[sharksfan2000]

One of my favorite Peter Green performances is his live version of BB King's "Worried Dream" at the Carousel Ballroom in San Francisco in June '68. It's on a relatively common bootleg, I think quite a few people have this one. What's interesting to me is how radically Peter & the band changed their performance of this song in less than two months.

The studio version on The Original Fleetwood Mac, recorded 11 April '68, features Christine doing a prominent piano part along with Peter's very BB-like guitar playing. Not bad, but I think a bit on the tame side. (I've never heard BB's original - is it similar to Mac's studio version?)

One version I haven't heard is the BBC recording, although since this was recorded just a couple of days apart from the studio version, I suspect they would be very similar.

On the widely available "London Live '68" performance (27 April at the Polytechnic of Central London), without piano, the band alters the arrangement somewhat, and Peter's guitar work is more imaginative than on the studio version, but still maintains much of that version's crisp, stinging style.

By the Carousel Ballroom show (22 or 23 June), the song has undergone a major change. It's considerably slower, and has become a real showcase for Peter's slow blues playing. Peter's intro and solo are longer than before, the tone of his guitar is richer, and he makes the song his own - what I think of as the "classic" Peter Green style. The slower pace allows him to do one of the things I feel he did as well or better than anyone else - his mastery of using the space between the notes as well as the notes he actually plays is superb. A performance in July '68 from the Fillmore West retains the Carousel arrangement almost exactly.

I can't help but wonder what brought about this change, in such a short time? Live performances of many other songs changed over time but I can't think of any that changed so dramatically as this one. Anyone have any insight or guesses as to what brought this about?