Consumer Guide Album

Fleetwood Mac: Fleetwood Mac in Chicago [Blue Horizon, 1970]
Combining the recently released Vols. 1 and 2, this two-LP set lets five sincere but never sedulously irrelevant (cf. John Mayall) English lads explore their branches. It almost brings you back to those distant days when "white blues" was more than code for "heavy." Knowledgeable song selection, expressive playing--especially by Peter Green, who filters B.B. King through Santo & Johnny with a saxophonist's sense of line--and lots of help from Otis Spann, Willie Dixon, Shakey Horton, and others makes the thinness of the singing seem like a tribute to a new tradition. B+