think it’s possible to discern definitively what amp is being used. My amps sound different depending on the acoustic space, and when you add speaker/cabinet choices and the recording signal chain, all bets are off afaic. Also, a JTM45 is not that far tonally from Fender.

bern1 · Jul 7, 2022

I saw FM in a little town north of London in 1970. They were fantastic and Green was quite relaxed and pretty talkative. No hint of troubles. The amps I recall were all silver face Fenders. I always thought he played through a combo that night, looked like a Pro. But I was not close enough to really get a good look. PG played both the LP and the Strat. I was just feeling that groove they had!

gibson-r8 · Jul 7, 2022

Leon, you are a privileged man to have seen such great groups. In my corner of the Ozarks we got Slim and Porter…

LeonC · Jul 7, 2022

gibson-r8 said:
Leon, you are a privileged man to have seen such great groups. In my corner of the Ozarks we got Slim and Porter…

Just plain lucky in my case.

But, back then, we did have the benefit of a GREAT "underground" radio station in Detroit with the call letters, WABX. Man they'd get in a new record, say, Electric Ladyland, the DJ would just play the whole damn thing!! So, I had the good fortune of being exposed to a lot of great, up and coming music and musicians via this local radio station. That and word of mouth, that's how we found out about these kinds of bands.

charliechitlins · Jul 8, 2022

JPP-1 said:
Also, a JTM45 is not that far tonally from Fender.

A JTM45 is basically a copy of a Fender, eh?
There are differences but, yeah...one can sound quite like the other.
Whatever it is, it must have been very loud and Greenie would have had to be standing quite near it.
Ever tried to get notes that high up on the neck to reliably ring like that?

Wilko · Jul 8, 2022

couple of things, the jtm 45 is very similar to a tweed bassman.

The fenders that Green used were fender combos like Deluxe Reverb in the studio. I've seen writing on his recording that say he was in the control room with the feedback coming from studio monitors (not that a deluxe reverb wont feed back).

At that time, studios were just not going to crank big stage amps to record. Clapton had a hard time getting the studio to work with him on cranking a combo.

I'm just not hearing Marshall in this track. To my ears, a Marshall is way "crunchier" sounding.

charliechitlins · Jul 8, 2022

Wilko said:
At that time, studios were just not going to crank big stage amps to record. Clapton had a hard time getting the studio to work with him on cranking a combo.

Back when...a sound engineer's perceived job was to produce as pristine a sound as possible.
I know folks who recall cranking their amp and having a distraught engineer yelling, "But it's DISTORTING!"
It was such a controversial sound that Link Wray had the instrumental, Rumble banned because the distorted guitar was so freaky to the ears of the time.
This made him a demigod, of course.

bern1 · Jul 8, 2022

Green got an otherworldly sound no matter which amp he played. However, his Bluesbreaker JTM 45 days sounded much more Marshally to me than his later Fender sound, where he was playing cleaner and with quite a bit of reverb here and there, depending on the track. Quite a difference sound wise.

As to which Fender amp exactly……. That’s a real Q. To me that sound is all pretty much the same. I expect choice of amps depended on the venue or the studio they were using.

Bloomfield played mostly through Fenders and I can’t really tell which one is on any given recording either, though I’ve heard he used different ones.

Everybody sounds like themselves at the end of the day, as do each of us on this forum.

goldtop0 · Jul 8, 2022

Years ago I read in a mag that Peter was standing close by his amp and cab, a Marshall half stack, and would turn towards the cab for the sustained notes, which is what we all do as a result.
My personal experience of doing this is that it can be done at relatively low volume with a dimed LP.

Tollywood · Jul 11, 2022

I still have not heard anymore of Green’s music but I did just read a little about him. That’s very sad that he was so mentally ill. As soon as I read the name Fleetwood Mac I cringed because of Stevie Nicks.

charliechitlins · Jul 11, 2022

Check out Driftin' for a lesson in tension and release that will last you a lifetime.

Wilko · Jul 11, 2022

Tollywood said:
I still have not heard anymore of Green’s music but I did just read a little about him. That’s very sad that he was so mentally ill. As soon as I read the name Fleetwood Mac I cringed because of Stevie Nicks.

He was gone before she came along.

