On The Heights

Saddened by the death of Peter Green, of Fleetwood Mac fame, surely one of the most tasteful of a generation of gifted British guitarists. But much as I admire so many of those classics he knocked off with the early Mac, thinking back to that phase of my life I realised there was one moment watching him on the telly, on Top of the Pops of all programmes, that sort of defined for my (very) younger self what it meant to be cool in a way that was deeply exciting. It was his laconic performance of Oh Well, and the throwaway line, I can't sing, I ain't pretty and my legs are thin. I both identified with PG at that moment and aspired to be exactly like him.

Funnily enough, I connect that with three other appearances on TOTP of the period that widened my impossibly narrow horizons. In no particular order of merit they were: Deep Purple doing Black Night, Black Sabbath doing Paranoid and, above all (I lied about the order of merit thing), Paul Rogers and Free telling me I was Alright Now.

What a strange kid I was.