The Pious Bird Of Good Omen – FLEETWOOD MAC****

Need Your Love So Bad/Coming Home/Rambling Pony/The Big Boat/I Believe My Time Ain’t Long/The Sun Is Shining/Albatross/Black Magic Woman/Just The Blues/Jigsaw Puzzle Blues/Looking For Somebody/Stop Messin’ Round

The Pious Bird Of Good Omen was a rather premature and thus incomplete compilation from Fleetwood Mac. The Greatest Hits album of a few years later is a much better introduction to this seminal British blues-rock band. (UK:18)

"The original and best Fleetwood Mac line up led by the enigmatic Peter Green with Jeremy Spencer, Danny Kirwan et al. There is not a duff track on show from the moody and magnificent Need Your Love So Bad, through The Big Boat to the more romantic and commercial, often imitated but never equalled, Albatross. The Elmore James comparisons are obvious but this is by no means to its detriment. What creative heights would they have achieved, if they had remained intact as a unit, we will never know, but this album serves as a constant reminder that (some) white boys really could play the blues in those heady days of the British blues boom."

"Though a compilation album it's a good one, and we do not have to listen to as much Jeremy Spencer as on the Mr. Wonderful album. Instead we are treated to some nice easy blues, some hard rocking blues and some variation and diversity. But to give Spencer some credit, his version of the Elmore James standard Sun Is Shinning is good and sounds real lazy, fitting the subject matter in many ways. Danny Kirwin brought some much needed talent to the Mac, and himself and Peter Green play off each other well, especially on Albatross, a classic instrumental."

"This album acts as a nice overview of what made Mac part one such an enjoyable group. Simply put, Fleetwood Mac were a band dedicated to the blues, with a mission to spread to the world the gospel of the great bluesmen, especially Elmore James, thanks to Jeremy Spencer. Along the way, Peter Green discovered his own gift for writing music, and thus we have the other side of the Fleetwood Mac coin. This is the side, especially Black Magic Woman and the beautiful Albatross, that would blaze the trail for the albums that would follow."

"With its distinctive title, an unsuspecting punter could have been forgiven for believing it to be a 'new' album. Instead it was a 12-track ragbag of singles and Bsides, collaborations and other rarities difficult to find on LP."