Groover · Jul 11, 2022

LeonC said:
I'd like to take credit for it...but it was just pure dumb luck that I happened to be born at the right time which enabled me to catch FM with Green, Spencer and Kirwin in a small venue in the Detroit area when I was in high school. I was in the room with them, maybe 25 feet from the stage, when they lit the place on fire with numbers like Black Magic Woman, Oh Well, Fighting for Madge, the Green Manalishi and so on. My recollection was stacks of lots of cabs and largish Fender amps, two Les Pauls and Jeremey with a hollow body with a Florentine cuttaway. But the most important things I remember were that they were absolutely the most dynamic rock/blues band I'd ever seen. And I'd seen Muddy, BB, Albert, Cream, the Stones and Hendrix by then. They totally integrated dynamics into their sound. And they really listened to and played off each other. And unlike just about all other rock/blues acts I'd seen to that point, I remember a lot of smiling on stage, mostly from Peter Green...sometimes Jeremy, Mick or even Danny....but they seemed to play with more joy than anyone else I remember. Man I loved those days when it was all about the music.

Not jealous. Nope. Nope Nope. No envy. Nope. Nope. Nope. Just Greener than Greeny

LeonC · Jul 11, 2022

Groover said:
Not jealous. Nope. Nope Nope. No envy. Nope. Nope. Nope. Just Greener than Greeny

Boy, you want talk about jealous. My girl friend back then was in New York city over the holidays...she went with friends to see Hendrix and Band of Gypsys at the Fillmore East and she wasn't even a Jimi fan, really. Man I was 10 different shades of green!

JPP-1 · Jul 12, 2022

What I can say definitively is I prefer Green‘s in phase tone. PG’a playing is always otherworldly and imo far more ethereal and interesting than say Clapton’s more straight ahead blues.

LeonC · Jul 12, 2022

Man, I love the sound a Les Paul into a powerful Fender amp! And with Green and Kirwin behind the wheel, you get the best tones, best vibrato/feeling, most inspired, most dynamic playing. Some of best improvised rock guitar solos in that's ever been recorded.

Emiel · Jul 19, 2022

LeonC said:
Man, I love the sound a Les Paul into a powerful Fender amp! And with Green and Kirwin behind the wheel, you get the best tones, best vibrato/feeling, most inspired, most dynamic playing. Some of best improvised rock guitar solos in that's ever been recorded.

This for me is the ultimate Les Paul tone. Just loving it.

About the amp used for The Supernatural... I have digital prints of an issue of The Guitar Magazine in which producer Mike Vernon, roadie Dennis Keen and several other discuss the recording of several Peter Green-era John Mayall and Fleetwood Mac tracks. Here's an excerpt of what they wrote for The Supernatural. My knowledge on early Marshalls is limited, but maybe it could have been a JTM50?

Recorded: Decca Studios, London, October 1966.
Personnel: Peter Green (lead and rhyhtm guitar); John Mayall (vocals, piano, guitar); John McVie (bass); Aynsley Dunbar (drums).
Equipment: Green used a 50-watt Marshall head through one of Marshall's very first 4x12" cabs. The amp section of this combination formed the basis of what later become the Bluesbreaker 2x12" combo. Green played his legendary '59 Les Paul.

"..."

Recorded just three months after Green joining, The Supernatural is one of four tracks Peter wrote for the Bluesbreakers' influential Hard Road album during mid-October 1966. "..." To biographer Martin Celmins, Peter admitted that the credit should really go to the session producer Mike Vernon.
'That was his idea. We were in the studio and I was playing this chord progression on the organ which was really good. I did some guitar and the piece just developed from there. It should have been Mike's really, but he said "Have it. It's yours"'.

Wally · Jul 19, 2022

“Recorded: Decca Studios, London, October 1966.
Personnel: Peter Green (lead and rhyhtm guitar); John Mayall (vocals, piano, guitar); John McVie (bass); Aynsley Dunbar (drums).
Equipment: Green used a 50-watt Marshall head through one of Marshall's very first 4x12" cabs. The amp section of this combination formed the basis of what later become the Bluesbreaker 2x12" combo. Green played his legendary '59 Les Paul.”

The so-called “Bluesbreaker” was a tube rectified amp that preceded the solid state rectified 50 watt Marshall amp which was introduced in 1966.

LeonC · Jul 20, 2022

Emiel said:
This for me is the ultimate Les Paul tone. Just loving it.

About the amp used for The Supernatural... I have digital prints of an issue of The Guitar Magazine in which producer Mike Vernon, roadie Dennis Keen and several other discuss the recording of several Peter Green-era John Mayall and Fleetwood Mac tracks. Here's an excerpt of what they wrote for The Supernatural. My knowledge on early Marshalls is limited, but maybe it could have been a JTM50?

Fabulous info, thanks for posting!

what amp do you think Peter Green was using on "The Supernatural"

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